For failing crops do make hard times for the farmers, and loss of wealth means hard times for the merchant, just as hard in its own way as any the poor have to suffer when they are out of work. *DISCONTENT.* "Some murmur if their sky is clear And wholly bright to view, If one small speck of dark appear In their bright Heaven of blue; And some, with deepest love are filled If but one ray of light, One star of God’s good mercy gild The blackness of their night." _Trench._ Discontent in any form, and among any class of people, is indeed a disagreeable, and a wicked thing. It is disagreeable, because it makes one’s neighbours uncomfortable. It is wicked, because it is a sin against God. It is bad enough and wrong enough when we find it amongst the poor. It is worse than wrong when we meet with it among the rich. "Godliness with contentment is great gain[#];" and so often do these two go hand in hand, that they have come to be looked upon as almost inseparable. A discontented man is always an unhappy one, and we may say, too, generally manages to render those about him unhappy. We have given us in the Bible, for our warning, an example of discontent in the person of Jonah. Jonah, as you will remember, was sent to a city called Nineveh, to warn its sinful inhabitants of the wrath of God. So he went, and preached throughout her streets that after forty days the city should be overthrown. But, contrary to the expectation of Jonah, the King of Nineveh and his people humbled themselves before God, and repented of their evil ways. And Almighty God, with that forbearing love which He is wont to show to His repentant children, heard the prayer of the people of Nineveh, and they and their city were saved. But, strange as it may seem to us, this forbearance "displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was very angry[#]." He was angry because Nineveh was saved, and because it seemed to him that his was now a false position. And so this discontented man went out of the city, and there he made himself a booth, or tent, to keep off the hot rays of the noonday sun, and he wished that he might die. And then Almighty God taught Jonah a lesson--such a lesson as it would be well for each one of us to learn. He caused a gourd to grow, to ward off the heat from Jonah; and when Jonah began to be glad because of this tree, God sent a worm to its roots, and one after another the leaves fell off, and the tree died; and discontent again prevailed in Jonah’s heart. Then God called him, and said, "Thou hast had pity on the gourd for the which thou hast not laboured, neither madest it grow; and should not I spare Nineveh, wherein are more than six score thousand persons, that cannot discern between their right hand and their left[#]?" How many houses there are in England, which would be happy ones were it not for this demon form of discontent.