Deep gloom was upon the soul of poor Grace, when she was carried to the large, dull, cheerless-looking building, which to her appeared but as a prison. She sank beneath the weight of her cross, and even her religion seemed for a time to bring her no comfort. Satan, ever busy to tempt us, whether in days of wealth or tribulation, was whispering hard thoughts of God. Grace saw in her trial no sign of the love of her Heavenly Father; she thought herself forsaken—forgotten; she longed for death, little conscious at that moment that she was unfit to die! "Oh! That I should ever be brought down to this!" was her thought, as she was borne across the court-yard of the poorhouse, where a few old women, in pauper's dress, scarcely turned their heads to observe a new sufferer carried to a place where sickness and sorrow were things too common to attract much notice. "I, well-born, highly educated, degraded to the position of a pauper! Why has God, in whom I trusted, forsaken me? Why has He placed me in a position where I can be but a burden to myself and to others? God gave me talents, and with a willing mind I had devoted all my powers to His service; but now He has taken away the opportunities which once I possessed, of exercising my talents to His glory, and the good of my fellowmen." Grace was wrong in three important points: first, She was wrong in thinking herself degraded by becoming a pauper, when she was so not from idleness, nor extravagance, nor any other sin of her own. It was God who had appointed her place, and the post which He assigns to His people must be a post of honor to those who faithfully fill it. Oh! Let the lowly ones of Christ remember this to their comfort! Can poverty be a disgrace when it was the state chosen by the Son of God for Himself, when He deigned to visit the earth? The Lord's people are kings and priests unto God, heirs of a crown, and inheritors of heaven, whether they dwell in a palace, or lie in a poorhouse ward. Secondly, Grace was wrong in doubting for one moment the loving care of her God, because He was trying her faith in the heated furnace of affliction. "Whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth." Grace had been an earnest and active Christian; but she had little knowledge of the weakness and sin of her own heart, till affliction stirred up the quiet waters, and showed her what evil lay below. She had hoped and believed that her will was conformed to the will of God, till sudden misfortune revealed how much of self-pleasing, pride, and unbelief had lurked behind her devotion. Grace now thought herself worse than she had ever thought herself before, only because she now knew herself better; the medicine for pride was most bitter, but it was the hand of love that had mixed it.