"The poor are the representatives of Jesus, their wants He considers as His own," and He will recompense accordingly. The feeblest expression of Christian pity and love, though it be but the widow's mite, or the cup of cold water, or the kindly look and word when there is neither mite nor cup to give, yet, if done in _His_ name, it is entered in the "book of life" as a "loan to the Lord;" and in that day when "the books are opened," the loan will be paid back with usury. "ARM YOURSELVES LIKEWISE WITH THE SAME MIND." Second Day. RESIGNATION IN TRIAL. "Not my will, but Thine be done!"--Luke, xxii. 42. Where was there ever resignation like this! The life of Jesus was one long martyrdom. From Bethlehem's manger to Calvary's cross, there was scarce one break in the clouds; these gathered more darkly and ominously around Him till they burst over His devoted head as He uttered His expiring cry. Yet throughout this pilgrimage of sorrow no murmuring accent escaped His lips. The most suffering of all suffering lives was one of uncomplaining submission. "Not _my_ will, but _Thy_ will," was the motto of this wondrous Being! When He came into the world He thus announced His advent, "Lo, I come, I delight to do _Thy will_, O my God!" When He left it, we listen to the same prayer of blended agony and acquiescence, "O my Father, if it be possible let this cup pass from me! _Nevertheless_ not as _I will_, but as _Thou wilt_." Reader! is this mind also in _you_? Ah, what are your trials compared to His! What the ripples in your tide of woe, compared to the waves and billows which swept over him! If He, the spotless Lamb of God, "murmured not," how can _you_ murmur? _His_ were the sufferings of a bosom never once darkened with the passing shadow of guilt or sin. _Your_ severest sufferings are deserved, yea, infinitely less _than_ deserved! Are you tempted to indulge in hard suspicions, as to God's faithfulness and love, in appointing some peculiar trial? Ask yourself, Would Jesus have done _this_? Should _I_ seek to pry into "the deep things of God," when _He_, in the spirit of a weaned child, was satisfied with the solution, "_Even so, Father, for so it seems good in Thy sight_"? "Even so, _Father_!" Afflicted one! "tossed with tempest, and not comforted," take that _word_ on which thy Lord pillowed His suffering head, and make it, as He did, the secret of thy resignation. The sick child will take the bitterest draught from a _father's_ hand. "This cup which Thou, O God, givest me to drink, shall I not drink it?" Be it mine to lie passive in the arms of Thy chastening love, exulting in the assurance that all Thy appointments, though sovereign, are never arbitrary, but that there is a gracious "need be" in them all. "My Father!" my Covenant God! the God who _spared not Jesus_! It may well hush every repining word.