temples of spiritual beauty, far surpassing that palatial city of the sea. Whatever brightness there may be in any object through colour of its own, this is far exceeded by the sun's own rays when reflected from it. A broken vessel, a fragment of glass, may blaze with solar splendour, when objects of perfect form, artistic beauty, and costly material may send back no heavenly radiance. The stream flowing placidly through the meadows may be beautiful; but not until obstructed by rocks, broken into rapids, tumbling over precipices, is it brilliant with all the colours of the solar spectrum, and spanned by the rainbow. Resistance to our Father's Will is opposition to our own welfare; murmuring at trials is discontent with blessings He designs. Let us then take the oar of duty and leave to Him the helm of direction. Whatever course the pilot steers, let us aid the vessel's progress, whether it bear us through smooth or stormy waters, and while pulling let us pray, "Thy Will be done." "Man's weakness, waiting upon God, Its end can never miss ; For man on earth no work can do, More angel-like than this. Siding with God, I always win; His Will is sweet to me, even when It triumphs at my cost. Ills that God blesses are my good All unblest good is ill; And all is right that seems most wrong, If it be His dear Will.' -FABER. VII.-ILLUSTRATIONS OF PASSIVE OBEDIENCE. We have no examples of passive obedience in unfallen angels, but we have many in the history of those who joined their ranks when they "came out of great tribulation." Job said, "The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord." David-" Let Him do to me as seemeth good unto Him." Habakkuk-" Although the fig-tree shall not blossom, neither shall fruit be in the vines, yet I will rejoice in the Lord." Apostles and early Christians "rejoiced to be counted worthy to suffer shame for His name," and could "glory in tribulation also." Richard Baxter, when suffering extreme pain on his death-bed, prayed for release, but checked himself thus "It is not fit for me to prescribe: What Thou wilt, when Thou wilt, how Thou wilt." When asked how he was, he would reply, "Almost well; better than I deserve to be, but not so well as I hope to be." Milton said, "It is not so wretched to be blind as it is not to be capable of enduring blindness. There is a way to strength through weakness. Let me then be the most feeble creature alive as long as that feebleness serves to invigorate my spirit; as long as in that obscurity the light of the Divine presence more clearly shines, then in proportion as I am weak I shall be invincibly strong, and in proportion as I am blind I shall more clearly see. O that I may thus be perfected by feebleness and irradiated by L obscurity !" Thus our trials may become means of blessing, and seeming hindrances real helps. Climbing the mountain of God's holiness, our path is obstructed by projecting rocks which tempt the timid to despair and the indolent to turn back, but which the resolute climber grasps with his hands, and uses as a fulcrum for his feet, so making what might have become a stumbling-block a stepping-stone. "We The wife of Archbishop Tait thus wrote of the Ideath of five children within a few weeks: were called to part with these five blessed little daughters, each of whom had been received in prayer, educated with prayer, and were now given up, though with bitter anguish, yet with prayer and thanksgiving." The trial is spoken of as "a bright chain to draw the heart up to heaven." And when a son was cut off in the morning of his usefulness, we read that "as the benediction was pronounced over his restingplace, his parents felt that their many prayers for his welfare, offered up from his infancy onwards, had been answered, though not in the way they had expected." "All is best, though we oft doubt What the unsearchable dispose -MILTON. Mr. Fisk relates that a Grand Vizier, in high favour with the Sultan, was suddenly disgraced and deprived of all his property. He at once conformed to his new circumstances, and was seen selling lemons at a street corner, where he was sympathetically accosted by an English nobleman who had known him in his glory. He replied, "I am not at all unhappy. Allah gave me what I had: He had a perfect right to take it away: Allah is great, Allah is good!" How much more should we who know God as the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ pray with unquestioning submission, "Thy Will be done"! To a friend of the writer, a poor man, prior to the days of chloroform, related how it had been necessary that his little boy should undergo a most painful operation. The father explained this to his child, asking if he could bear it. "Yes, father, if you will hold my hand." The hand was held, the boy was patient, and health was restored. In every trial our Father holds our hand, and recovery is certain; shall we not then be "patient in tribulation"? A woman in the writer's congregation who had been prostrate during forty years, with an active spirit but helpless body, said to him, "I would rather be in heaven; but if it be my Father's Will, I'm ready to lie here forty years longer." Her sister, during nineteen years lying helpless and scarcely ever free from pain, said to the author on the day when the preceding page was written, "Last week I was very near home, but the Lord has brought me back. I hoped He would have taken me, but it must be best." The case of the boy was related to her whose father held his hand, and she replied, "Oh, He does more for me 'His left hand is under my head, and His right hand doth embrace me'! I have seen more of His mercy by lying here than I should have seen if well. What a sweet text that is 'I will greatly rejoice in the Lord, my soul shall be joyful in my God; for He hath clothed me with the garments of salvation, He hath covered me with the robe of righteousness.' Thus the Father helps His children to "glory in tribulation also;" not only to be resigned, but thankful; "strengthened with all might unto all patience and long-suffering with joyfulness, giving thanks unto the Father," while from the midst of the furnace. exclaiming, “Thy Will be done." VIII. THE EXAMPLE OF CHRIST. He who was so high above angels stooped to become below them, that He might illustrate His own prayer. Throughout His ministry He made it manifest that He came to obey: "I seek not mine own will, but the Will of the Father which hath sent me." When the disciples wondered that their Lord talked with the woman of Samaria and seemed indifferent to food, He said, "My meat is to do the Will of Him that sent me, and to finish His work." His satisfaction at the close of life was this, "I have finished the work which Thou gavest me to do." In this active service He illustrated how the Will of the Father would be done in heaven if sorrow could find entrance there. His agony in the garden was intense. The bloody sweat was the sign of anguish beyond all possibility of flesh to feel. He knelt, He |