13. BENEFITS OF AFFLICTION.

(a) CECIL AND THE BOOKSELLER.-Many years ago, a pious and devoted clergyman entered the shop of a prosperous London bookseller, with whom he was on terms of intimate and Christian friendship. He inquired for his friend, and when told that he was at home, but particularly engaged, sent a messenger to him to the effect that he wanted an interview with him, if but for a few minutes. This message being delivered, the clergyman was invited to walk up stairs into the bookseller's sitting-room. He entered the room, and found his friend sitting by his child's cot. The child was dying, but, with affection strong in death, it had clasped its father's hand, and was holding it with a convulsive grasp.

You are a father," said the afflicted parent, "or I should not have allowed you to witness such a scene."

"Thank God, thank God," fervently exclaimed the minister, as he instinctively comprehended at a glance the situation of his friend; "thank God. He has not forgotten you! I have been much troubled on your account, my dear sir. I have thought much about you lately. I have been much afraid for you. Things have gone on so well with you for so long a time, you have been so prosperous, that I have been almost afraid that God had forgotten you. But I said to myself, surely God will not forsake such a man as this; will not suffer him to go on in prosperity without some check, some reverse! And I see he has not. No; God has not forgotten you."

persecution and sorrow. Going once to see his relative, the Rev. Mr. Greenham, of Dry-Drayton, and lamenting the state of his mind to him, the worthy minister replied, "Son, son, when affliction lieth heavy, sin lieth light." This saying conveyed great comfort to Mr. Dod, who rejoiced that God could make affliction the means of his sanctification; and used afterwards to say, that, "sanctified afflictions are spiritual promotions."

(c) "NOW HAVE I KEPT THY WORD."-Sarah Howard, a poor old widow who had been bedridden fourteen years, when visited by her minister, thus spoke of her afflictions :-"I can set to my seal, that the Lord has chastened me sore, but he hath not given me over unto death,' Psalm cxviii. 19. I have been chastened in my person, and am quite helpless, by long and severe illness; I have been chastened in my circumstances ever since I was left a widow; yes, I know what oppressing a widow, what bad debts, and hard creditors are: I have been chastened in my family, by a son, of whom I was doatingly fond, running away and going to sea. Besides all these, I have been chastened in mind, walking in darkness and having no light:' yet after all, I trust I can say with David, 'Before I was afflicted I went astray, but now have I kept thy word.' And I hope I can say that I am now returned to the Shepherd and Bishop of souls," 1 Pet. ii. 25.

(b) MR. DOD AND HIS PERSECUTIONS.-While the eminent Puritan minister, Mr. Dod, resided at Hanwell, England, he was the subject of much

sure it has been to me; it saved me from the folly and vanity of youth; it made me cleave to God as my only portion, and to eternal glory as my only hope; and I think it has now brought me very near to my Father's house."

(e) THE SICK CHRISTIAN USEFUL.-Ann Meiglo, a poor distressed

woman in the parish of Portmoak, when visited by Mr. Ebenezer Erskine, said to him, "O, sir, I am just lying here a poor useless creature." Think you?" said he. "I think, sir, what is true, if I were away to heaven, I would be of some use to glorify God without sin." "Indeed, Annie," said Mr. Erskine, "I think you are glorifying God by your resignation and submission to his will, and that in the face of many difficulties and under many distresses. In heaven the saints have no burdens to groan under; your praises, burdened as you are, are more wonderful to me, and I trust acceptable to God."

(f) OWEN ON FORGIVENESS. -The origin of Dr. Owen's great practical work on the Forgiveness of Sin, or Psalm cxxx., was related by the Doctor in the following circumstances:

A young man, who afterwards became a minister, being under serious impressions, came to him for counsel. In the course of conversation the doctor asked, "Pray, in what manner do you think to go to God?" "Through the Mediator, sir," said the young man. To which Dr. Owen replied, "That is easily said; but it is another thing to go to God through the Mediator than what many who use the expression are aware of. I myself preached some years when I had but very little, if any, experimental acquaintance with access to God through Christ, until the Lord was pleased to visit me with sore affliction, by which I was brought to the mouth of the grave, and under which my soul was oppressed with horror and darkness. But God graciously relieved my spirit by a powerful application of Psalm cxxx. 4, There is forgiveness with thee that thou mayest be feared;' from whence I received special instruction, peace and comfort in drawing near to God through the Mediator, and I preached thereupon after my recovery."

None who seriously and prayerfully read this treatise will fail to discover the grounds and the appropriateness of the above appeal to an inquiring youth, the rich sources from which the author has drawn divine instruction, and its adaptation to the wants of every perishing soul.

(g) THE STUDENT'S SICKNESS.-A New England Divine, who was preaching on the benefit derived from affliction, said,-I once knew a young man, who was a student in one of our universities, who, by reading Dr. Combe's works and others, had become very sceptical on some important points -the doctrine of prayer, total depravity, regeneration, and the special influences of the Holy Spirit. Though he professed religion, and was studying for the ministry, he had lost all religious enjoyment, and was fast going down an inclined plane into the abyss of infidelity. During a vacation in midwinter, he was travelling on business among the Germans in the interior of Pennsylvania, when he was prostrated on his bed with a dangerous disease-hundreds of miles from home, "a stranger in a strange land." When he began to think of dying, he found himself all unprepared. His new sentiments hovered like dismal clouds around his sick bed, that not a star of hope shone through. There was little time for logic then: but one species of short-hand logic swept away his sceptical notions like chaff. He reasoned from effect to cause. 66 Embracing these new sentiments has evidently brought my mind into this wretched condition; and as the fruit is bad, the tree must be bad also. He that followeth me,' says Christ, shall not walk in darkness;' therefore, as I am walking in darkness, it must be because I have been led astray from him. These new opinions must, therefore, be erroneous, and I will renounce them for ever, and embrace, in all humility and simplicity, the truths of the Gospel, as I embraced them at the first." Right speedily did he put his resolve into action; and he soon found his way back to the fold of Christ-to the Shepherd and Bishop of souls. He recovered from his sickness and returned home, rejoicing to tell his friends what God had done for his soul. And that young man, my hearers, is preaching to you to-day! I have many blessings for which to thank God, for He has strown my way with the gifts of His providenee; but for the blessing of that afflicting illness, I sometimes feel as if I ought to praise and thank him most. And if I am ever so happy as to

get home to heaven, I know I shall remember that affliction with gratitude still! It will be a theme on which I shall love to linger, one which shall prompt many anthems of my rejoicing there.

(h) THE BACKSLIDER BEREAVED AND RESTORED. A young lady, who belonged to a church in the city of New York, married a young man who was not a Christian. He was a merchant, engaged in a lucrative business, and the golden stream of wealth flowed in upon him till he had amassed a large fortune. He accordingly retired from business, and went into the country. He purchased a splendid residence; fine trees waved their luxuriant foliage around it; here was a lake filled with fish, and there a garden full of rare shrubbery and flowers. Their house was fashionably and expensively furnished; and they seemed to possess all of earth that mortal could desire. Thus prospered, and plied with an interchange of civilities among her gay and fashionable neighbours, the piety of the lady declined, and her heart became wedded to the world. And it is not to be wondered at, that her three children, as they grew up, imbibed her spirit and copied her example.

"A severe disease," it is said, "demands a severe remedy," and that God soon applied. One morning intelligence came that her little son had fallen into the fish-lake, and was drowned. The mother's heart was pierced with the affliction, and she wept and murmured against the providence of God. Soon afterwards, her only daughter, a blooming girl of sixteen, was taken sick of a fever and died. It seemed then as if the mother's heart would have broken. But this new stroke of the rod of a chastening Father seemed but to increase her displeasure against his will.

The only remaining child, her eldest SOD, who had come home from college to attend his sister's funeral, went out into the fields soon afterwards, for the purpose of hunting. In getting over a fence, he put his gun over first to assist himself in springing to the ground, when it accidentally discharged itself and killed him! What then were that mother's feelings? In the extravagance

of her grief, she fell down, tore her hair, and raved like a maniac against the providence of God. The father, whose grief was already almost insupportable, when he looked upon the shocking spectacle, and heard her frenzied ravings, could endure his misery no longer. The iron entered into his soul, and he fell a speedy victim to his accumulated afflictions. From the wife and mother her husband and all her children were now taken away. Reason returned, and she was led to reflection. She saw her dreadful backslidings, her pride, her rebellion; and she wept with the tears of a deep repentance. Peace was restored to her soul. Then would she lift up her hands to heaven, exclaiming, “I thank thee, O Father! The Lord hath given, the Lord hath taken away, and blessed be the name of the Lord." Thus did her afflictions yield the peaceable fruit of righteousness, and her heavenly Father chasten her, "not for His pleasure, but for her profit, that she might become partaker of His holiness."

(i) SAVED FROM A ROBBER BY RAIN.-A merchant was one day returning from market. He was on horseback, and behind him was a valise filled with money. The rain fell with violence, and the good old man was wet to his skin. At this he was vexed, and murmured because God had given him such bad weather for his journey.

He soon reached the borders of a thick forest. What was his terror on beholding on one side of the road a robber, with levelled gun, aiming at him, and attempting to fire! But the powder being wet by the rain, the gun did not go off, and the merchant, giving spurs to his horse, fortunately had time to escape.

As soon as he found himself safe, he said to himself, “How wrong was I, not to endure the rain patiently, as sent by Providence. If the weather had been dry and fair, I should not, probably, have been alive at this hour, and my little children would have expected my return in vain. The rain which caused me to murmur, came at a fortunate moment, to save my life and preserve my property." And thus it is with a multitude of our afflictions; by causing us slight and short sufferings, they pre

serve us from others far greater, and of longer duration.

(3) A CHAIN OF CALAMITIES. -A Christian whom God had prospered in his outward estate, and who lived in ease and plenty on his farm, suffered the world to encroach so much upon his affections, as sensibly to diminish the ardour of his piety. The disease was dangerous, and the Lord adopted severe measures for its cure. First, his wife was removed by death; but he still remained worldly-minded. Then a beloved son; but, although the remedy operated favourably, it did not effect a cure. Then his crops failed, and his cattle died; still his grasp on the world was not unloosed. Then God touched his person, and brought on him a lingering, fatal disease; the world, however, occupied still too much of his thoughts. His house finally took fire; and as he was carried out of the burning building, he exclaimed: "Blessed be God, I am cured at last." He shortly afterwards died happy in the anticipation of a heavenly inheritance.

(k) DIVINITY TAUGHT BY AFFLICTION.-A minister was recovering of a dangerous illness, when one of his friends addressed him thus: "Sir, though God seems to be bringing you up from the gates of death, yet it will be a long time before you will sufficiently retrieve your strength, and regain vigour enough of mind to preach as usual." The good man answered :"You are mistaken, my friend; for this six weeks' illness has taught me more divinity than all my past studies and all my ten years' ministry put together."

ill health and other circumstances compelled me to close it and remove to the country. My young men were most of them from pious families; some were warm-hearted Christians, and all of them succeeded in finding eligible situations but one. S. was my youngest clerk; his talents were respectable; his conduct, as far as I could judge, was irreproachable; but my best efforts, and those of his friends, could not secure him a situation. After months spent in vain endeavours to find an opening in the business of his choice, and a year occupied on a foreign voyage without success, he returned to the country and engaged reluctantly in a mechanical business, which his father followed, near the place where I had settled. I saw him but seldom; but when I met him as his friend, I was treated with marked coldness. I was at a loss to account for it, and at length demanded an explanation, when I found the whole family considered me culpably to blame in not procuring him a situation in New York, after I had no longer occasion for his services. It was indeed a mystery even to myself, that the path to manhood chosen by S. and his friends should be so hedged up as to compel him to walk in another. S., however, continued his mechanical pursuits, and, in the providence of God, was directed to the neighbourhood of a protracted meeting. He was the child of many prayers, and had more than once lived through an awakening, unchanged, though not unaffected. He was now drawn, by an impulse he could not resist, to attend this meeting, feeling that it might be the last strivings of the Spirit. With trembling he took his place on the anxious seat, and, over

(m) GOD MEANT IT FOR GOOD.-A few years since, (says a writer in the the Pastor's Journal), I was engaged in a wholesale mercantile business in the city of New York; but

the meeting to a field, where he gave himself away to his Saviour, and the Spirit spake peace to his soul. It was but a few days after this happy event, S. returned to our village (where his parents still reside), and the humble, meek, and gentle air which his manly countenance had assumed, in place of a haughty, discontented form, was apparent to every one. I was confined to my house by indisposition, and was delighted to welcome him who had scarcely entered my

dwelling since his return from the city. He modestly gave me an account of the change in his feelings and happiness, in presence of some members of my family, and solicited a private interview. On retiring with him, he said to me, with tears in his eyes: “My mind has been sorely troubled by the recollection of some things I did in your store. I was tempted to take sundry small articles, for my own use, without your knowledge or | consent, amounting, I should think, to five dollars, and I cannot rest until I have paid you for them!!" A crowd of reflections rushed into my mind. I felt overwhelmed for a moment with a sense of the goodness of God, in so counteracting all his plans as to save him from the vortex which was opening before him. He had begun to rob his employer, and, as the progress in vice is rapid downward, had not a kind Providence interposed, S. would, in all probability, have become, ere this, a tenant of the state prison, and brought down the gray bairs of his parents with sorrow to the grave. I pointed out to him, as I trust, faithfully and profitably, the finger of God in his rescue, and encouraged him to persevere unto the end. It is now nearly two years since this interview, and S. has continued to give evidence of the sincerity of the change, and bids fair to become an ornament to society and a pillar in the church of Christ.

14. GRATITUDE FOR AFFLICTION.

(a)_GRATITUDE FOR SLAVERY.--- In the Southern section of the United States, an African slave, whose name was Jenny, was observed to fail in her labour, and indications of some distress were visible in her countenance. She was asked for the cause; she replied, "Jenny's heart is sick." She was sent from the field to the house, to obtain relief; but none was gained. She spent her days in silence; only saying, Jenny's heart is sick." One day she met her mistress, who was very anxious for her case, in the yard, and cried out, "O mistress, Jenny is going to die, and be lost. Who will take care of Jenny's baby when she is gone?" Such was her distress at that moment, that she sunk under its weight motionless at her mistress's feet, who had her

taken kindly to her house, and attended with care. Thus she continued for some days, scarcely able to walk. But one day, having got a short distance into a forest, she there cried to God in her distress, and God graciously heard her mourning voice, and poured into her sick heart the balm of Gilead, which gave her immediate relief. On this occasion, when the light broke into her afflicted soul, and the pardoning love of God in Christ was seen by faith, she said, " All the trees around cry, 'Glory!' and all the angels cry, Glory!' and Jenny cry, 'Glory!' too." She now said, when Jenny was in her native country, she had no God, she knew no God! But in America, Jenny has learned there is a God, and that he is hers. In Africa, Jenny had no Jesus, she had no one to tell her of Jesus. But she thanks God that she was ever brought to America to hear of a Saviour. In Africa, Jenny was ignorant of sin, and the wrath of God; but in this favoured land she has been made acquainted with her sinful and dangerous state, and the way of salvation through a precious Redeemer. Now Jenny lived, and sung, and looked forward to the hope of glory, as the end of sorrows, and certain reward of all who, through faith and patience, wait for the coming of our Lord Jesus unto eternal life. Happy affliction!

Blessed African!

(b) BLINDNESS A BLESSING.Mary had learned to read, and at an early age took great delight in her Bible; but before she was eighteen years old, her sight began to fail, and in a very short time she became totally blind. This, it will be thought, must have been a severe trial, at such an age, under any circumstances, but more especially to one who had always derived her chief pleasure and enjoyment from her little stock of books. Mary, however, had learned from her Bible, that "God doth not afflict willingly, nor grieve the children of men ;" and she felt assured that he would, in some way or other, make this affliction tend to her eternal good. "Many people pity me," she said one day to a lady who was talking with her, "and say, it is hard to be blind; but I do not think it at all hard. Perhaps, if I had not lost my sight, I should