to the mind that cheerfully lays all the world's gifts upon God's altar. It finds its riches in having nothing, and realizes the feeling of its freedom in the fact that it has no choice separate from God's choice.

8. Again, when suffering is attended with right affections, it becomes one of the strongest, and perhaps the only satisfactory evidence of true love. If God should bestow upon us mercies alone, without trials, it might be difficult to say, whether we loved him for himself, or only for the blessings he gave. But if our affection remains unshaken under the trials he sees fit to send, we have good reason to regard it as true. The love which exists and flourishes at such times is not a mere accessory, dependent for its continuance upon circumstances, but is a permanent principle.

The ten

One remark more remains to be added. dency of suffering is not only to lead us to God, as the only being who can help us, but to keep us there. The general result, in the case of Christians, is, the more they suffer, the more they trust; and the more they trust, the more will the principle of trust or faith be strengthened. So that affliction, by impressing the necessity of higher aid than human, tends not only to originate faith. in God, but indirectly to increase it; tends not only to unite us with God, but to strengthen that union.

Indeed, it is difficult to see how faith can be much strengthened in any other way. When we walk by faith, we walk, in a certain sense, in darkness. If it were perfectly light around us, we should not walk by faith, but by open vision. Faith is a light to the soul; but it is the very condition of its existence, that it shall have a dark place to shine in. It is faith which conducts us, but our journey is through shadows. And this illustrates the meaning of certain expressions fre

quently found in the experimental writings of Dionysius the Areopagite, and found also in other writers who hold similar views, such as the "night of faith," "the divine darkness," "the obscure night of faith," and the like.

It is hardly necessary to say, that darkness or night, in its application to the mind, is a figurative expression, and means trial or suffering, attended with ignorance of the issues and objects of that suffering. And, accordingly, these writers teach, in harmony with other experimental writers, that seasons of trial, leading to the exercise of faith, are exceedingly profitable. The biblical writers, whom they profess to follow, obviously teach the same. "Persecuted," says the apostle, "but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed. Always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body." And again, "Our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory." 2 Cor. 4: 9, 10, 17.

CHAPTER VIII.

ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE RELATION BETWEEN MAN AND GOD BY THE RELATIVE POSITION OF PARENT AND CHILD.

Christ's interest in little children. - Passages of Scripture. - General proposition deduced from them. This proposition considered in particulars, namely, in faith, in knowledge, in love, and the will. The existence of a filial nature not inconsistent with moral responsibility. Remarks.

ONE of the striking incidents in the history of our Saviour is the notice which he takes of little children. "And they brought young children to him, that he should touch them; and his disciples rebuked those that brought them. But when Jesus saw it, he was much displeased, and said unto them, Suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not; for of such is the kingdom of God." Mark 10: 13, 14. And again it is said. in Matthew,* "Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven."

2. Taking all the various passages which may be found on this subject, we may properly deduce from them the following general proposition, namely: It is necessary to possess and to exhibit towards our heavenly Father such dispositions, both in kind and degree, as

Matthew 18: 3.

exist in the minds of children towards their earthly parents.

The analogy between the two cases is very striking; and it was the clear perception of its closeness, and of the beautiful and important instruction involved in it, which seems to have so much interested the Saviour's mind. As he looked upon little children, he perceived that they felt towards their earthly fathers very much. as he felt towards his own Father in heaven; and, with such a striking illustration before him of what he experienced in his own bosom, he could not fail to be interested. And this striking resemblance between the feelings of the child of man and the feelings of the child of God, as the former are directed towards the earthly parent and the latter towards the heavenly parent, will throw light upon and will help to confirm some of the leading principles in the relations of God and man, which have hitherto been laid down.

3. The general view, then, upon which we proceed in the remarks that follow, is this:-The earthly child, in its relations to its earthly father, is the representation, the earthly development, if we may so express it, of the relations of the child of God to his Father in heaven.

And this is seen, in the first place, in the matter of FAITH. It is very obvious, in regard to the faith which the earthly child has in its earthly parent, that it is a faith given, a faith implanted. The filial confidence which it exhibits is not something which the child. makes himself; nor is it, as some seem to suppose, the result of experience; but is innate. God himself is the giver of it. Implanted by the divine hand, and operating instinctively, the faith of the child is seen in the earliest movements of its infancy. And ever afterwards, in the various situations in which the child is placed, it

retains all the attributes and exhibits all the results of an implanted or connatural principle; so much so, that, to withhold confidence from a father or mother, we all feel to be doing that which is a violation of nature.

4. And such precisely was the character of the faith which man possessed in his heavenly Father before he fell. The views which have already been presented in the chapters on the union of God and man in faith, are sustained by the beautiful analogy which is here presented to our notice. The first man was created in the possession of faith. We have endeavored to show, in a former chapter, that he could not have been created in any other way. To believe in God was a nature to him; just as we find, at the present time, that it is natural for the child to place confidence in its earthly parent. And in the full restoration of man to God, (a restoration for which provision is made in the coming and atonement of Christ, and in the renewing agency of the Holy Spirit,) the principle of faith will be reëstablished, not merely as a variable exercise of the mind originating in the will, but as a permanent element or nature of the mind existing in harmony with the will, and with the will's consent. And those who are thus restored will become, in respect to their faith, "little children."

5. Again, it is natural to the child to look up to the father, and to be guided by him in matters of KNOWLEDGE. It is an established principle, in the philosophy of the human mind, that knowledge is and must be preceded by faith. The relations of the two we have already explained in part in former chapters. It is impossible for us, in the very nature of things, to accept as our teacher a being in whom we have no confidence. Faith, extending to all things which are its appropriate objects, is first