agony of disease? Shall it be said that there is no difference between his capabilities of happiness, who, with faculties acute, and an eager thirst for knowledge burning, within him, is early led into the halls of learning, and has the spoils of ages, the treasures of wisdom laid at his feet: and his, who with the same wonder-seeking mind, is ever bowed down to a dreary round of bodily toil, the brief intervals of which are scarce sufficient to satisfy the cravings of "nature's sweet restorer, sleep?" Is there no difference between the orphan, thrown helpless on the cold charity of strangers, whose ear has never drunk in one tender epithet from the lips of affection; whose eye has never beamed responsive to one endearing smile :-is there no difference between such an one, and the fondly-cherished child of parental tenderness, the centre of a circle of indulgent friends? Is there no difference between the freed man of a community, whose laws have their source in the fount of civil and religious liberty, and the enslaved member of a commonwealth, over which despotism and superstition preside? Is there no difference between the free artizan pursuing his honest craft with voluntary labour, and the chained and lacerated slave grudging his enforced toil, or the culprit miner burying his shame and sufferings alike, in a living tomb? Rather, how vast is the disproportion in the capacity for happiness, afforded by these diversified conditions of mankind! Why then, is it said, (and felt to be in some sense true) that happiness and misery are equally distributed? Is not this, in other words, a general confession, that misery is every where and happiness no where? Is it not a confession, that man has some wants which are felt even when he

wants every thing else in this world, and which press upon him with a double burden when every other void is filled?

Disunited from the Creator, cut off from the source and centre of all bliss, how shall man be happy? Vain is the poet's dream, the lost Egeria of the soul; and vain the wisdom of this world, teaching where happiness is, or ought to be. Where God is, there is "fulness of joy:" and there only. Distance from God, is to the soul, what remoteness from the sun is to matter, “blackness of darkness." To be brought within the action of the true light: to move even in the outer orbits of its influence, is the first step towards that concentration of bliss.

In a fallen state of being, happiness can never be fully attained even when its source has been discovered, and men, attracted by its energizing influence are moving towards it: nor does it seem intended that the gospel revelation should restore to man in the present life, this lost plant of Paradise. "In the world ye shall have tribulation:" this is predicted of those who are not nevertheless uninstructed in those spiritual manifestations, the fruition of which is, "fulness of joy : " and thus it is, that happiness and misery are made to balance so nearly, in every condition: for there is no lot so afflictive and outcast but that heavenly hope may illume and heavenly patience ameliorate it; and there is no condition so ripe with earthly good, but that the canker of a soul unsatisfied with worldly things, will eat out the heart of all its enjoyment.

"In the world ye shall have tribulation:" this then is the portion of the heirs of glory. But even here a difference is observable in the degree of trial. There

is a chastisement of whips, and a chastisement of scorpions: but he who chastens, not for his pleasure but for our profit, does not afflict willingly, nor add one pang more than is needful to make us "partakers of his holiness." The Apostle says, however, "of this chastisement all are partakers:" that is, all who are children. The chastisement differs in kind and in degree, for it is suited to the peculiar temperament of each. There are docile children,' whose hearts one stroke of the rod will open; and there are others, whom the scorpion lash of correction must discipline to knowledge: but it is well to remember the Apostolic declaration that all are partakers of it, or else, intent on our own trial, we shall forget that "the same afflictions are accomplished in our brethren which are in the world."

Afflictive dispensations are of two kinds: those which carry with them the native sympathies of mankind, and those which only excite prejudice or aversion, in the natural heart. Let a man in the full vigour of life and limb, be suddenly reduced by the accident of an hour, to the condition of a maimed disfigured cripple, and all the world will sympathize with him in his unhappy case: but, let the mis-shapen being appear, whose dwarfish proportions were stamped upon his frame from crawling infancy, and see if the thrill of disgust or dislike, be not the predominant feeling in the breasts of beholders. Loss of health, of friends, of fortune, of life, or limb;— these are casualties to which, as all are alike exposed to them, so all can sympathize with them; but as to afflictive dispensations which bear conventionally or morally the nature of reproach; who cares to compassionate these? Who, save One that endured

Himself a suffering of shame and ignominy, in order that there might be no dark corner of human woe to which his compassion could not penetrate: no isolation of an outcast heart which his sympathy could not reach?

When men have been tried only by those afflictions which call forth the sympathy and respect of their fellows, they can scarcely be said to have tasted the bitterness of grief; nor can they (except so far as they partake of the Spirit of Christ) sympathize with those, on whose brows the suffering of shame is resting. How does the world, for instance, treat the struggle of those among its victims who writhe under the reproach of poverty, and strive by many a careful and ingenious device to hide the privations they suffer, or the pangs they feel? Does it not reward such pains with the mockery of ridicule or the scorn of contempt? In like manner also does it deal with the man who has been tempted by ambition or by pleasure, to play false with the trusts of office, and who stands at last convicted of having betrayed his country's honor, or embezzled his neighbour's gold; till, (outcast alike of earth and heaven) he seeks by suicidal hands to quench the agony of his torturing remorse and shame! And so it is with every sorrow which has the stigma of reproach attached to it; giving poignancy to the blade, poison to the dart that rankles in the wound. Oh! it was not without a meaning, that the man Christ Jesus endured “shame and spitting," reproach and ignominy he indeed unjustly, for he did nothing amiss: not that, having been in all points tried, he might be able to succour us when we receive the due reward of our deeds.

It is surprising how vast an amount of human

misery arises from the endurance of secret, or unacknowledged suffering: of such suffering, as, (if it be not in its nature shameful) carries with it by the tacit opinion of society, a reproach. Multiform are the burdens of this kind, which bring down the proud looks and haughty heart of man. These, when it is possible to conceal them, are studiously hidden from the world; but when the trial is of such a kind, as that it is at once obvious to the community, and yet such as the sufferer cannot make mention of without the utterance of what is felt to be his own reproach; then, perhaps, suffering is at the highest. Pride will help a man to bear unflinchingly, a burden which none other can discern; but a sorrow to which all are witness, while it cannot be avowed, is indeed a crucifixion: not death alone, but death with torture.

Whether or no it is reasonable that we should be so much affected by conditions not of our own choosing, or infirmities which we could not avoid; certain it is, that, not to guilt alone, in this world, is attached a suffering of shame. That which the general consent of a community has made to be reproachful, is felt to be so, even by the individual who suffers in consequence of such judgment. Religion, indeed, will reconcile the mind to any condition which God has been pleased to appoint; nay, the religion of Christ has done more than this, for it has enabled believers to take pleasure in their “infirmities." But acquiescence is not choice; nor patient endurance “ pleasure ;" and we shall not therefore be surprised to find even among the eminently pious servants of God, some whose hearts