debility and agitation of spirit, an apprehension. of God's indignation, a prevailing doubt of our pardon and acceptance before him, a dark view of the events which occur in the course of God's providential dealings with us, a succession of gloomy forebodings as to our future circumstances and destination, and a sinking of the heart, especially when we turn to subjects connected with our personal interest in the blessings of redemption. The appearances will vary in different cases, but they will partake in all of the general character that has been described.

Thus Jacob, when the loss of his beloved Joseph had long distressed his mind, when he received the intelligence of the severe treatment which his other sons had met with in Egypt, and found that Benjamin must also be separated from him, exclaimed with a touching melancholy, Me have ye bereaved of my children: Joseph is not, and Simeon is not, and ye will take Benjamin away: all these things are against me. This is not, indeed, a case of settled depression; but it serves to convey an idea of it. Such feelings, if they had continued long, and had fixed themselves in the soul, would have brought down the Patriarch's gray hairs with sorrow to the grave.

Hannah, again, vexed by the reproaches of Peninnah, cast down at the disappointment of her hopes, and receiving no answer to her

prayers, was under a dejection of spirit. She went up to the temple, a woman of a sorrowful spirit, and out of the abundance of her complaint and grief poured out her soul before the Lord. She was in bitterness of soul. Her adversary provoked her sore. She wept, and did eat no bread. This continued year by year. These were symptoms of the disease we are to treat.

The same, under different circumstances, was the case of Naomi. She was left of her two sons and her husband in a foreign land. When she arose to return from the country of Moab, one of her daughters-in-law went back unto her people and to her gods. She arrived at Bethlehem, and all the city was moved, and said, Is this Naomi ? And she said, Call me not Naomi (pleasant), but call me Mara (bitter), for the Almighty hath dealt very bitterly with me. I went out full, and the Lord hath brought me home again empty; why then call ye me Naomi, seeing the Lord hath testified against me and the Almighty hath afflicted me?

The instance of Elijah may also be mentioned, when he received the threatening message from Jezebel, and arose and went for his life and came to Beersheba, and went a day's journey into the wilderness, and sat down under a juniper-tree, and requested for himself that he might die. Dejection preyed upon his mind, and he con

cluded that he only was left in Israel, a prophet of the Lord.

The dejection of Job assumed yet more distinctly and fully the appearance of religious depression. Hear his distressing language: Even to-day is my complaint bitter; my stroke is heavier than my groaning. The arrows of the Almighty are within me, the poison whereof drinketh up my spirit; the terrors of God do set themselves in array against me. My sighing cometh before I eat, and my roarings are poured out like water. My soul is weary of life. Thou writest bitter things against me, thou holdest me for thine enemy.

The case of the Church, however, in the Prophet, and of the royal Psalmist, will furnish us with the most complete view of the symptoms of this malady. Why sayest thou, O Jacob, and speakest, O Israel, My way is hid from the Lord? My judgment is passed over from my God? But Zion said, The Lord hath forsaken me, and my Lord hath forgotten me. This is the language of an habitual gloom of mind. It resembles that of the Psalm in which the text occurs. In the day of my trouble, exclaims the sacred author, I sought the Lord; my sore ran in the night and ceased not-he prayed earnestly, but found no consolation. My soul refused to be comforted a fixed melancholy seized him. I remembered God and was troubled even

meditation on God, which is the usual source of relief, aggravates his malady. I complained, and my spirit was overwhelmed-billows of distress rose all around, and deluged, as it were, his soul. Thou holdest mine eyes waking, I am so troubled I cannot speak-neither sleep, nor prayer, nor praise could yield him any succour. I have considered the days of old, the years of ancient times. I call to remembrance my song in the night: I commune with mine own heart, and my spirit made diligent search. He inquires after evidences of God's former favour, but to no purpose. Will the Lord cast off for ever? Will he be favourable no more? Is his mercy clean gone for ever? Doth his promise fail for evermore? Hath God forgotten to be gracious? Hath he in anger shut up his tender mercies? -With mixed emotions of fear, agitation, and anxious solicitude, he asks in melancholy strains, if he is rejected of God, if the divine mercy is exhausted; if his faithfulness and grace have failed; if his anger hath shut up the bowels of his compassion. And I said, This is my infirmity. This is my disease, my distress. I cannot explain the questions which I have put. I cannot tell what to do. I am filled with the greatest consternation, and excruciated with unceasing anguish of mind. Though the relation of God to his people, and his attributes of grace and mercy, might seem in every other case to

afford hope of deliverance, yet so singular and oppressive are my calamities, that the contemplation of them serves only to enhance my misery and to aggravate my forebodings of final rejection at the hands of God.

Such then are some of the symptoms of a religious depression of mind. We proceed to consider,

II. THE CAUSES OF IT.

It is undoubtedly sometimes natural and occasioned by BODILY DISTemper. Religious feelings may ebb and flow with the animal spirits. Infirm, debilitated constitutions greatly affect the operations of the mind. Persons in such circumstances, are ready to view things on the most gloomy side, and the least circumstance may occasion dejection. They are too apt to fix on the more awful and profound parts of truth, and to perplex themselves with embarrassing questions, which tend to increase the malady. Confinement also without exercise, or change of scene, will often tend to produce depression. An excess of business likewise, and engagements wearing and exhausting the strength, or an occupation unfriendly to the health, may have the same consequences. mention this class of causes first, because, if the spring of dejection be corporeal malady, the case is at once, in a great measure, accounted for

་་་་་་