raw material for future glory? And why should we murmur that we are not rewarded here? It is better to wait till the warfare of life is over, when our fellow-citizens will greet us in our future home and the Great King will give us an unfading

crown.

Yet we are like children bent on the enjoyment of a holiday. Their mental vision does not extend beyond the horizon of that single day. Their thoughts are concentrated upon it. The wishedfor morning comes; but as they are preparing to start on their pleasure-trip, they see with dismay that the sky is overcast. Soon a few drops fall; and then comes the steady, pattering rain to dispel their hopes, and convert their anticipated day of pastime to one of gloom. Their father pities them and tries to console them; but he inwardly rejoices at the rain because it revives his drooping corn, and gives him the hope of a rich harvest that will enable him to sustain his family during the long winter months. So the rain was a blessing, though the children saw in it only an unmixed evil.

Let us not be as short-sighted as those children. Let us look beyond the horizon of the tomb. Let us remember that "our present tribulation, which is momentary and light, worketh for us above measure exceedingly an eternal weight of glory." Let us learn like Moses "rather to be afflicted with the people of God, than to have the pleasure of sin

1II. Cor. IV., 17.

for a time. Esteeming the reproach of the Christ greater riches than the treasure of the Egyptians : for he looked to the reward."1

Nay more, we may with reason claim that the lot of the virtuous even here below is far better than that of the wicked. The true delights of a rational nature are theirs; for virtue bestows on them that full and placid joy of soul which strengthens and ennobles even in the midst of want and affliction. Their life, too, is secure against all that can embitter and debase it; for, as even the pagan Seneca remarks, "The strife of wild passions causes no havoc there."2 Not so the life of the wicked. It is a stranger to that true joy of soul which is the warm sunshine of life. Amid its golden bowls and gorgeous spectacles, and grand palaces, it may appear fair of mien; but within it is wretched with bitter remorse and dire dread of the near future.

But although God usually reserves for the life to come the full manifestation of His providence, He is sometimes pleased to vindicate His justice even in the present life, by the signal chastisement of iniquity and by the reward of suffering virtue. This fact may be illustrated by the two examples following:

Antiochus, surnamed Epiphanes, or the Illustrious, whose history is related in the Second Book of Machabees, and in the writings of Polybius, was a monster of impiety and tyranny. His usurpa

1 Heb. XI., 25, 26.

2 De Providentia, C., 6.

tions, his wanton cruelties, his insatiable rapacity and horrible sacrileges, were speedily followed by a manifest visitation of divine retribution. While hastening to destroy the inhabitants of Jerusalem, after having already profaned its Temple, he is suddenly stricken with an incurable malady and afflicted with excruciating pains. His body, even before death, emits a stench intolerable to the army; and he dies a raving maniac in a strange country, execrated by his enemies, despised by his own people, and regretted by none.

As an offset to this summary chastisement, witness the history of the Patriarch Joseph. Were not his very trials the steps by which he ascended to eminence, and by which he became the providential deliverer of his people? Were they not the key-stone in the triumphal arch of earthly fame, erected by the hand of God, to record his name and his virtues to all future generations?

His first great sorrow is connected with his final triumph by an unbroken chain of incidents which, to the human eye, would seem to be unmitigated calamities. If he had not been sold, he would not have been exiled. If he had not been exiled, his virtue would not have been sorely tried. If he had not been tempted, he would not have been imprisoned. If he had not been imprisoned, he would not have been brought to the notice of Pharaoh. And if he had not come to the knowledge of Pharaoh, he would never have been exalted. In the persecutions he endured from his brethren and in all

the afflictions that followed, Joseph clearly traces the hand of an overruling and tender Providence. "You thought evil against me," he says to his brethren, "but God turned it into good, that He might exalt me as at present you see, and might save many peoples."1

Do not tell me that such and such events are the result of pure accident. What are accidents to us, are links in the chain of God's designs upon us. Abraham sends his servant to Mesopotamia to procure a suitable wife for his son Isaac. The servant prays that the first maid whom he might meet at the well, should be his young master's chosen bride. Eliezer meets Rebecca at the well. The meeting is apparently accidental; but, in the providence of God, Rebecca was destined to be the wife of Isaac and the mother of His chosen people.

4o. But, perhaps, as a last objection, you will say: If God has such an eye to my wants, if His providence intervenes in each and all the events of my life, may I not take the world as it comes, sit down quietly, fold my arms, and do nothing? Why should I make any provision for the future, and not rather await patiently the action of a provident Ruler? Trusting that God will replenish my coffers, am I not even justified in squandering what I have acquired? Is it not my duty when sick to refuse the aid of a physician? And if placed in imminent danger, should I not decline to rescue

1 Gen. L., 20.

myself from my perilous position? This would be pure fatalism, which is condemned alike by reason and revelation.

God forbid that, whilst admonished to avoid the extreme of solicitude, you should fall into the other of indifference! For if, on the one hand, God condemns excessive care and anxiety, He reproves on the other, an improvident and indolent life. If He claims your gratitude by reminding you of the care He takes of you, He arouses your zeal by asking you to co-operate with Him. God helps those that help themselves. He "reacheth therefore from end to end mightily, and ordereth all things sweetly."

It is true that He feeds the birds of the air, but it is equally true that He does not furnish the bird with her breakfast in her nest. She must go out early and seek for it.

to grow

for

It is true that He makes the crops the use of man, but it is also true that man must break and cultivate the soil. He must sow and reap and gather into barns, and grind the grain before it is fit for use.

It is true that He makes the trees to grow in the forest and that, from decayed vegetation, He has gradually formed beds of coal in the bowels of the earth. But those trees must be cut down, and those deposits of coal must be mined with immense labor before they can be used for fuel.

He tells us, it is true, that all healing is from God. But He adds immediately after, that in time

1 Eccles. XXXVIII, 2.