to be employed. But for success in their employment a cheerful spirit will be far more efficient than a discontented one. Those who make an energetic use of the most judicious means for the removal of the evils they deprecate, are exactly those who will bear the same evils, when they cannot be removed, with a brave and patient fortitude. The discontented are energetic in complaints alone, very rarely in action. They waste strength in misdirected efforts against evils that cannot be done away with, in spasmodic resistance resulting from no settled principle or firmness of well-considered purpose. most probable means of successful attempts to alter those circumstances of your lot which are alterable, is by struggling against the temptation offered by those circumstances to the sin of discontent.

The

There are, however, many features of the discipline of life which can neither be altered nor avoided, and one or more of

these may by this day's discipline be brought prominently and painfully before you, testing severely whether "ye are content with such things as ye have,” because "He has promised, I will never leave you nor forsake you." Use this Heaven-sent test for the enlightenment of your mind and conscience, why are you not content?

You will at once agree with me that the one great object of the present life is to grow in meetness for the inheritance that has been purchased for us by the precious blood of Christ. And though there may not always be a necessity, there must always be a readiness to sacrifice all minor objects to this, the great one. But how are we to test this readiness? The heart is "deceitful above all things; "* and when we inquire whether it would "forsake all and follow Christ,"† the answer might be false.

The discipline

of life, however, will not so deceive. The true answer to this important question may be found in the degree of irritation experienced from the privations and the disappointments we are exposed to; for what are they but the voice of the Saviour calling upon us to resign the earthly things we value, that the empty space thus left in the heart may be filled up by Himself?

If the discipline of this day should deprive you of riches, or of friends, of mental or of bodily health, the degree of pain you feel at your loss marks out the degree of your want of faith in the promise of God. If you believed that He would never leave you, you would also believe that His presence would be far more to you than any earthly possession or any earthly affection could ever be. And, then, from blessed experience, you would learn that all these earthly objects of attraction have only been as clouds in

tercepting the rays of heavenly love, hindering your sense of its invigorating warmth, and dimning your view of the glorious light, which is given at once to cheer and to direct your path.

But independent of the severe trials of life to which few are very frequently subjected, there are probably abiding permanent circumstances of your lot, which are too likely to cherish a discontented spirit, unless you diligently cultivate the habit of considering them as evidences of the protective care of God, a care ever illustrative of that great principle which we so feebly hold as an article of faith, "What is a man profited if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul?

It is chiefly in this point of view that I am about to consider the present subject; for it is chiefly though not wholly by a reference to our eternal interests, that the *Matt. xvi. 26,

pressure of the daily cross, arising from the minor, but continually irritating trials of life, may be effectually relieved. For the present I lay aside entirely the consideration of "the law of compensation." I shall not, for the present, even suggest to you what may be the advantages of a temporal nature accompanying the state of things which is such a trial to you, or what would be the probable temporal disadvantages of escaping from that which most annoys you, and obtaining that which you most desire. This is useful, very useful in its way, but our present view of the subject is to be strictly a religious one,-why are we not contented with the present state of things, when "God will never leave us or forsake us?"

To bring this matter home to each individual conscience, let us, before the discipline of this day begins, ask ourselves what is the great purpose we