the Providence of God, to the good of the people whose captives they were. They carried with them their sacred writings and their religious ideas, and thus dispersed the knowledge of God in strange and heathen lands. Think for instance of the Babylonian captivity; while it was the means of purging the Jews from their love of, and well known tendency to, idolatry, it was also the means of spreading the knowledge of God through the length and breadth of the Babylonish and Medo-Persian empires. The stories of the heroic conduct and miraculous deliverances of the three Hebrew worthies, and of Daniel, were instruments of immense good. The proud monarch of Babylon was not the only one who was brought to acknowledge the authority, and bow lowly before the throne of the true God. Doubtless many in authority, many philosophers and wise men, as well as the masses of the common people, received Divine illumination by the Israelitish nation being for seventy years placed in the School of Adversity. The history of the great personal sufferings, various persecutions, and imprisonments of St. Paul contains, perhaps, more than the history of any other man, illustrations of the benefits resulting to others from the sufferings of the devout. His multiplied and unparalleled trials not only prepared him for weeping with them that wept, but also for writing his tenderly beautiful letters, and comforting others with the comfort wherewith he was himself comforted of God. He said, "I would ye should understand, brethren, that the things which have happened unto me, have fallen out rather unto the furtherance of the Gospel; so that my bonds in Christ are manifest in all the palace, and in all other places; and many of the brethren in the Lord, waxing confident by my bonds, are much more bold to speak the word without fear." His imprisonment was the means of the knowledge of the Saviour being carried into the palace of the Cæsars. His glorious example stimulated others; and thus his personal sufferings glorified Christ, by the enlightening the Gentiles, and the quickening and establishment of the saints. Now this view of the sufferings of the pious is a most important one. Our sufferings, which are means of our personal purification, of preparing for future service, of loosening our affections from the earth and raising them to heaven, are at the same time, if rightly borne, a means of bringing us into closer union and fellowship with Jesus, and of promoting our usefulness to others. M THE SCHOOL OF ADVERSITY. CONCLUDING CHAPTER. "Thy sun shall no more go down, neither shall thy moon withdraw itself; for the Lord shall be thine everlasting light, and the days of thy mourning shall be ended."-ISAIAH. "Father I will that they also whom thou hast given me, be with me where I am, that they may behold my glory."-Jesus Christ. "For I reckon that the sufferings of the present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that shall be revealed in us."-Paul. In the former chapters, I have spoken of sanctified trial as leading to a better understanding and appreciation of the Bible; as ministering to the development and manifestation of the sublimity and transcendent power of mind; to the maturity and perfection of the Christian's character; also, as a means of preparation for future service; and the promotion of the divine glory, by the living exhibition of the elevating and sustaining power of personal piety. But vast and varied as are the benefits, as seen in the present, we require to draw aside the veil from before the future state, to exhibit them in their sublimest and most glorious aspect. If the teachings of Holy Scripture were confined to time, the spirit of the sorrowful might droop within him. But there is an hereafter. God's plan extends through endless ages. The issues of time shall continue for ever. Let the thoughtful reader, therefore, accompany me while I endeavourVI. To Contemplate Sanctified Sorrow and Trial in their Final and Ultimate Results. And if It has been often said, that, "All is well that ends well." When perplexed with a long series of dark and mysterious circumstances, we inquire anxiously, "What will be the end of these things?" asked, how will sanctified trial end? we answer without hesitancy or misgiving, "It will end well." "Say to the righteous, it shall be well with him." "Mark the perfect man, and behold the upright, for the end of that man is peace." How "has sanctified trial" ended in ten thousand times ten thousand instances? Ask the holy men of old; inquire of the departed saints of more modern days. "Ask thy fathers, and they will show thee; thy elders, and they will tell thee." But will any of them complain of the result? will Jacob, who, once in haste and deep grief, said, "All these things are against me?" Did not he say afterward, in the spirit of devout satisfaction when a-dying, "I have waited for thy salvation, O Lord?" Will Asaph, whose "feet were almost gone, whose steps had well nigh slipped?" Did he not also, afterward, in a wiser and holier mood of mind, learn to say, "Nevertheless I am continually with thee; thou hast holden me by my right hand. Thou shalt guide me with thy counsel, and afterward receive me to glory." Will Paul complain of the result? Did he not, when in the utmost extremity, declare, "I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me." Was it not one of his many admirable and consoling, as well as suggestive sayings, that, "All things work together for good, to them that love God?" Will David, who once said, "I shall surely fall by the hand of Saul?" Did not he learn a lesson of fuller confidence, and mingle the warblings of his trustful soul with the roaring of waves, and the billows that rolled around him? and were not his last accents on earth, and his first in heaven, those of praise and loving joy? Or will Job, the most tried of men, complain of the end? "Brethren, ye have heard of the patience of Job, and have seen the end of the Lord; that the Lord is very pitiful, and of tender mercy." Ask the whole host of those who have " endured chastening" and been "exercised thereby." They are all yonder before the throne; they came out of "every nation, and kindred, and tongue;" and they "came out of great tribulation." "Once they were mourners here below, And wet their couch with tears; Ask them their opinion on the bearing of sorrow |