in the time of affliction: the mind becomes so absorbed in its own sorrow, so swallowed up in grief, that the interests and feelings of others fail to awaken the attentive consideration they engage at other times. O, how corrective of such selfishness is the example of Jesus: how rebuking His tender consideration for others in the midst of His own most cruel pangs. With a "soul exceeding sorrowful even unto death," His sympathies are engaged in seeking to speak words of comfort to His afflicted disciples! nor when He trod the hill of scorn, or hung upon "the accursed tree," is the mother who bare Him forgotten, or the "daughters of Jerusalem " overlooked. To possess and express "the same mind that was in Christ Jesus," is what the child of God is ever aiming after; to study His example, as well as to drink into His spirit, how needful to the attainment!

"Neither be weary of His correction," Prov. iii. 11. These words suggest another

of the temptations peculiar to the furnace : when trials are of long continuance, or when one woe is no sooner past than another cometh, there is a propensity in the heart of man, by reason of remaining corruption, to grow weary under the chastenings of the Lord, and manifest this weariness in peevish fretfulness, discontented murmurings, and gloomy despondency. The Scriptures furnish us with many instances of this description. He who under unparalleled bereavement could cry, "the Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord," grows weary under prolonged visitations, and in anguish of spirit inquires, "wherefore is light given unto him that is in misery, and life unto the bitter in soul?" "My soul is weary of my life." The prophet Jeremiah, under the pressure of long-continued trial, grows weary, and in the fretful impatience of a discontented mind falls into the sin of cursing the day of his birth. The history

of David furnishes another striking illustration of this weariness under the rod; when first the Lord places him in circumstances of trial, in His light he walks through darkness, and most instructive is the conduct he maintains: but when year follows year, and the relentless persecution of his determined foe knows neither suspension nor mitigation, in place of finding in every fresh deliverance food for his faith, and gathering fresh incentives to gratitude and praise as the interposing arm of his Almighty friend is untiringly extended on his behalf, he grows weary and faint in his mind, rashly and unthankfully concludes, "I shall one day perish by the hand of Saul,"-takes the matter into his own management, resolves to free himself from the cross of the Lord's appointing, flees out of His providential path, and ends by involving himself in tenfold greater difficulties and dangers. What a picture is here of many beside David! weary of the trials of the " "right

way," and faint under the burdens of the Lord's imposing, they foolishly argue anything would be more tolerable than what they are called to endure :-peevishness and fretfulness ensue; these give place to murmurings and repinings, which latter end too frequently in some rebellious effort to deliver themselves from their cross, by which they involve themselves in one ten times heavier. What is the remedy for this weariness, what its best preventive? To "consider Him who endured such contradiction of sinners," how teaching is His example! Shall the servant repine when the master was dumb? shall the disciple refuse to carry what the Lord was pleased to bear? He endured the painful load of His suffering existence in meek submission until He could assert, "It is finished." No murmur ever escaped His holy lips, no frown of discontent ever ruffled His unclouded brow :—the contradiction of sinners, the mocking insolence of the chief priests and scribes, the

ingratitude of the fickle multitude, the treachery of professed friends, the ignorance, stupidity, and waywardness of disciples, all were keenly felt by a soul endowed with the finest sensibilities of our nature, but all uncomplainingly endured. Ah! had He wearied as He trod the hill of scorn, had He fainted under the load of imputed guilt and inexpressible sorrow which He undertook to bear, "for us men, and for our salvation," where were the interests of the little flock? but "He saw of the travail of His soul" in the bright vision of faith, aud "for the joy set before Him He endured the cross, despising the shame." "Consider Him who endured such contradiction of sinners against Himself," tried and tempted believer; and when disposed to grow weary amid the sorrows of thy tedious path, or faint under the burdens, consider not only the example but the love of thy enduring Lord, and ask,

"Did Jesus thus suffer, and shall I repine ?"