lines of our lives are sketched by the hand of our Heavenly Father, but that all the filling up is supplied from the same source, we shall view our position in the world, our station in society, our family blessings and family difficulties, our personal advantages and personal trials, our daily labours and daily comforts, the trifling events which try our tempers, or exercise our patience, or demonstrate our faith, or call forth our love, as so many little touches, all necessary to the completion of the picture, and each put in by the same Almighty hand.

How eminently comfortable, is the state of mind thus superinduced, even during the darkest and least intelligible of the providences of God. With this belief once firmly established in your mind, you will feel convinced that all is right, and wise, and merciful, in many a dispensation, where you can, perhaps,

at present see nothing of the intention or design. Attributing all to that God who cannot err, you will follow on in the track which his Providence lays down for you, faithfully and unrepiningly : knowing that it will assuredly issue in good, although when, and where, and how it will terminate, you know not. In this world we are seldom permitted to have more than a side view of a providence, but when we reach the end of our course, and can turn and gaze from the battlements of the celestial city, upon the path we have been traversing, we shall see its face, and be astonished to find, that what we have been following through days of darkness and nights of despondency, as a stranger, and an enemy, has been, indeed, one of our best and dearest friends.

How will the heart, now broken for sin, and overwhelmed with sorrow, then receive "beauty for ashes, the oil of joy

for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness." How will the parent, who has grieved over the early departure of those most dear to him, wondering at what he now terms the "mysterious Providence " which has swept away the young and vigorous branches, while it has left untouched the scathed and feeble stem, then see that the heaviest blasts came laden with the largest portions of love, and were directed by a parent infinitely more tender than himself.

Could we but now possess one shadowy glimpse of all that we shall plainly see, and perfectly know hereafter, never, never should we repine even at the darkest providence, or harbour one doubtful feeling of God's love, even in the most trying, most disappointing moment of our lives. If every earthly hope should fail us, if every friend should deceive us, if every dearly-loved and

1 Isaiah lxi. 3.

closely-cherished relative lay dead or dying at our feet, the language of our hearts, amidst this wreck of all life's promises, and all its prospects, and all its enjoyments, would still be, "It is the

Lord, let him do what seemeth him good." "Even so, Father; for so it seemeth good in thy sight."

211

LECTURE IX.

2 KINGS viii. 13.

"AND HAZAEL SAID, BUT WHAT, IS THY SERVANT A DOG, THAT HE SHOULD DO THIS GREAT THING?"

CONTINUING the history in which we are engaged, we find Elisha, for the first time, wandering beyond the limits of his native land, and a visitor in the country of the Syrians, his open and declared enemies.

Benhadad, who was king of Syria at the time when Naaman, the captain of his host, was healed by Elisha, was still the reigning monarch; but he was at this period suffering under great and serious illness. The coming of the prophet into his land, was soon reported