Father. So it is with the Christian's night the ordinary light is withdrawn for a little, but a new light immediately takes its place; and if he sees one sun by day, that bright firmament by night reveals ten thousand, till every star sings as it shines, "Like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear him." Blessed truth! It is no inquisitor's eye that is upon us; it is no Egyptian taskmaster that marks my steps and watches my movements. It is a father's heart that looks through a father's eye, and gives direction to a father's hand. Then "bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless his holy name." But before I ask you to join in this thanksgiving, let me ask, Are you the children of this Father? Are you the sons of his adopting love? Is his inspecting eye ever a delightful thought to you? Is there any moment in your experience, when the consciousness that God's bright eye is upon you mars all your happiness, and suspends all your enjoyment? Is there any one act that you do behind the counter, any one transaction in the counting-house, any movement little or great in which you are engaged, that will. bear man's eye, but not God's eye? This is not the way of the children of God. God is looking upon you not with the eye of a father, but with deep and yearning compassion; He desires not that you should perish, but that you should turn from your evil ways and live for ever. CHAPTER XIII. SYMPATHY. "He knoweth our frame."-Psalm ciii. 14. How exquisitely beautiful is that! He knows it far better than the most skilful anatomist. The anatomist knows our frame, but only as he knows it when put together with wires in order to guide him in his dissections. He knows it without one particle of sympathy with it; we do not complain of this-for he is the best surgeon who goes to his work without a trembling muscle or a sensitive nerve, without feeling the least emotion. But our God has all this skill, and infinitely more; and He unites with it a tenderness, a sym pathy, a love, to which the most sensitive of mankind are strangers. He treats with infinite wisdom every new feature of our case; and when mercy to us prompts him to afflict us-to cut off a right hand, for instance, or to pluck out our right eye, he does it with a skill, a sympathy, a tenderness, a compassion, which leads us gratefully to exclaim, "He knoweth our frame, He remembereth that we are dust." He knows how little we can sufferhow easily we are crushed-how much we need to be pitied and forgiven. Then "bless the Lord, O my soul;" for I have not to deal with a stern avenger who ever waits to consume me, but with a Father who knows my frame better than I know it myself, and who watches over me and supports me, and will not let me perish, even when I would destroy myself. "Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless his holy name." more." "As for man," God knows and we know, "his days are as grass." What evidence do we need of what is actual before us every day? And "as the flower of the field, so he flourisheth; for the wind passeth over it, and it is gone; and the place thereof shall know it no How eloquent are these words how instructive in every allusion, how true in our experience! Man is compared to the grass, which is often blasted as soon as it grows up, and always gradually decays. Sometimes it is withered by the too scorching heat, in its mid-tide; at other times blighted by the severe frost before the autumn comes; at |