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sudden death? Why this death at all, with its bereavement, its sorrows to follow?

Let us learn a little more about the life of this young sailor.

He was one of a family of five sons who, having lost their father, should have been a comfort and a support to their mother. But this was not the case with all of them. Not, however, that they were not kind and respectful; but, being of a lazy, careless turn of mind, they idled their lives away, and so brought anxiety and trouble to their mother. The sailor son, Robert, was an exception. He was the

only one inclined to follow his vocation, and he was the particular one whom she least desired to be absent from her. Each safe return from his ocean voyages, so beset as they were with perils and risks of every kind, was to her increased matter for thankfulness. Each preparation to bid adieu became more bitter and more painful.

And now they are to be parted for ever, as far as this world is concerned. To judge from the entreaties of the fond mother, one might have thought that some mysterious whisper had been vouchsafed as to the mournful event so soon to follow. "Oh, don't leave me again! I feel so sure that I shall lose you! Don't trust the ocean again; but, if you must work, get some safer employment at home." But duty and inclination seemed to point the way, and the sailor felt he must disregard danger and follow his profession. The result we have already told. The telegraph, that, for the most part, does its work so exactly, so seemingly regardless of feelings, did not fail in its duty here. Its message, that told of work more sudden than even it was able to accomplish, was a message of most terrible import to Robert's widowed mother.

She was one of those outwardly correct and pious Christians that one meets with from day to day. She regularly attended the house of God; she did her part in works of charity; she would talk at times with her clergyman on religious topics; she was moral, kind, and pleasant. And

thus was she possessed of the usual category of Christian qualities.

But, as the narrative will show, she lacked something— something of great price; for she wanted that personal faith in a personal Saviour without which we are but poor believers after all. For such a faith begets confidence in our Father's providence, and love for our Redeemer's love.

At first the blow well-nigh stunned her. Then, in awakening to the sad reality, her paroxysms of grief served to cloud and perplex the mind. But after this there usually comes the lull in the tempest of pain; and then it is that the sufferer stands in need of the strength of a faithful confidence and the clearness of a loving hope, that schools him to recognise the all-wise hand of a loving Father, and bids him look forward to a happy reunion hereafter of the loving and the loved.

Her lack of real religion-the religion of the heart-now cost her many a pang. She gave way to cruel doubting, and next to misty scepticism.

"You tell me that God is a loving God; that He dispenses His justice with consideration. How do you make that out? Do you call this loving treatment—to deprive me of my best, my favourite boy? To snatch him away without a warning; to cast him into the cold and angry sea amid the horrors of a tempestuous night, when no one was near to help, pity, and console? Is this love? Is this a proof of God's watchful care? Is this not cruelty? You cannot ask me to submit myself to One so hard upon the widow; you must not, for I cannot do so."

It was piteous to behold the desperation of doubt to which this poor woman was reduced. The mind became well-nigh overbalanced, because it lacked that equilibrium of heart which stays and stills its rebellious propensities.

And so it went on for a long period. God's Word was mistrusted for the time; so were the ministrations of His messengers. But, by-and-by, her aged pastor and friend

saw a gleam of light as, in his gentle, loving dealing with her, he enforced the truths of that Word. And so it came to pass that little by little the Spirit did His work; being resisted less and less by this once weak and rebellious

woman.

Our tale is told. She lives on still, a more hopeful and, we believe, a better woman. She sees the need-be of affliction; she recognises the love of God in His dealings with man. The "why" and the "wherefore" of this sudden affliction we can answer, at all events, in part, now that we have been told such consequences as these. Doubtless, however, there were other purposes in the mysterious will of our heavenly Father which none will ever know on earth.

But, to speak more generally, afflictions have two purposes the correction of sinners and the improvement of saints. Affliction drives us into ourselves. God forces us into ourselves, that we may behold what we really are— what we are before the tribunal of our consciences-what we are in His sight. When we come to ourselves we come to the need of God in Christ. He allures us into the wilderness that He may plead with us face to face, and that we may feel our want of His love.

"No man cometh unto Me," said Jesus, (6 except the Father which hath sent Me draw him;" and He draws sinners to Christ by their affliction. If it has not this effect it must harden them; for it is His love chastening, warning, instructing, educating them. It is at least a sign that He has not forsaken them nor given them over, since He has returned by it to argue, expostulate, and entreat with them. Thus His love constrains them to taste of His wrath, that they may come to themselves, remember His love, and consider the blessedness of His love ere their hearts grow hard.

But sufferings under the gospel have a more glorious aspect; their main object being the improvement of God's faithful servants, and their complete renewal and transformation into the image and likeness of Jesus. To suffer

with Christ is spoken of as a special gift of God-the peculiar and proper inheritance of His children. Suffering was the distinguishing mark of the Only-begotten, Wellbeloved, when manifest in the flesh; for He was emphatically"the Man of sorrows."

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Always to carry about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus," and "fill up that which is behindhand in the sufferings of Christ for His body's sake, which is the Church," are part of the "earnest of the Spirit, until the redemption of the purchased possession."

This is the school in which the saints learn all the higher degrees of obedience; by these blows they are established, strengthened, settled; in this furnace they are made perfect.

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Encouragement to Prayer.

ACKNOWLEDGE no master of requests in heaven but one-Christ, my Mediator. I know I cannot be

so happy as not to need Him; nor so miserable that He should contemn me. I will always ask, and that of none but where I am sure to speed; but where there is so much store, that when I have had the most, I shall leave no less behind. Though numberless drops be in the sea, yet if one be taken out of it, it hath so much the less, though insensibly; but God, because He is infinite, can admit of no diminution. Therefore are men niggardly, because the more they give, the less they have; but Thou, Lord, mayest give what Thou wilt, without abatement of Thy store. Good prayers never came weeping home: I am sure I shall receive either what I ask or what I should ask. -Bishop Hall.

The Sun of Righteousness.

HIS Sun is radiant with glory-the brightness of Jehovah's glory, and the source of heaven's glory. It communicates light-intellectual light, spiritual light, eternal light, the light of human reason, saving conversion, sanctifying influence, gospel consolation and heavenly prospect. It is the Sun of salvation; its every ray is a ray of salvation shining on a guilty world. When Christ, the Sun of Righteousness, rises and shines, how rapidly do the shadows of spiritual darkness flee away! and what a day, refulgent with light, does He kindle in the soul! There was once a total eclipse of this Sun. Not only the darkness of Calvary, but the gloom of the sepulchre surrounded Him. Morning, however, soon dawned on the tomb, and He arose again in all His splendour. This Sun will never be eclipsed again, but is destined to shine until it has scattered every cloud, enlightened every region, and illumined every heart.

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