SERMON VII.

ON THE SORROWS OF LIFE.

2 COR. iv. 8.

We are perplexed, but not in despair; we are persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed.

THIS is a true image and representation of our condition in this life; it states the evils of that life, but it marks also the degrees in which they exist; it insinuates that there are remedies or palliatives. We are perplexed in this scene of existence, but we need not despair; we are persecuted, but we are not forsaken; we are cast down, but not destroyed.

If there be, then, any means which Almighty God. has placed within our power of diminishing the evils of this life, it will be wise and expedient to consider what they are, and to become by times acquainted with all that medicine of the soul, which the great Maker of the universe has no more neglected, than he has forgotten to disperse in every region of the earth those substances, which can restore health and vigour to the bodily frame.

Now, for the diminution of great sorrows, we must first of all acquire a just notion of human life; the world in which we are placed is not a wretched world, that is stating the case much too strongly; but it is a world in which there is a great deal of wretchedness; it is a mixed chequered state, rendered so purposely by our great Creator, that we might not be too closely attached to it, and love it too much. If you could see what was

written upon the portals of the world, as you entered into it, you would read death, friendship, pain, glory, shame, a mixed language, a troubled state, a distressing twilight, a condition that wants the light of heaven to make it plain and clear. You come into this world almost under the certainty of meeting with great affliction; for in the first place, you must pass through the bitterness of death; you must be subjected to the melancholy decay of age, to that bruised spirit and physical depression, which are the almost inevitable consequences of that period of life. Then, who passes through this world without the pains and torments of the body? who, without being disappointed in some darling project, some fond scheme, born in youth, cradled in the heart, decorated by fancy, the great hope, the imaginary support and ornament of life; blasted and gone, at the very moment when the eye saw it, and the hand was reached out for it, and the heart said, It is mine! Who ever lived to the common age of man, and could say upon his deathbed, I never lost a friend, or a child; I never mourned or shed tears over the dead body of any human being? This is not human life; but there is a pang ready for us all; to-day my hour may come, to-morrow yours; a child, a parent, an ancient friend: we know not where the hand of the Almighty will smite us, but this we know, that we must keep the heart ever ready for mourning, and even when we put on the wedding garment take good heed that the sackcloth and ashes are not far away.

I beg to remind you that I am by no means denying the existence of great pleasures in human life, but only stating the existence of great sorrows; and showing that it is almost the inevitable lot of man to be exposed to them; a reflection which has this use in it, that it diminishes the surprise that almost always inflames and increases grief, and renders it so difficult to support the misfortunes of life. That it is, highly probable we shall all

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endure great misfortunes, is a truth which human beings are more inclined to forget, than to deny - it is not brought forward to any man's mind as a discovery, but as the renewal of a salutary truth. You are fairly embarked in the voyage of life; the chances are innumerable, that you do not pass through it without some great suffering. Let that impression be deeply fixed in the days of your youth, recall it in the solemn moments of meditation and review, and when it does come, you will bow with greater resignation to the stroke of God. is not necessary that a human being should be always disturbing present happiness with the painful impression of its short duration, and its uncertain nature; but it is highly necessary that he should do so sometimes; that he should look round at the awful warnings of God, and say, I too may be poor, may be childless, may linger in disease; that he should form to himself a real and accurate notion of that world in which he is placed, and not live in his palace of sand, as if it were rooted on the everlasting rock: and it is easy to say this, and easy to admit its truth; but it is not done; it is a Christian discipline which is seldom practised; for when first grief comes upon us, it is all amazement and surprise, as if the thing were new, as if the whole fabric and constitution of the world were altered; as if it had been nothing but joy and gaiety up to this moment, and now, even now for the first time, death and sorrow were let loose for the torment of mankind. What! must I die? I, in the midst of my youth? Must I quit all these possessions? must I be summoned before God thus early, thus unprepared? Why have you not then, read the contract aright, why have you mistaken the charter and condition of life?-Was it threescore years and ten? Was that the promise? No! not a day, not an hour; and therefore you should have been ready, and have said, O my God, I knew this from the earliest hour, and I come at thy call. And so it is with fond, thoughtless

parents; they gaze on their children, as if God had sent them angels, not only in form but in duration; and then, if the destroying spirit come, the rest of life is dragged on in misery and sorrow! Then, I say, Prepare for it from the beginning. Remember it is the world in which you are placed, and the life you are to lead; prepare your soul for its portion of anguish, as a soldier offers up his body to the pain of wounds; he knows that such suffering is the natural consequence of the scenes in which he is engaged, and the magnanimity which he has prepared by contemplation, mitigates the severity of present anguish.

To suffer, then, is the lot of humanity, but we shall not suffer long; and this shortness of human existence is a second consolation. "I am old, I shall soon escape; God will allow me to depart; I am wearied of life and its troubles." There are some who may derive comfort from this train of reflection. O death, how acceptable is thy sentence unto the needy, and unto him whose strength faileth, that is now in the last age, and is vexed with all things, and to him that despaireth, and hath lost patience!

It is of the highest importance in the management of great grief to consider well, whether that which we conceive to be a misfortune may in the event prove to be so or not. We are judges of our immediate impressions; we know whether any event renders us happy or unhappy for the present time; but He who presides over all events, and looks through the whole of our existence, He only knows the true character and last effect of all that happens to his creatures. We talk of prosperity and adversity; we are almost entirely ignorant of what is prosperity, and what is adversity; we often mourn when we should rejoice, and rejoice when we should mourn. It should soften the severity of grief to remember how often we are blessed when we appear to be persecuted, and how often the kindness of the Al

mighty comes to us in the shape of terror and penalty. A man often looks back on his griefs in mature life, as he looks back upon the sorrows of his childhood; and feels that he is almost as incapable of judging of the one as he was of judging of the other; that his sorrows have really been for his good, and that a longer indulgence in apparent prosperity might have proved the greatest evil which could have happened.

The varying tide of human affairs not only alters the character of events, but it is also a great deal in the power of us all, to extract good from sorrow, and to gain some compensation in wisdom and virtue, for every misfortune with which we are afflicted. Misfortune is the cure of many sinful habits: it awes sensuality, it humbles pride, it alarms bold impiety, it represses levity, it carries the glow of social feelings into hard selfish minds, it awakens us all to think what is to come after this short span of life, and upon what we can really depend in all the changes and chances of this mortal existence. As the earth is sweet and pleasant after the summer rains, so the soul of man is all fresh and heavenly after the chastening hand of God has touched it all bad passions laid to sleep-an heart full of melting charities-a giving hand, a pitying eye -no loftiness of the brow then, but every man is a brother!-a true feeling of what the world really is— the true dimensions and the just deportment, of a dependent, created being. You may weep, and you may lament, and you may say, Woe is me! but, if you gain from your wretchedness the heavenly spirit of Christianity if it annihilate in you the low pride of title and of wealth-if it turn you from things that perish to things that do not perish-if it teach you that riches have wings, that kindred die, that youth fades away, but that justice, mercy, kindness, honest and good affection, do not perish, and do not fade away, but are everlastingly recorded in heaven - if this be