read the Scriptures, nor live without hearing them read; so much instruction and pleasure did she derive from the oracles of God. She lived in a lone place, and the family where she lodged could not read; but there was one more cottage near, and in it a little boy, a shepherd's son, who could read; but he, full of play, was not fond of reading the Bible. Necessity is the mother of invention. The old widow determined to rise one hour sooner in a morning, to spin one half-penny more, to be expended in hiring the shepherd's boy to read to her every evening a chapter; to which he readily agreed. This little advantage made her content in her cottage, and even say, "The lines are fallen to me in pleasant places." You, little boys, learn to read, and read the Scriptures, to comfort the old people about you. Perhaps you may make lame and blind people say, for your sakes, "The lines are fallen unto us in pleasant places; yea, we have a goodly heritage."

To be a Christian, it is necessary to judge of what we read, or hear read, and to form sentiments of our own concerning it. You have judgment and full liberty to make use of it. You may, if you think it necessary to salvation, enter into all the questions debated among Christians, and, take what side you will, you risk nothing. You may worship God in what form your conscience approves; and "who is he that will harm you, if ye be followers of that which is good?" In some countries there is, established by law, what is called a public faith; and in such countries people are treated as if they were destitute of reason, as they are supposed to be, if they doubt the truth of any part of the established faith. They are treated as if they either had no conscience, or as much command over it as the steersman hath over a ship, who, "with a very small helm, turneth it about whithersoever he listeth." Oh happy people! could you consult the dead, "the souls of them that were slain for the word of God, and for the testimony which they held ;" some "who were tortured, others who had trial of cruel mockings and scourgings, yea of bonds and imprisonment;" some who were stoned; others, who were sawn asunder; and others, who

"wandered about in sheep skins and goat skins, destitute in deserts, afflicted among mountains, tormented in dens and caves of the earth," and whose cries never yet pierced the ears of men, so artfully have their murderers managed their cruelties; I say, consult this "great multitude, which no man can number, of all nations, and kindreds, and people," who came out of such great tribulation, and they, with one voice, will inform you, that while they are ascribing salvation to God in heaven, you ought to be exclaiming on earth, "The lines are fallen unto us in pleasant places; yea, we have a goodly heritage!"

My brethren, it is glorious to be a martyr; and the public worship of God is worth all the blood that hath been shed in the world to support it; but have we all the courage necessary to martyrdom? Let us be thankful that we are not led into this temptation. This reminds me of another consideration, which ought to engage us to be content with our condition: let us consider our afflictions. Discontent is not always the child of affliction, for some people are determined at all adventures to be unhappy, and to disturb the quiet of all about them. Sometimes imaginations of distant ills which may never come, and at other times trifling accidents of no signification at all, agitate the bosoms of unhappy mortals, who think it worth while to raise a tempest to kill a fly. No place, however pleasant, no inheritance, however beautiful, can make such people happy: but the fault does not lie in the lot, but in the owner of it.

To people under affliction, I would give four words of advice; do you consider the fitness of them. First, observe the false principle on which you have founded your discontent. You have laid it down as a principle, that you ought to be free from all trouble in this present life. This is a bold step. It seems, Almighty God does not think so, for who among all his millions of creatures is not subject like you to pain, sickness, sorrow, and death? Beside, this is an unjust principle. You have laid it down as a principle, that you ought to be perfectly happy here. But who are you? Have

you never tasted the forbidden fruit? Does it become you, a sinner, who have given yourself so many stabs, to complain of smart? If it be true, as we are taught, that "the soul that sinneth, it shall die," and if you be that soul, all places short of the place of execution ought to make you cry with the Psalmist, Considering what I deserve," the lines are fallen unto me in pleasant places" this is not "the valley of the shadow of death," this is not the bottomless pit, my affiiction is not the angel with the great chain in his hand. If I be not obstinate, my house may be a house of prayer, and my old pillow a gate of heaven. Moreover, this principle is selfish. The holy men, who are proposed to you for examples, rejoiced in tribulation, because the patience, content, and prudence, which they exercised under their afflictions, instructed and edified others. They considered themselves as parts of a whole, and submitted to sufferings not necessary to themselves for the sake of their brethren. Thus the death of Christ is the life of the religion of his afflicted followers.

Let afflicted people observe, in the next place, the sufferings of others, and compare conditions. It is not wise to compare ourselves with ourselves, ourselves in sickness with ourselves in health, ourselves in old age with ourselves in youth, ourselves in disgrace with our selves in reputation. Let sick people compare themselves with other sick people, the old man on his crutches with the old man confined to his bed, the man neglected by his children, with the man under the frown of his Almighty Judge. Such a comparison always tends to content, and always must do so as long as we can conceive any thing capable of increasing the load we carry. "Oh thou afflicted! tossed with tempest and not comforted? Come now and let us reason together." Hath "God from above sent fire into your bones?" Hath he "caused Sabbaths to be forgotten in Zion? Is the law no more?" Do your children say to you, where is corn and wine? do your sucklings swoon in the streets for hunger, and pour out their soul into their mother's bosom? Are you driven to eat your children of a span long? Have you, tender woman, full of pity,

sodden your own children for meat? Is your skin black like an oven? Is your affliction like a great seabreach, that none can heal? Ah! nothing of all this: but something which, compared with all this, hardly deserves the name of affliction. Oh, look short of these, look only into hospitals, mad-houses, and jails, and, comparing your situation with theirs, adopt the text, "The lines are fallen unto me in pleasant places; yea, I have a goodly heritage."

Still, say you, we have our afflictions, and we do and must feel them. I believe so; consider therefore a third article, the benefits you derive from affliction. Do you know what we most admire in you? It is not your dress; we could make a beast fine with trappings. It is not your abilities; it would not be your abilities, if you had such powers as angels have, for indeed what but a fine creature is Gabriel to us? A fine speculation, more beautiful than the rainbow to look at: but what is it to us? What we admire, and what we ought to admire in man is that collection of fine feelings which make him a human creature, social and useful. Sympathy and fellow-feeling, tenderness of heart and pity for the wretched, compassion for your neighbours and reverence for your God, the melting eye, the soothing tone, the silver feature, the ingenious devices, the rapid actions of a soul all penetrated with reason and religion, these are the qualities we admire in you, and all these you learned in the school of affliction. Oh, I love the soul that must and will do good, the kind creature, that runs to the sick bed, I might rather say bedstead, of a poor neighbour, wipes away the moisture of a fever, smooths the clothes,. beats up the pillow, fills the pitcher, sets it within reach, administers only a cup of cold water; but, in the true spirit of a disciple of Christ, becomes a fellow-worker with Christ in the administration of happiness to mankind. Peace be with that good soul ! She also must come in due time into the condition of her neighbour, and then may "the Lord strengthen her upon the bed of languishing, and," by some kind hand like her own, " make all her bed in her sickness."

Is it a benefit to understand the spirit, and see the beauty of the Holy Scriptures? Afflictions teach Christians the worth of their Bibles, and so wrap up their hearts in the oracles of God. The Bible is but an insipid book to us before afflictions bring us to feel the want of it, and then how many comfortable passages do we find, which lay neglected and unknown before! I recollect an instance in a history of some, who fled from persecution in this country to that then wild desert, America. Among many other hardships, they were sometimes in such straits for bread, that the very crusts of their former tables in England would have been a dainty to them. Necessity drove the women and children to the seaside to look for a ship expected to bring them provision; but no ship for many weeks appeared; however they saw in the sand vast quantities of shellfish, since called clams, a sort of muscles. Hunger impelled them to taste, and at length they fed almost wholly on them, and to their own astonishment were as cheerful, fat, and lusty, as they had been in England with their fill of the best provisions. A worthy man, one day after they had all dined on clams without bread, returned God thanks for causing them to "suck of the abundance of the seas, and of treasures hid in the sand;" a passage in Deuteronomy, a part of the blessing, with which Moses blessed the tribe of Zebulun before his death, a passage till then unobserved by the company, but which ever after endeared the writings of Moses to them.

Finally Consider afflictions in the light of preparations for glory. Eternal duration, everlasting employment, and a perfection of happiness, are lofty objects for us frail men to aspire at; and when we consider our extreme littleness, it seems presumptuous for such worms to expect such exaltation. I doubt whether we might presume to expect it without the express declaration of God; however, I venture to affirm that afflictions have been the occasions of throwing great light upon this subject. Man is a creature of astonishing powers; but these powers lie hid in the breasts of all, like diamonds in a rock, till the convulsions of nature