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WHILE travelling through the scenes of time, afflictions are the means which our Father in Heaven uses to recover us from the influence of sin, to promote our usefulness here and our happiness hereafter. It is not enough to know that our suffering is just, but that it is designed for our good ; it is not enough to say," this is my grief,and I mnst bear it ; but it is the Lord, my friendand my Father. Let Him do what seemeth good in his sight." But it is evident, that a hearty acquiescence in the divine will, under affliction, cannot arise, but from a knowledge of the Divine character. The child must not only feel that the Father has a right to chastise him, but that his chastisement is the result of paternal affection and love. We may be dumb, and not open our mouth, but in order to render a cheerful and grateful submission, we must see the righteousness, the wisdom, and, above all, the kindness, of his dispensations towards us. Should we call that goodness in a parent, or the evidence of fatherly care, which would suffer him to let his child go unchastised, when rebellious and disobedient ? No it should rather be termed cruelty. Neither will the goodness of our Heavenly Father fail to chastise
and correct his disobedient children. Eternal love decrees, that if his children " forsake his law, and walk not in his judgments ; if they break his statutes, and keep not his commandments, he will visit their transgressions with the rod, and their iniquities with stripes." Yet the voice of the rod which we are commanded to hear, is, " How shall 1 give thee up, Ephraim ? How shall I make thee as Admah ? How shall I set thee as Zeboim ? My heart is turned within me ; my repentings are kindled together."

Who can tell to what extremities we might have gone, if we had not been corrected ? Says David, " Before I was afflicted, I went astray; but now have I learned to keep thy precepts." Who can tell the evils we have avoided by the timely infliction of the rod ? We were growing earthly-minded. God sent an east wind, and blasted the fruits of our field. He dried up the gourd of our pleasures at its root. He saw us placing our affections inordinately upon a lovely child, upon a husband or wife: He commissioned the messenger of death to remove that idol. His faithfulness prompted him to remove from us that which he foresaw would prove our ruin. He called us back to himself, that we might find our all in Him. Afflictions acted as a curb, and prevented us from plunging into the pit of wo.

Afflictions serve as a test of the Christian graces. " When he hath tried me, I shall come forth as gold." It is the windy tempest that tries the strength of the vessel. The pelting rain proves the soundness of the roof.

" Trials make the promise sweet,
Trials give new life to prayer ;
Trials bring me to his feet,
Lay me low and keep me there."

Satan once said, " Doth Job fear God for nought ? Hast thou not made a hedge about him, and about all that he hath, on every side ; but put forth thy hand, and touch all that he hath, and he will curse thee to thy face." Look at the trial : bereft of all, he cries, " The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away, and blessed be the name of the Lord." The piety of Job was equal to that trial. But see him diseased from the soles of his feet to the crown of his head. Ah ! do you hear the long and tedious complaints that break from his lips ? The voice of God, out of the whirlwind, restores him to his right mind, and grace takes a deeper root in his soul than ever.

When we 'are surrounded with friends, wealth, and influence, we may not easily decide whether we are making the Eternal God our refuge and support; but let them be removed, and the trial is made. If they were to us instead of God, we shall at once droop and languish ; and we shall be ready to say, with one of old, " Ye have taken away my gods, and what have I left ?"

Afflictions are designed to promote our happiness hereafter. " They yield the peaceable fruits of righteousness to those that are exercised thereby." They are like the physician's prescription bitter indeed to the taste, but healthful to the system."They work for , us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory."

" They are not worthy indeed to be compared with it." Who are they that stand before the throne ? They that have come up out of great tribulation, and have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. We may not be able to see their influence in promoting our eternal interests ; but, by and by, when the cloud shall break away, we shall see clearly their design and tendency. In these seasons of sorrow and bereavement, we need a clear, firm, elastic, available faith in immortality, in the eternity of our affections, and in the deathless union of those whom death has parted."

The heart that God breaks with affliction's stroke,
Oft, like the flower when stricken by the storm,
Rises from earth more steadfastly to turn
Itself to Heaven, whither as a guide,
Kindly though stern, Affliction still is leading,
Even to the home of endless joy and peace.

There on the borders of that better land,
Shall pain's sharp ministry forever cease.
Then shall we bless thee, safely landed there,
And know above how good thy teachings were ;
Then feel thy keenest strokes to us in love were given,
That hearts most crushed on earth, shall most rejoice in heaven."

"Christian, you have no occasion to fear entering upon any path which God opens to you. What though that path be dark, and we know not where it will end ? Is it not enough that he who opens it has said: ' Fear not, for I am with thee'? What though afflictions, repeated and overwhelming, lie along that path? Is it not the path marked out for us by the wisdom that cannot err? Is it not in this very way that the God of all grace designs to make us partakers of his holiness ? Breaking our earthly arm, that we may lean upon himself; drying up our failing streams, that'' he may bring us to the living fountain ; and cutting off our expected delights, that he may make us serene and joyful in himself without them.""Oh, ye afflicted, tossed with tempest and not comforted, behold and consider that soon your stones shall be laid with fair colors, and your foundations with sapphires."" Your windows shall be of Agates, and your gates of Carbuncles." It is but an handbreath, humble child of sorrow, and you shall be dismissed, refined and purified, by those afflictions, and made meet for glory.

Even now the dawn of the upper world beams through the clouds that darken your horizon, and soon those clouds shall all be dispelled ; and under the full beams of the Sun of Righteousness shining upon you eternally, you shall sing, " In thy presence is fulness of joy, and at thy right hand are pleasures for evermore."

And what though your pathway into this felicity bring you to the river of death, and there is no turning to the right hand, or the left ; and there leaving kindred and friends behind, you must conflict alone with the cold waves ? Have you not seen others fearful as you, when they have come to the cold flood, borne peacefully through? Have you not seen their fears dispelled, the billows parted before them, and the way opened for them to go through dry-shod ?

And is he who has done this for them, less sufficient for you ? " Fear not," is his word to every faithful follower. " I am the first and the lasL I am he that liveth and was dead ;and behold I am alive for evermore. Amen and have the keys of death and of hell." And will you not commit yourself to Him in whose heart is such love, in whose hands is such power?

"Death is a theme of mighty import, and every variety of eloquence has been exhausted on the magnitude of its desolations. There is not a place where human beings congregate together, that does not, in the fleeting history of its inmates, give the lesson of their mortality. Is it a house ? Death enters unceremoniously there, and with rude hand tears asunder the dearest of our sympathies. Is it a town ? Every year Death breaks up its families, and the society of our early days is fast melting away. Is it a church ? The aspect of the congregation is changing perpetually ; and in a little time, another people will enter these walls, and another minister will speak to them. Our fathers, who moved their little hour on this very theatre, were as active and noisy as we' the loud laugh of festivity was heard in their dwellings, and in the busy occupations of their callings, but* where are they now ? They are where we shall soon follow them ; they have gone to sleep but it is the sleep of death.

" Death carries to our observation all the immutability of a general law. We cannot reverse the process of nature, nor bid her mighty elements to retire. But is there no higher authority no power that can grapple with this mighty conqueror, and break his tyranny ? Yes. True, we never saw that Being; but the records of past ages inform us of the extraordinary visitor who lighted on these realms, where Death had reigned so long in all the triumphs of extended empire. Wonderful enterprise ! He came to destroy Death! Vast undertaking! At the coming of that mighty Saviour, the heavens broke silence music was heard from their canopy, and it came from a congregation of living voices, which sung the praises of God, and made them fall in articulate language on human ears. The disciples gave up all for lost, when they saw the champion of their hopes made the victim of the very mortality which he promised to destroy. He entered

'That undiscovered country, from whose bourne No traveller e'er returns."

" But he did. He broke asunder the mighty barriers of the grave ; he entered, and he reanimated that body which expired on the cross, and, by the most striking of all testimonies, he has given us to know that he hath fought against the law of Death, and hath carried it. He has not abolished temporal death ; it still reigns with unmitigated violence, and swe'eps off each successive generation. Death still lays us in the grave, but it cannot chain us there to everlasting forgetfulness : it puts its cold hand upon every one of us ; but a power higher than death will lift it off, and reanimate those forms. The burying-ground has been called the land of silence the Sabbath bell is no longer heard by its slumbering inhabitants ; yet shall the sound of the last trumpet enter the loneliness of their dwelling, and be heard through death's remotest caverns ; and this mortal, these mouldering bones, these skeletons, and fragments of humanity, shall put on glorious immortality." 

Have you been called, in the inscrutable providence of God, to part with near and dear friends? And have they left behind an evidence that they loved the Lord Jesus Christ ? Consider, for a moment, the happy change which they have experienced, and you will realize their gain. Here, they may never have been clothed with the honors of office; but there they are kings and priests unto God . and the Lamb. Here, they may have possessed uncertain and unsatisfying riches ; but there they have an inheritance incorruptible, undefiled and unfading. Here below they were strangers and pilgrims, having no continuing city ; but now they have gone home to that glorious city which God hath prepared for them ; they are fellow-citizens with the saints in the heavenly Zion. Here, they dwelt in a frail, miserable tenement of clay ; but now they have " a building of God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens." Here, their vision of divine things was limited and obscure; but now they see God face to face ; they see Jesus as he is, and behold with wonder and adoration the triumphs of his cross the glories of his crown. How clear is their vision now. How extensive their prospect of eternal things. Here they were disquieted with doubts and fears respecting the final trial of their faith ; but these have passed away like the momentary, causeless anxieties and imaginary dangers of a dream. They have awakened in eternity and are safe. They had their trials, but these are ended ; they had their pains, and fears, and tears ; their days of languishing, and hour of dying. But all this is over ; " the former things are passed away." They had many dangers, but escaped ; temptations, but they vanquished them ; conflicts, but the warfare is ended, and the victory sure. -^-
They were weak, but received strength sufficient to reach heaven. Their Father chastened them, but their last chastising is over. Their Saviour led them through trying scenes, but the last is ended. The work of faith and labor of love are finished. The patience of hope has endured to the end, and is no longer needed. Satan tried all his arts to undo them, and was baffled. The world employed all its snares, yet all are escaped. Sin made all its assaults, yet all are overcome.

Blessed was the day when they were brought to the Saviour's feet, more blessed that, when they landed in the skies, and began to sing, " Not unto us, O Lord, not unto us, but to thy name be the glory."

And shall we meet and recognize these dear departed friends, amid the glories of the upper temple ? When the weeping parent asks, in agony, where is my child ? nature and philosophy only echo back the question with a more despairing emphasis. Revelation replies, " It is well with the child." Then why may not parents and children, brothers and sisters, redeemed through a Saviour's blood, unite once more in the social circle, and send up their anthems of praise, for being brought together to that state of glory ? " Love never faileth," not even when faith is lost in sight, and hope in fruition. In Heaven, the love of God, and the love of our neighbor, will be our highest duty, our highest privilege, our highest joy. And so it will be in reference to those endearments which now constitute the chief charm of life ; they will be purified, strengthened and perpetuated. From the who e theme, it appears abundantly evident that the Bible permits us to hope that we shall know our friends in Heaven; that all those " who shall be accounted worthy to obtain that world, and the resurrection from the dead," will be reunited to, and associated with, those whom they knew and loved in this life, and thus contribute to each other's delight in that land of perpetual blessedness and unfading joy.

If it be such a pleasure to take sweet counsel together here, and to " walk to the house of God in company," what must it be to join the same society of pious friends in the temple above ? In the language of another, " I can hold no sympathy with that stern, gloomy mood of theological teaching which tells us Peabodythat our affection for our kindred and friends . ought to be here, and will be in heaven completely merged in our love , for God and for man in general. Such is not the lesson which we might learn from our own growth in piety. Our domestic affections increase in intensity and purity with the growth of our love to God. No families are so closely and tenderly united by mutual affectionr as those where the spirit of heaven is shed abroad in every heart. A home where perfect love reigns, is a laboratory of those kind and devout affections which go up to God, and range round the universe. Nor can we forget that he who dwelt in the bosom of the Father, and shed his reconciling blood for the whole family of man, was a son, a brother, and a friend that he wept at the grave of Lazarus that he had a favorite disciple that his dying eyes sought out his mother. The soul has, indeed, an indefinite capacity of loving; but it has not an infinite range of knowledge or power of acquaintance. In heaven, we shall, no doubt, love every child
of God ; but we cannot know all alike, or be equally intimate vwith all." And if we are to associate at all^with redeemed spirits, as we know we shall, if there is to be in heaven the most perfect communion of saints, as we are equally assured, then is it not reasonable that this association, this communion, will be first with those whom we knew and loved on earth, to whom our hearts were closely linked ; who with the same opportunities and means of grace as ourselves, have been disciplined in the same school, and, if I may use the expression, had their spiritual affections and virtues cast in the same mould ? From the very finiteness of our natures, we must have our peculiar associates and friends ; and who so likely to stand in that relation as those who were nurtured at the same family altar ? This community of joys and sorrows in their previous state of probation, would naturally attract them together in heaven, and bind together as kindred spirits. And we can easily conceive how much such an union would tend ':o enhance their bliss.