richest blessings. The light of God
can shine on your souls through them. Since then you have such sacred
memorials associated with them, and know by experience that
fellowship with God is possible in them, do you remain where you are,
and keep hold of the God who has visited you in them.'

If once, in accordance with the thoughts already suggested, our minds
have, by God's help, been brought into something like real, living
fellowship with Him, and we have attained the wisdom that pierces
through the external to the Almighty will that underlies all its mazy
whirl, then why should we care about shifting our place? Why should
we trouble ourselves about altering these varying events, since each
in its turn is a manifestation of His mind and will; each in its turn
is a means of discipline for us; and through all their variety a
single purpose works, which tends to a single end--'that we should be
partakers of His holiness'?

And that is the one point of view from which we can bear to look upon
the world and not be utterly bewildered and over-mastered by it.
Calmness and central peace are ours; a true appreciation of all
outward good and a charm against the bitterest sting of outward evils
are ours; a patient continuance in the place where He has set us is
ours--when by fellowship with Him we have learned to look upon our
work as primarily doing His will, and upon all our possessions and
conditions primarily as means for making us like Himself. Most men
seem to think that they have gone to the very bottom of the thing
when they have classified the gifts of fortune as good or evil,
according as they produce pleasure or pain. But that is a poor,
superficial classification. It is like taking and arranging books by
their bindings and flowers by their colours. Instead of saying, 'We
divide life into two halves, and we put there all the joyful, and
here all the sad, for that is the ruling distinction'--let us rather
say, 'The whole is one, because it all comes from one purpose, and it
all tends towards one end. The only question worth asking in regard
to the externals of our life is--How far does each thing help me to
be a good man? how far does it open my understanding to apprehend
Him? how far does it make my spirit pliable and plastic under His
touch? how far does it make me capable of larger reception of greater
gifts from Himself? what is its effect in preparing me for that world
beyond?' Is there any other greater, more s