ty front. But as "it smiles in
sunshine, so it bends in storm," trustful and obedient, yet firm and
brave, and nothing shall overwhelm it.

I trust I have succeeded in impressing upon you the difference between
Christian resignation and mere hardihood, or indifference. Resignation
is born of discipline, and lives only in a truly religious soul. We
have seen that it is not incompatible with tenderness; nay, it is more
valuable, because it springs up in natures that have thus suffered and
wept. To see them become calm and pass with unfaltering step through
the valley of affliction, when, but now, they shrunk from it, is a proof
that God indeed has strengthened them, and that they have had communion
with him. The unbeliever's stubbornness may endure to the end, but no
human power could inspire this sudden and triumphant calmness.

And even when the crisis is past, when the sorrow is sealed, it is not
rebellion to sigh and weep. Our Father has made us so. He has opened the
springs of love that well up within us, and can we help mourning when
they turn to tears and blood? He has made very tender the ties that bind
us to happiness, and can we fail to shrink and suffer when they are cut
asunder? When we have labored long in the light of hope, and lo! It goes
out in darkness, and the blast of disappointment rushes upon us, can we
help being sad? Can the mother prevent weeping when she kisses the lips
of her infant that shall prattle to her no more; when she presses its
tiny hand, so cold and still,-the little hand that has rested upon her
bosom and twined in her hair; and even when it is so sweet and beautiful
that she could strain it to her heart forever, it is laid away in the
envious concealment of the grave? Can the wife, or the husband, help
mourning, when the partner and counsellor is gone,-when home is made
very desolate because the familiar voice sounds not there, and the
cast-off garment of the departed is strangely vacant, and the familiar
face has vanished, never more to return? Can the child fail to lament,
when the father, the mother,-the being who nurtured him in infancy,
who pillowed his head in sickness, who prayed for him with tears on
his sinful wandering, who ever rejoiced in his joy and wept in
his sorrows,-can he fail to weep when that venerable form lies all
enshrouded, and the door closes upon it, and the homestead is vacant,
and the link that bound him to childhood is in the grave? Say, can we
check the