w
in the Middle Ages. We can not think that the sect of Flagellants, who
whipped themselves till the blood ran into their shoes, and pulled
uncommonly long faces, were the best masters of philosophy. "True
godliness is cheerful as the day," wrote Cowper, himself melancholy-mad
enough; and we are to remember that the precept of the Founder of our
faith, that when we fast we are to anoint our countenances and not to
seem to fast, enjoins a certain liveliness of face. Sydney Smith, when a
poor curate at Foster-le-Clay, a dreary, desolate place, wrote: "I am
resolved to like it, and to reconcile myself to it, which is more manly
than to fancy myself above it, and to send up complaints by the post of
being thrown away, or being desolated, and such like trash." And he
acted up to this; said his prayers, made his jokes, did his duty, and,
Upon fine mornings, used to draw up the blinds of his parlor, open the
window, and "glorify the room," as he called the operation, with
sunshine. But all the sunshine without was nothing to the sunshine
within the heart. It was that which made him go through life so bravely
and so well; it is that, too, which renders his life a lesson to us all.

We must also remember that the career of a poor curate is not the most
brilliant in the world. That of an apprentice boy has more fun in it;
that of a milliner's girl has more merriment and fewer depressing
circumstances. To hear always the same mistrust of Providence, to see
poverty, to observe all kinds of trial, to witness death-bed
scenes--this is not the most enlivening course of existence, even if a
clergyman be a man of mark and of station. But there was one whose
station was not honored, nay, even by some despised, and who had sorer
trials than Sydney Smith. His name is well known in literature; and his
writings and his example still teach us in religion. This was Robert
Hall, professor of a somber creed in a somber flat country, as flat and
"deadly-lively," as they say, as need be. To add to difficulties and
troubles, the minister was plagued with about as painful an illness as
falls to the lot of humanity to bear. He had fought with infidelity and
doubt; he had refused promotion, because he would do his duty where it
had pleased God to place him; next he had to show how well he could bear
pain. In all his trials he had been cheerful, forcible, natural, and
straightforward. In this deep one he preserved the same character.
Forced to throw hi