their last brave struggle and you will feel as though your heart's blood might well up to your eyes and you could shed tears of blood for very pity. And pity is akin to love, for he who can and does feel a hearty and practical pity for a suffering fellowcreature is very near to the love and the kingdom ol God. From nothing else can we derive such solid spiritual comfort, such an uplifting of our whole being, as from an earnest effort to relieve the unfortunate. When a man, his heart swelling with sympathy, hastens to comfort sorrow or relieve affliction, he is truly God-like. Bearing in, his soul the image of God, he presents in his outward demeanor a likeness as perfect as may be of the Christ sympathizing with sorrow and healing the diseased. Nay more, his charity has Christ Himself for its object, " for," says He, " whatsoever you do unto them you do likewise unto Me." Tribulation, therefore, is but a form of God's mercy. Spiritual ills and spiritual death render men unclean, but worldly trials, on the contrary, tend to ennoble and to sanctify. They are blessings in disguise, affording us, as they do, opportunities for atonement, detaching us from the world, evoking all that is purest and best in our natures, and, when sin has been done, sending us like frightened children back into God's arms crying: "Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me."
A clean heart, a prayerful soul, a generous hand. In this order, Brethren, we agreed to consider these three, but alas! it was an error, we deceived ourselves. The sinless can afford to confine their
