often gives us pain, by presenting to our wishes such felicity as is beyond our reach, and our ignorance is such, that we often pursue, with eagerness, what either we cannot attain, or what, if we could attain it, disappoints our hopes; that in the dead calm of solitude we are insufficient to our own contentment, and that, when weariness of ourselves impels us to society, we are often ill received; when we perceive that small offences may raise enemies, but that great benefits will not always gain us friends; when we find ourselves courted by interest, and forsaken by ingratitude; when those who love us fall daily into the grave, and we see ourselves considered as aliens and strangers by the rising generation; it seems that we must by necessity turn our thoughts to another life, where, to those who are well prepared for their departure, there will no longer be pain or sorrow.
Of the troubles incident to mankind, every one is best acquainted with his own share. The miseries of others may attract, but his own force his attention; and as man is not afflicted but for good purposes, that attention, if well regulated, will contribute to purify his heart.
We are taught in the history of Adam's fall, that trouble was the consequence of sin, and that misery came into the world by disobedience to the Divine law. Sin and vexation are still so closely united, that he who traces his troubles to their source will commonly find that his faults have produced them; and he is then to consider his sufferings as the mild admonitions of his heavenly Father, by which he is summoned to timely penitence. He is so far from having any reason to repine, that he may draw comfortable hopes of pardon and acceptance, and may say, with the highest reason, "It is good for me that I have been afflicted."
It is, however, possible that trouble may, sometimes, be the consequence of virtue. In times of persecution this has often happened. Confessors of the truth have been punished by exile, imprisonment, tortures, and death. The faithful have been driven from place to place, and those
