kind purpose in the Creator. But it is also true, that every organ of the body, in consequence of the delicacy of its structure, and its susceptibility of influences from abroad, becomes an inlet of acute pain. It is a remarkable fact, that we know the inward organs chiefly by the pain they have given. The science of anatomy has grown almost wholly out of the exposure of the frame to suffering; and what an amount of suffering springs from this source! A single nerve may thrill us with agony. Sleep, food, friends, books, all may be robbed of their power to interest, by the irritation of a little bunch of fibres, which the naked eye can hardly trace. After the study of ages, the science of medicine has not completed the catalogue of diseases; and how little can its ministrations avert their progress, or mitigate their pains! Undoubtedly this class of pains may be much diminished by a wise self-restraint ; but the body, inheriting disease from a long line of ancestors, and brought into conflicts with the mighty elements around it, must still be the seat of much suffering. These elements, how grand, how expressive of God's majesty and goodness; yet how fearful! What avails the strength of the body against thunders, whirlwinds, fierce waves, and fiercer flames, against "the pestilence which walketh in darkness," or the silent exhalation which wasteth at noon-day. Thus pain comes from God's provisions for the animal frame; and how much comes from the spirit, and from the very powers and affections which make the glory of our nature! Our reason, how is it darkened by prejudice instilled in early years; how often is it called to decide amidst conflicting and nearly balanced arguments; how often does its light fail, in the most critical moments of life! How do we suffer from wrong judgments which we had not means to correct! How often does this high power sympathize with the suffering body, and, under nervous disease, sometimes undergo total eclipse! Then our Love, the principle, which thirsts, burns for companionship, sympathy, confidence, how often is it repelled by coldness, or wounded by neglect, or tortured by inconstancy! Sometimes its faith in virtue is shaken by the turpitude of those to whom it has given its trust. And when true love finds true requital, the uncertainty of life mixes trembling with its joy, and bereavement turns it into anguish. There are still deeper pains, those of the conscience, especially when it wakes from long sleep, when it is startled by new revelation of slighted duties, of irreparable wrongs to man, of base

unfaithfulness to God. The conscience! what misgivings, apprehensions, and piercing self rebuke accompany its ministry, when it first enters on earnest warfare with temptation and passion! Thus suffering comes to us through and from our whole nature. It cannot be winked out of sight. It cannot be thrust into a subordinate place in the picture of human life. It is the chief burden of history. It is the solemn theme of one of the highest departments of literature, the tragic drama. It gives to fictions their deep interest. It wails through much of our poetry. A large part of human vocations are intended to shut up some of its avenues. It has left traces on every human countenance, over which years have passed. It is to not a few the most vivid recollection of life.

I have thus taken a rapid survey of Life to show you that suffering is not an accident, not something which now and then slides into the order of events, because too unimportant to require provision against its recurrence, but that it is one of the grand features of life, one of the chief ministers of Providence. But all these details of suffering might be spared. There is one simple thought, sufficient of itself to show that suffering is the intention of the Creator. It is this. We are created with a susceptibility of pain and severe pain. This is a part of our nature, as truly as our susceptibility of enjoyment. God has implanted it, and has thus opened in the very centre of our being a fountain of suffering. We carry it within us, and can no more escape it than we can our power of thought. We are apt to throw our pains on outward things as their causes. It is the fire, the sea, the sword, or human enmity which gives us pain. But there is no pain in the fire or the sword, which passes thence into our souls. The pain begins and ends in the soul itself. Outward things are only the occasions. Even the body has no pain in it, which it infuses into the mind. Of itself, it is incapable of suffering. This hand may be cracked, crushed in the rack of the inquisitor, and that burnt in a slow fire; but in these cases it is not the fibres, the blood vessels, the bones of the hand which endure pain. These are merely connected by the will of the Creator with the springs of pain in the soul. Here, here is the only origin and seat of suffering. If God so willed, the gashing of the flesh with a knife, the piercing of the heart with a dagger, might be the occasion of exquisite delight. We know that, in the heat of battle, a wound is not felt, and that men, dying for their faith by instruments

of torture, have expired with triumph on their lips. In these cases, the spring of suffering in the mind is not touched by the lacerations of the body, in consequence of the absorbing action of other principles of the soul. All suffering is to be traced to the susceptibility, the capacity of pain, which belongs to our nature, and which the Creator has implanted ineradicably within us. It is not enough to say, that the elements, or any outward or bodily influences, are the sources of suffering. This is to stop at the surface. The outward agent only springs a mine, a fountain within us. Oh the great deep of suffering in every human breast! Probably most of us have experienced pains more intense than any pleasures we have ever enjoyed. In the present stage of our being, the capacity of agony gets the start of, or is more largely developed, than the capacity of rapturous joy. Our most vehement emotions are those of sorrow; nor is there any way of escaping suffering. Among the most prosperous, the heart often aches, it knows not why. Sighs are heaved from the breast apparently without cause. Every soul has its night as well as its day; and a darkness sometimes gathers over nature and life which must come from within, for nothing abroad has occurred to depress us.

To diminish this weight of suffering is one great end of human toils and cares. A thousand arts are plied to remove outward causes of pain; and how many contrivances are there of amusement and dissipation, to quiet the restlessness, to soothe the irritations, to fill the aching void, which belong to the spirit. But, I apprehend, little has been yet achieved by all this labor; nor can much be done but by a deep working, which statesmen and the busy crowd seldom or never dream of. It is thought indeed, that modern civilization has diminished very much the evils of life. But when we take into the account the immense amount of toil by which our accommodations are accumulated, and the tendencies of comforts and luxuries to soften the spirit, to weaken its self command and increase its sensibility to hardships and exposure, I suspect that our debt is not very great to civilization, considered as the antagonist of physical pain; and as to the sufferings which spring from mental causes, from the conscience, the passions, the affections, we cannot doubt, that as yet they have been vastly heightened by our civilization. Not that I deny, that arts and civilization are great goods; but they prove such, only when they make progress, in union with the higher principles of our nature, only when

they forward and are subordinated to a spiritual regeneration, of which society as yet gives few signs.

vocate.

It may be said, that I have given a dark picture of the government of God; and I may be asked how his goodness is to be vindicated. I reply, that I am less and less anxious to make formal vindications of the goodness of God. It needs no adIt will take care of itself. In spite of clouds, men, who have eyes, believe in the sun, and none but the blind can seriously question the Creator's goodness. We hear indeed of men led into doubts on this point by their sufferings; but these doubts have generally a deeper source then the evils of life. Such skepticism is a moral disease, the growth of some open or lurking depravity. It is not created, but brought into light, by the pressure of suffering. It is indeed true, that a good man, in seasons of peculiar, repeated, pressing calamities, may fall into dejection and perplexity. His faith may tremble for the moment. The passing cloud may hide the sun. But deliberate, habitual questionings of God's benevolence argue great moral deficiency. Whoever sees the glory and feels within himself the power of disinterested goodness, is quick to recognise it in others, especially in his Creator. He sees in his own love a sign, expression, and communication of Uncreated, Unbounded, Alloriginating Love. The idea of malignity in the Infinite Creator shocks his moral nature, just as a palpable contradiction offends his reason. He repels it with indignation and horror. Suffering has little to do towards creating a settled skepticism. The most skeptical men, the most insensible to God's goodness, the most prone to murmur, may be found among those, who are laden above all others with the goods of life, whose cup overflows with prosperity, and who by an abuse of prosperity have become selfish, exacting, and all alive to inconveniences and privations. These are the cold-hearted and doubting. If I were to seek those, whose conviction of God's goodness is faintest and most easily disturbed, I would seek them in the palace sooner than the hovel. I would go to the luxurious table, to the pillow of ease, to those among us who abound most, to the selfexalting, the self-worshipping, not to the depressed and forsaken. The profoundest sense of God's goodness, which it has been my privilege to witness, I have seen in the countenance, and heard from the lips of the suffering. I have found none to lean on God with such filial trust, as those whom he VOL. XXVIII. -3D S. VOL. X. NO. I. 10

has afflicted. I doubt, indeed, if true gratitude and true confidence ever spring up in the human soul, until it has suffered. A superficial, sentimental recognition of God's goodness may indeed be found among those who have lived only to enjoy. But deep, strong, earnest piety strikes root in the soil which has been broken and softened by calamity. Such, I believe, is the observation of every man who has watched the progress of human character; and therefore I say, that I fear very little the influence of suffering in producing skepticism. Still, virtuous minds are sometimes visited with perplexities, with painful surprize; and in seasons of peculiar calamity, the question is asked with reverence, but still with anxiety, How is it, that so much suffering is experienced under a being of perfect goodness; and such passing clouds are apt to darken us in earlier life, and in the earlier stages of the Christian character. On this account, it is right to seek and communicate such explanations as may be granted us of the ways of God.

One of the most common vindications of divine benevolence is found in the fact, that, much as men suffer, they enjoy more. We are told, that there is a great balance of pleasure over pain, and that it is by what prevails in a system, that we must judge of its author. This view is by no means to be overlooked. It is substantially true. There is a great excess of enjoyment, of present good in life. The pains of sickness may indeed be intenser than the pleasures of health, but health is the rule and sickness the exception. A few are blind, or deaf, or speechless; but almost all men maintain, through the open eye and ear, perpetual communication with outward nature and one another. Some may be broken down with excessive toil; but to the great mass of men, labor is healthful, invigorating, and gives a zest to repose, and to the common blessings of life. We all suffer more or less from our connexion with imperfect fellow creatures; but how much more of good comes to us from our social nature, from the sympathies and kind offices of families, friends, neighbors, than of pain from malignity and wrongs. There is indeed, a great amount of suffering, and there is an intensity in suffering not found in pleasure; and yet, when we take a broad view, we must see a much greater amount of gratification. The world is not a hospital, an almshouse, a dungeon. A beautiful sun shines on it. Flowers and fruits deck its fields. A reviving atmosphere encompasses it, and man has power by arts and commerce to multiply and