during the summer that has passed, as you walked along the
sea-shore, among the woods, across the green fields, up the glen,
over the moorlands, or gazed on the glorious landscape from the windy
summits of the old hills. Health of body and of mind!--Oh, common,
most blessed, yet, alas! how often unnoticed, gifts of God!

Have you received other mercies connected with your _temporal_
well-being? Perhaps at the beginning of the year (as at the beginning,
maybe, of many a year before) things looked very dark for you and
yours. Yet "hitherto" God has helped you. You may never have had more
light on your path than what enabled you to take the next step with
safety, but that light has never failed you. God has been pleased thus
to discipline many of His people. You may, possibly, remember also
peculiar deliverances:--from sickness; from money difficulties; from
bodily dangers; with unexpected additions to your means of comfort and
of usefulness.

Again, call to remembrance your _social_ mercies, which have come more
indirectly through others. Think of the relations and friends who have
been spared to you! Begin with your dearest, and pass on from those
to others less closely allied, but still most valued, and number them
all, _if you can_. Do any remain whom death threatened to remove
during the past year? Have any, have many, been a comfort to you?
Have your anxieties regarding the temporal or spiritual well-being of
others been lessened? Have beloved ones been given to you during the
year--such as a wife, a husband, or a child? If God hath led you in
this way during the past year, it ought indeed to be remembered!

And if any of those Christian friends have fallen asleep in Jesus,
then it is a great mercy to know most certainly that they are your
friends still, and your _best_ friends too; and you should thank God
for the happiness which they now enjoy, and which you hope to share
with them.

But you have other mercies to remember besides these. Surely much has
been done for your spiritual good by your Father in heaven. He has
shewn patience, forbearance, and long-suffering towards you; and has
been teaching you during these past months by faithful ministers or
faithful friends; and has been striving within you to bring you
to Himself, and to keep you there. Have you enjoyed no peace in
believing, nor gained any victories over self and sin? Have you
possessed no more calm and habitual fellowship with God? Have you done