no good? Has prayer neither been offered in truth, nor answered in
love? Has all been fruitless and dead? Oh, let us beware of the
falsehood of denying spiritual mercies bestowed on us by God! "If I
should say I know Him _not_, I should be a liar like unto you,"
said our Lord. The graces of the Spirit, the least of them, are the
earnests of eternal good, the assurances of enjoying the whole fulness
of God.

BUT YOU HAVE SORROWS TO REMEMBER. Alas! we are in little danger of
forgetting these. The sunny days may come and go unheeded, but the
dark ones are all registered. We cannot forget that "the Lord taketh
away;" but why do we not as vividly remember that the same Lord
"_giveth_" and that in both cases we have equal cause, did we only
see it, to exclaim, "Blessed be the name of the Lord!" I ask not what
these sorrows have been. Enough that they are very real to you, or to
those who are bound up with you in the bundle of life. It was a weary
time to you in the wilderness, and it is well to remember that portion
of the way in which you have been led, which was as a dark valley and
shadow of death.

AND WHAT OF SIN? That is what makes it so hard for us to remember the
past journey. The backslidings and falls in the way; the careless
straggling behind; the lazy resting-places; the slow progress; the
careless devotions; the misspent days of the Lord; the opportunities
lost of doing good to others, or of receiving good ourselves, through
procrastination, sloth, and indifference; the manifestation of our
unloving and selfish spirit towards our brother, in envy, bad temper,
backbiting, jealousy, or unguarded speech; the little done or given
for God's work on earth, in charity to the poor, or to "our own flesh"
who required assistance;--the everything, in short, which deters
memory from looking steadily at what it would if it could blot out for
ever from its records! Yet it is of great importance that this portion
of the journey should be remembered; although it is not the way in
which God led us, but which we chose for ourselves in our ignorance
and self-will. Ponder it well! Recall what your conduct has been in
avoiding temptation; how you have made use of the means of grace; the
days in which you may have lived without God, or if you prayed to Him,
when you did so as a form, without any real faith or love; the days in
which you have been so presumptuous as to live without "faith in the
Son of God," and to meet trials, temp