. These troublesome guests were busiest
in the night season, haunting his mind with strange pictures of
disasters, and with suggestions touching the arbitrary power of God,
whom he feared when the thought of him was present, but did not love.
"Whom He will He setteth up, and whom He will He casteth down." Doubt
and Distrust revived this warning in his memory, and seeing that it
gave his heart a throb of pain, they set it close to his eyes, so that,
for a time, he could see nothing else. Thus, night after night, these
guests troubled his peace, often driving slumber from his eyelids until
the late morning watches. If there had been in his heart that true
faith in God which believes in him as doing all things well, Doubt and
Distrust might never have gained an entrance. But he had trusted in
himself; had believed himself equal to the task of creating his own
prosperity--had been, in common phrase, the architect of his own
fortunes. And now just as he was pluming himself on success, in crept
Doubt and Distrust with their alarming suggestions, and he was unable
to cast them out.

Affections, whether evil or good, are social in their character, and
obey social laws. They do not like to dwell alone, and therefore seek
congenial friendships. They draw to themselves companions of like
quality, and are not satisfied until they rule a man as to all the
powers of his mind.

In the case of Markland, Envy made room for her twin-sister,
Detraction; Ill-will, Jealousy, Unkindness, and a teeming brood of
their malevolent kindred crowded into his heart, possessing its
chambers, ere a warning reached him of their approach. Is there rest or
peace for a man with such guests in his bosom?

Doubt and Distrust only heralded the coming of Fear, Anxiety,
Solicitude, Suspicion, Despondency, Foreboding. Markland had only to
open his eyes and look around him, to see, on every hand, the unsightly
wrecks of palaces once as fair to the eye as that which he had raised
with such labor and forethought, and as he contemplated these, Doubt,
Distrust, and their companions, filled his mind with alarming thoughts,
and so oppressed him with a sense of insecurity that, at times, he saw
the advancing shadows of misfortune on his path.

Thus it was with Markland at fifty. He had all good as to the externals
of life, yet was he a miserable man, and, worse than all, he felt
himself growing more and more unhappy as the years increased. Was there
no remedy for