partly come from our bodies, they have a real
effect, which cannot be mistaken, on our souls; and they may have a
good effect on us, if we choose. I believe that we shall find, that
even if they do come from ill health and weak nerves, what starts
them is--that we are dissatisfied with ourselves. We feel something
wrong, not merely in our bodies, but in our souls, our characters;
and then we try to lay the blame on the world around us, and shift
it off ourselves; saying in our hearts, 'I should do very well, if
other people, and things about me, would only let me:' but the more
we try to shift off the blame, the less peace we have. Nothing
mends matters less than throwing the blame on others. That is
plain. Other people we cannot mend; they must mend themselves.
Circumstances about us we cannot mend; God must mend them. So, as
long as we throw the blame on them, we cannot return to a cheerful
and hopeful frame of mind. But the moment we throw the blame on
ourselves, that moment we can have hope, that moment we can become
cheerful again; for whatsoever else we cannot mend, we can at least
mend ourselves. Now a man may forget this in health. He may be put
out and unhappy for a while: but when his good spirits return, he
does not know why. Things have not improved; but, somehow, they do
not affect him as they did before. Now this is not wrong. God
forbid! In such a world as this, one is glad to see a man rid of
sadness by any means which is not wrong. Better anything than that
a poor soul should fret himself to death.

But it may be very good for a man now and then not to forget; to be
kept low, whether by ill health or by any other cause, till he faces
fairly his own state, and finds out honestly what does fret him and
torment him.

And then, I believe, his experience will generally be like David's.--
'As long as I kept silence, my bones waxed old through my groaning
all the day long.'

Think over these words, I beg you. I chose them for my text, just
because they seem to me to contain all that I wish you to
understand. As long as the Psalmist held his peace--as long as he
did not confess his sin to God--all seemed to go wrong with him. He
fretted his very heart away. The moment that he made a clean breast
to God, peace and cheerfulness came back to him.

This psalm may speak of some really great sin which he had
committed. But that makes all the more strongly for us. For if he
got forgiveness f