In the agony and anguish of His sufferings He yet can exclaim,
"My joy I leave with thee"; and in the lowest vale of His shame can
calmly discourse on peace. The reason? Do you ask the question? It
is found in His goodness. He is good, and seeks the good of all; and
goodness crowns His lacerated brow with joy. This Satan sacrificed
in his fall; this he antagonizes with, in his dreary career, and so
remains in the eyes of all ages the monument of melancholy gloom.
Thus, also, is it with man, whose haughtiness thrusts him into evil.
He is morose and wretched, crusht beneath a burden of we, which weighs
the eyelids down with weariness and the heart with care, and
which constrains him to curse the hour of his birth. Next to the
grief-crowned angel, there is no more pitiable object in all God's
fair creation than a human soul tumbled by its own besotted pride into
sin and shame. "How is the gold become dim! how is the most fine gold
changed!" aye, changed to dross, which the foot spurns, and which the
whirlwind scatters to the midnight region of eternity.

In view of these reflections, we can understand the stress laid by the
inspired writers on the grace of humility. We are exhorted to be like
Jesus, who was meek and lowly in heart; and we are commanded to esteem
others better than ourselves. These admonitions are not designed to
cultivate a servile or an abject spirit, but to promote a wholesome
sense of our own limitations, weaknesses and dependence. They would
foster such a state of mind as will receive instruction, as will lean
on the Almighty, and recognize the worthiness and rights of all. Just
as the flower has to pass its season entombed in the darkness of its
calyx before it spreads forth its radiant colors and breathes its
perfume, so the soul must veil itself in the consciousness of its own
ignorance and sinfulness before it will be able to expand in true
greatness, or shed around it the aroma of pure goodness. Crossing the
prairies recently between this city and St. Louis, I noticed that the
trees were nearly all bowed in the direction of the northeast. As our
strongest winds blow from that quarter, it was natural to inquire why
they were not bent to the southwest. The explanation given was, that
the south winds prevail in the time of sap, when the trees are supple
with life and heavy with foliage, and consequently, that they yield
before them. But when the winter comes they are hard and firm, rigid
and stiff,