But how can they be at peace, when there is no peace in them?  If they will do wrong; if they will quarrel; if they will defraud each other; if they will give way to the lusts and passions which war within them:  how can they be at peace?  They are like a troubled sea, says Isaiah, when it cannot rest, which casts up mire and dirt; and there is no peace to them.  It is not God who casts up the mire and dirt.  It is they who cast it up.  God has not made them restless:  but they themselves, with their pride, selfishness, violent passions, longings after this and that.  God has not made them foul and dirty, but they themselves, with their own foul words and foul deeds, which keep them from being at peace with themselves, because they are ashamed of them all the while; which keep them from being at peace with their neighbours; which make them hate and fear their neighbours, because they know that their neighbours do not respect them, or are afraid of their neighbours finding them out.

What says brave, plain-spoken St. James?—­’Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God:  for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man.’  ’From whence come wars and fightings among you?  Come they not hence, even of your lusts that war in your members?  Ye lust, and have not:  ye kill, and desire to have, and cannot obtain:  ye fight and war, yet ye have not, because ye ask not.’

But as for God, he says, from him comes nothing but good.  Do not fancy anything else.  ’Do not err, my beloved brethren.  Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.  Of His own will begat He us with the word of truth, that we should be a kind of first-fruits of His creatures.’

My friends, all these things were written for our examples.  God grant that we may lay the lesson to heart.  A dark night may come to any one of us, a night of darkness upon darkness, and sorrow upon sorrow, and bad luck upon bad luck; till we know not what is going to happen next; and are ready to say with David—­’All thy waves and thy billows are gone over me;’ and with Hezekiah—­’I reckoned till morning, that, as a lion, so will he break all my bones:  from day even to night wilt thou make an end of me.’

God grant, that before that day comes, we may have so learnt to know God, as to know that the billows are God’s billows, and the storms his storms; and, after a while, not to be afraid, though all earthly hope and help seem swept away.  God grant that when trouble comes after trouble, we may be able to see that our Father in heaven is only dealing with us as he dealt with those poor Jews; that he is all the while saying ‘Peace!’ to us, whether we be near him, or far off from him; and is ready to heal us, the moment that he has worked in us the broken and contrite heart.  And we may trust him that he will do it.  With him one day is as a