2.  As you remember your sorrows, remember not only how you were sustained and comforted under them, but, what is of incomparably more importance, consider how far you have been realising God’s purpose in sending them.  That purpose may have been to perfect you by trial; or to prove your loyalty to Him; or to prevent evil in yourselves and others.  But never forget that the lesson of all lessons is, that we or others should find life, and life eternal—­that is, as I have said, life in the knowledge and in the love of God, which will satisfy and endure for ever; or, if this is already found by us, that we should possess it “more abundantly.”  Now, whatever tends to make us realise that what we often call and think to be “our life” is yet no life—­that money, friends, or earthly enjoyments cannot fill the immortal soul, or be its portion for ever;—­whatever awakes us from this dream and dispels the delusion, and makes us know the excellence and reality of true life in God, must be a blessing of the highest and richest kind.  Yet what has such a tendency to do all this as sorrow, and the very trials which we so much deplore?  The pain is no doubt great—­often agony—­a very cutting off a right hand, or plucking out a right eye; but the gain intended by the operation is incalculable and endless.  Yet, what if all the good is lost through our blindness, ignorance, hardness of heart, pride, self-will, and unbelief?  Alas! alas! if we too “go away sorrowful” from Christ when He threatens to take away our “much riches,” though He does so in order only through this very discipline to induce us to follow Himself, and by the cross to gain life eternal!  Alas! when it can be said of us, “Yet the Lord hath not given you an heart to perceive, and eyes to see, and ears to hear, unto this day; that ye might know that I am the Lord your God.”  And what is their punishment?  “They have forsaken the Lord, they have provoked the Holy One of Israel to anger, they are gone away backward. Why should ye be stricken any more? Ye will revolt more and more!” What a real loss of friends would this be!  For by separating ourselves through unbelief from Christ, we thereby for ever separate ourselves from our friends in Christ, if they are with Him!

Ye who have experienced comfort from good in affliction, bless God!  “O Lord, my strength, my fortress, and my refuge in the day of affliction!” “Bless the Lord, O my soul; and all that is within me, bless His holy name.  Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all His benefits.”  Let the remembrance of the past, also, strengthen your faith for the future.  As you “let your requests be made known to God with prayers and supplication,” do not forget the “thanksgiving” for this will help you henceforth to “be careful for nothing.”  He who has led you out of Egypt, through “the depths,” and across the desert, will never leave you nor forsake you.