The practical bearings of our subjects hinge chiefly on this; we are to confide in the Lord; lean upon his great arm; and look to Him, with the assurance that although He leads us by a way that we know not, nevertheless He is leading us aright; and if we trust to Him, and do His will, He will finally bring us to heaven.

Casting our eyes from one extreme of the Lord’s vast dominions to the other, we find the same Divine Providence everywhere operating and operative.  The angels of heaven, from the highest to the lowest, are continually led by the Lord in paths that they have not known; darkness is made light before them, and crooked things straight.  Nevertheless they are not led into infinite good nor infinite delight.  For this would be impossible.  But constantly they are led into a higher degree of good than they would naturally choose; and they are defended from evil into which they would naturally subside.  So also it is with us.

Hence we may rest assured, that however meagre may be the good we experience, it is vaster by far than we should inherit, if we had been permitted to carry out our own plans and to have our own way in those numerous particulars in which we have been frustrated in our plans and disappointed in our hopes.

THE IVY IN THE DUNGEON.

  THE ivy in a dungeon grew,
  Unfed by rain, uncheered by dew;
  Its pallid leaflets only drank
  Cave-moistures foul, and odours dank.

  But through the dungeon-grating high
  There fell a sunbeam from the sky;
  It slept upon the grateful floor
  In silent gladness evermore.

  The ivy felt a tremor shoot
  Through all its fibres to the root;
  It felt the light, it saw the ray,
  It strove to blossom into day.

  It grew, it crept, it pushed, it clomb—­
  Long had the darkness been its home;
  But well it knew, though veiled in night,
  The goodness and the joy of light.

  Its clinging roots grew deep and strong;
  Its stem expanded firm and long;
  And in the currents of the air
  Its tender branches flourished fair.

  It reached the beam—­it thrilled—­it curled—­
  It blessed the warmth that cheers the world;
  It rose towards the dungeon bars—­
  It looked upon the sun and stars.

  It felt the life of bursting Spring,
  It heard the happy sky-lark sing. 
  It caught the breath of morns and eves,
  And wooed the swallow to its leaves.

  By rains, and dews, and sunshine fed,
  Over the outer wall it spread;
  And in the day-beam waving free,
  It grew into a steadfast tree.

  Upon that solitary place,
  Its verdure threw adorning grace. 
  The mating birds became its guests,
  And sang its praises from their nests.

  Wouldst know the moral of the rhyme? 
  Behold the heavenly light! and climb. 
  To every dungeon comes a ray
  Of God’s interminable day.