Unwilling Discipline

“He doth not afflict willingly, nor grieve the chilJrea of men.” — Lam. iii. S3.

II our seasons of trial, when under some inscrutable dispensation, how apt is the murmuring thought to rise in our hearts — All tilings are against me f Might not this overwhelming blow have been spared? Might not this dark cloud, which has shadowed my heart and my home with sadness, have been averted? Might not the accompaniments of my trial have been less severe — ‘’’- Surely the Lord liaili for gotten to he gracious V

Nay, these afflictions are errands of mercy in disguise! — “iZe afflicteth nit willingly There is nothing capricious or arbitrary about thy God’s dealings. Unutterable tenderness is the character of all His allotments I The world may wound bj unkindness; — trusted friends may become treacberous; — a brother may speak with vmnecessary barsbness and severity; but the Lord is” abundant in goodness and in truth.” He appoints no needless pang When be appears like Joseph to “speak roughly there are gentle undertones of love. The stern accents are assumed, because He has precious lessons that could not otherwise have been taught I

Ah! be assured there is some deep necessity in all He does. In our calendars of sorrow we may put this luminous mark against every trying hour, “//! was needed T Some redundant branch in the tree required pruning. Some wheat required to be cast overboard to lighten the ship and avert further disaster Mourning one! — He might have dealt far otn erwise with thee! He might have cut thet down as a fruitless, worthless cumberer! Uo might have abandoned thee to drift, disowned and unpiloted on the rocks of destruction; — joined to thine idols. He might have left thee “alone” to settle on thy lees, and forfeit thine

62 THE BOW IN TnE CLOUD.

eternal bliss! But He loved thee better. It was kindness, infinite kindness, wliicli blighted thy fairest blossoms, and hedged up thy way with thorns. “Without this hedge of thorns,” says Richard Baxter, ‘’ on the right hand and on the left, we should hardly be able to keep che way to heaven.”

We, in our blind unbelief, may speak of trials we imagine might have been spared — chastisements that are unnecessarily severe. But the day is coming when every step of the Lord’s procedure will be vindicated; when we shall own and recognize each separate experience of sorrow to have been an unspeakably precious and important period in the history of the soul. Yes! — child of God. The messenger of affliction has an olive-branch in one hand — a love-token plucked from the bowers of paradise — and in the other, a chalice miuTglcd by One too loving and gracious to insert one needless ingredient of sorrow! Remember, every drop of wrath in that cup was exhausted by a surety-Saviour. In taking it into thy hand, be it thine to extract support

UKWILLIXa DISCIPLINE. 6S

and consolation from -what so mightily sustained a Greater Sufferer in a more awful hour: — This cup which thou givest me to drinh shall I not drinh itV