the path, and all the dark valleys through which it has led, the
rugged places it has passed over, or the many lofty hills up which it
has ascended,--how endless, how perplexing does it appear! If, again,
we try to measure the various powers which have helped to make us what
we are, or to weigh the number and relative importance of all the
things which have combined to produce the present result of character
within, and of circumstances without us,--how soon are we lost amidst
the mass of the infinite items which make up the sum of even our
little history. How inadequate are all our attempts to solve the
problems without number which every year suggests. _Why_, for example,
has this or that happened? Wherefore this sorrow or that joy?--why
such changes of place or of fortune?--why the loss of old friends or
the gift of new ones?--why--But the questions are endless, and
never can be answered till judgment. It is true, that we are often
privileged to _see_ very clearly the reason of many of Christ's
dealings with us here. He shews us His _ways_ as well as His
_acts_--treating us as "friends" who "know what their Lord doeth." The
wheel of Providence often makes its revolutions in so short a period
that we see the whole movement. It was thus in the case of Abraham.
The mystery of God's command was resolved after three days on Mount
Moriah. Thus, too, the darkness of family grief and of a distant
Saviour, which brooded over the household of Bethany, was dispelled,
and vanished before bright sunshine, at the cry, "Lazarus, come
forth!" But it is not always thus; and though it would be so more
frequently if we waited more patiently upon God and considered His
ways, yet, at best, but a small fraction of our life is understood
here. Moreover, our own history is so interlaced with the history of
others, that what is more properly theirs, in some degree is ours
also. Can Moses, for instance, yet fully comprehend his own life in
its relation to the Jewish nation, whose fate is still involved in