agony, to the kind friend who is striving to pour the balm of
consolation in the wounded heart.

"But I have known worse," is the reply.

"Worse! never, never; no one could suffer more keenly than I now do,
and live."

In vain the friend reasons; sorrow is always more or less selfish;
it absorbs all other passions; it consecrates itself to tears and
lamentations, and the bereaved one feels alone; utterly alone in the
world, and of all mankind the most forsaken. Every heart knoweth its
own bitterness, and there is a canker spot on every human plant in
God's garden. Some are blighted and withered, ready to fall from the
stalk; others are blooming while a blight is at the root.

What right have you to say, because you droop and languish, that
your neighbour, with a fair exterior and upright mien, is all that
his appearance indicates? What evidence have you that because you
suffer from want, and your neighbour rides in his carriage, that he
is, therefore, more abundantly blessed, more contentedly happy than
you?

As you walk through the streets of costly and beautiful mansions,
you feel vaguely, that, associated with so much of beauty, of
magnificence and ease, there must be absolute content, enviable
freedom, unmixed pleasure, and constant happiness. How deplorably
mistaken. Here, where gold and crimson drape the windows, is mortal
sickness; there, where the heavy shutters fold over the rich plate
glass, lies shrouded death. Here, is blasted reputation, there, is