of your former self and mind. All this He sees, and knows, and feels; He sees that this trial is necessary, or He would not have sent it; He will fulfil His promise, that the "Holy Ghost will bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever He hath spoken unto you." 115 Be sure that nothing shall be lost. Whatever you want, “for doctrine, for reproof, for instruction, so that you may be edified thereby," that will be brought to your mind, and taught to you. So that often they who feel the most that memory is failing, seem to learn the most freshly and vividly, truths which they perhaps knew before but have forgotten; now they come out afresh, and with a depth, and earnestness, and meaning never perceived before. God Himself is teaching them. Sometimes indeed a truth will come out with · startling clearness, and we feel that we have so received it that we can never forget it; an hour after we cannot even remember what the subject of it was; we make efforts to pursue and overtake it, but in vain. It is not really gone; it is only sunk into our hearts, become a part of ourselves, laid up safely by Him who taught it to us, He will know where it is, and where to direct us to it, when we need it again. Let us "commit the keeping" of our memories, as well as our souls, to Him" as unto a faithful Creator;"7 and as often as the sad thought of want of memory returns, say "It is the will of God;" that alone can silence your murmurings.

7

5 John xiv. 26.

6 2 Tim. iii. 16, 17.

1 Pet. iv. 19

You have a painfully morbid sense of being unable to converse; you feel either that you have subjects apart from all others, or else, that from illness and loneliness, you have lost the power to think and converse and understand; that you can give no pleasure by what you say, and shall but betray the exceeding feebleness of your mind, which you so painfully feel is but the wreck of what it once was.

When you hear conversation, if it is not addressed to you especially, you feel, "This is quite beyond me. O with what deep interest I used to enter into these subjects! I used to understand them; but they seem now as if they were spoken in a foreign language, of which I have scarcely any knowledge. I cannot follow it all; I should but make strange blunders if I joined in it; and if any one asked me what had been the subject, I could but vaguely tell; and yet I used to be so familiar with it!"

This is a peculiarly distressing feeling; and the more it is indulged in and thought of, the stronger it becomes; until, at last, you get to fancy that you cannot even understand the words, and that children's books and talk are all you can attain unto. Yet do not say to your friends that you cannot understand them, and especially not in a murmuring fretful tone; let them go on, you will be sure to glean something from their conversation if you are patient, and not inwardly abstracting yourself, because you cannot bear the supposed humiliation. The best way is at first, when these thoughts arise,

to say at once, “Well, be it so I will just listen, and join in the conversation whenever I can. Something I can understand; and for the rest, if my mind is so gone, who has taken it away? In murmuring, whom am I replying against? It is the will of God."

The same applies to reading aloud. If you are asked by any friend whether you should like to hear reading, you can answer according to your wishes and feeling of ability; but if you are well enough in any degree to join with the family, and they are reading some book, do not ask them to change it, or not to read, merely because you have this feeling of inability to understand, or because a continuous voice annoys you, and prevents all power of attention (which to some sick people is always the case with reading aloud); enter with cheerfulness and willingness into their pleasure, and tell your pain only to Him who sees your heart. Then you will surely have gained by it yourself, in patience, and humility, and charity. Take every opportunity of trying to overcome the great difficulty which you feel in taking an interest in other people's concerns, and the things which interest them. It is a trial common to sickness, but should be earnestly resisted, and may be wonderfully overcome.

WE

IV

The Nearness of Life

HEN first the nearness of life, and yet its unapproachableness, is realized, it is a

sore trial.

The sick person vainly hopes to become used to it; but be not deceived, it will not lessen. One day you may fancy that you have got used to it; some little thing may arise which may reveal the whole sad truth, and you find yourself just where you were. You say, “There is but a step between me and life;” but O that step! how can it be taken? A few boards separate you from the family. You hear their voices, you hear their laughter, at times you catch words. Then family prayers begin : once you did not value them; now, how gladly would you hear them, but those few boards shut out all but the occasional sound of a word. Some one is added to the family party (just as you begin to fancy that you are reconciled to your circumstances), this person is more to you than to them; the tones ascend, but that is all; perhaps you will not even meet, at any rate you will lose much of their company.

Or, perhaps, for a time you have been removed to the house of some friend; you long very much to share in all their employments and pleasures; you faintly, dimly hear what goes on, but from the

sight and enjoyment of all you are shut out; their daily life is shut out from you; you share it only in their occasional-perhaps, rare, visits to you: you have here a new lesson to learn, for nothing so effectually tempts and tries a sick person. Truly this is a trial to seem to be separated from our brethren, is apt to lead us into most untrue and hard thoughts of them. When you hear the bell ring to call the family together for some meal, you long to be there, and think how much you are hereby deprived of their company; how much better you should know them; how much conversation you lose; how many things you should like to hear, and to ask, and to say!

Bear it always in mind tnat you are now by the will of God brought into a different state from them, or from your former state; called to new duties and responsibilities, and comforts, and blessings, and trials, and temptations: who called you?-It is God's visitation.

V

Longings

ANY desires for that which you have not, or

M cannot have, often arise in your mind;

sometimes they are very painful to you. You feel that they are wrong, and resist them: but again, at another time, you feel as if they ought to be accom