herself the very symbol of life and power, she seems something ethereal-unreal, which, ere we look again, will have vanished away. And though she has within her bosom a furnace glowing with furious fires, and a reservoir of death -the elements of most dreadful ruin and conflagration-of destruction the most complete, and agony the most unutterable; and though her strength is equal to the united energy of two thousand men, she restrains it all. She was constructed by genius, and has been tried and improved by fidelity and skill; and one man governs and controls her, stops her and sets her in motion, turns her this way and that, as easily and certainly as the child guides the gentle lamb. She walks over the hundred and sixty miles of her route without rest and without fatigue; and the passengers, who have slept in safety in their berths, with destruction by

Life a time of trial.

water without, and by fire within, always at hand—and defended only by a plank from the one, and by a sheet of copper from the other, land at the appointed time in safety.

God

My reader, you have, within you, susceptibilities and powers of which you have little present conception,―energies which are hereafter to operate in producing either fullness of enjoyment, or horrors of suffering of which you now but little conceive. You are now on trial. wishes you to prepare yourself for safe and happy action. He wishes you to look within, to examine the complicated movements of your heart, to detect what is wrong, to modify what needs change, and rectify every irregular motion. You go out to try your moral powers upon the stream of active life, and then return to retirement, to improve what is right and remedy what is wrong. Renewed opportunities of moral practice are given you, that you may go on from strength to strength until every part of the complicated moral machinery of which the human heart consists, will work as it ought to work, and is prepared to accomplish the mighty purposes for which your powers are designed. You are on trial-on probation now. You will enter upon active ser

vice in another world.

In order, however, that the end and design of probation may be more perfectly understood, let us consider more particularly the difference between the condition of the boat I have described, when she was on trial, and when she was afterward in actual service. While she was on trial she sailed this way and that, merely for the purpose of ascertaining her powers and her deficiencies, in order that the former might be increased, and the latter remedied. The engineer steered her to the rapids, we supposed; but it was not because he particularly wished to pass the rapids, but only to try the power of the boat upon them. Perhaps with the same design he might run along a curved or indented shore,-pene

Trials of childhood.

trating deep into creeks, or sweeping swiftly round projecting headlands; and this, not because he wishes to examine that shore, but only to see how the boat will obey her helm. Thus he goes on placing her again and again in situations of difficulty, for the purpose simply of proving her powers, and enabling him to perfect the operation of her machinery. Afterward, when she has come into actual service, when she has received her load, and is transporting it to its place of destination, the object is entirely changed; service, not improvement, is then the aim. Her time of trial is ended.

The Bible everywhere considers this world as one of trial and discipline, introductory to another one, which is to be the world of actual service. A child, as he comes forward into life, is surrounded with difficulties which might easily have been avoided if the Ruler over all had wished to avoid them. But he did not. That child is on trial-moral trial; and just exactly as the helmsman of the steamboat steered her to the rapids for the purpose of bringing her into difficulty, so does God arrange in such a manner the circumstances of childhood and youth as to bring the individual into various difficulties which will try his moral powers, and which, if the child does his duty, will be the means of improving them. He may learn contentment and submission by the thousand disappointments which occur, patience and fortitude by his various sufferings, and perseverance by encountering the various obstacles which oppose his progress. These difficulties, and sufferings, and obstacles might all have easily been avoided. God might have so formed the human mind, and so arranged the circumstances of life, that every thing should have gone smoothly with us. But he wishes for these things as trials-trials for the sake of our improvement; and he has filled life with them, from the cradle to the grave.

To obtain a distinct idea of the operation of this principle,

The child and the forbidden book.

Command.

Pain.

let us look at this little child.

She is just able to walk about

the floor of her mother's parlor, and though her life is full of sources of happiness, it is full likewise of sources of disappointment and suffering. A moment since she was delighted with a plaything which her mother had given her, but now she has laid it aside, and is advancing toward a valuable book which lies upon the chair. She is just reaching out her little arm to take it, when she is arrested by her mother's well-known voice:

Mary Mary, you must not touch the book."

A child as young as this will understand language though she can not use it, and she will obey commands. She looks steadily at her mother a moment with an inquiring gaze, as if uncertain whether she heard aright. The command is repeated:

effort to drive away, Now, if such a child improved by such a

The child, I will suppose, has been taught to obey, but in such a case as this it is a hard duty. Her little eyes fill with tears, which perhaps she makes an and soon seeks amusement elsewhere. has been managed right, she will be trial. The principle of obedience and submission will have been strengthened; it will be easier for her to yield to parental command on the next occasion.

But see, as she totters along back to her mother, she trips over her little footstool and falls to the floor. The terror and pain, though we should only smile at it, are sufficient to overwhelm her entirely. Her mother gently raises her, endeav ors to soothe and quiet her, and soon you can distinctly perceive that the child is struggling to repress her emotions. Her sobs are gradually restrained, the tears flow less freely, and soon the sunshine of a smile breaks over her face, and she jumps down again to play. This now has been a useful

0

Advantage of trial in childhood.

trial; pain and fright have once been conquered, and they will have less power over her in future.

But though there is a real and most important benefit to be derived from these trials of infancy, the child herself can not understand it. No child can become prepared for the future duties of life without them, and yet no child, of such an age, can understand why they are necessary. The mother might say to her, in attempting to explain it, as follows:

"Mary, I might save you from all these difficulties and troubles if I chose. I might put you in a room where every thing was cushioned so that you could not hurt yourself, and I might keep carefully out of your sight every article which you ought not to have. Thus you might be saved from all your pains and disappointments. But I choose not to do this. I wish to prepare you to become useful and happy hereafter, and you must accordingly learn submission, and patience, and fortitude now. So I leave the book in the chair, where you can see it, and then tell you that you must not touch it. And I leave you to fall a little now and then; for the pain only continues for a moment; but if you try to conquer your fears and bear the pain patiently, it will do you lasting good. By these means your character will acquire firmness and vigor, and you will thus be prepared for the duties of future life."

The child now would not understand all this, but it would be true, whether she should understand it or not, and the judicious mother, who knows what is the design of education and the manner in which children are to be trained up to future duty, will not be unwilling to have her children repeatedly tried. These repeated trials are the very means of forming their characters, and were it possible to avoid them entirely, instead of meeting and conquering them, the child, exposed to such a course of treatment, would be ruined.