anthem, ringing in his ears, sung by the spirits of the departed as well as of those present in the body: I KNOW THAT MY REDEEMER LIVETH. It may be that in this we find a primary purpose of sorrow. And let it not be said that this purpose is unimportant. For, assuming that there be a future state, how immensely important it is that there should be a monitor to point out the real sanctions by which that state is governed.

Sorrow, however, besides this, exercises a direct subjective influence on the human heart, which, in itself, is evidence of a Father's care. A painter, to adopt an illustration from another, was working at fresco on the ceiling of a lofty church. He was standing on a scaffolding, toward the unguarded edge of which he was slowly backing, absorbed in perfecting the figure on which he was engaged, and unconscious of the danger he was approaching. In a moment he would have been dashed on the pavement below, when one of his companions, seeing but one way to save him, suddenly threw a wet brush against the picture. The painter sprang forward to prevent the mischief, and, in so doing, saved his life. And it may be one of the chief evidences of the gentleness of the probationary government of God, that in this way, by apparently defacing an earthly image, the heart is turned from the idolatry of the human to the love of the spiritual and infinite. Nor is this all. Human affections, e.g., those of the child to the parent, and of the parent to the child, are thus the instruments by which the impulses of true and disinterested love are called out and placed in training for a future more exalted sphere. They are, in this

sense, the trellises around which the affections are at first supported, until, by the Divine discipline, and by the cutting away of the merely earthly stay, these affections turn upward to heaven.

§ 147. The effect on others of the discipline may also be taken into account. To this the grand emotion of compassion is mainly due. Thus, Dr. Paley says, "One man's sufferings may be another man's trial. The family of a sick parent is a school of filial piety. The charities of domestic life, and not only these, but all the social virtues, are called out by distress. But then misery, to be the proper object of mitigation, or of that benevolence which endeavors to relieve, must be really or apparently casual. It is upon such sufferings alone that benevolence can operate. For, were there no evils in the world but what were punishments, properly and intelligibly such, benevolence would only stand in the way of justice."

And besides the refinement of human nature that is thus produced, it should not be forgotten that of all champions of the truth there is none more effective than the propagandism of meek and wise suffering. Conscious attempts to manage others, even if these attempts are successful, are but ephemeral in their effects, for there is always a feeling that some part at least of the object of the actor is display, if not advancement. Hence it is that even real reforms, when pressed by artificial agitation, move forward with so much uncertainty. But it is otherwise with those which are lived as well as preached; which are vindicated, not on the battle-field or in the senate-chamber, but in the lives and death of that

noble company of obscure confessors, whose office it is, on the sick-bed, in the hard home of poverty, under the stress of many afflictions, to show that beyond all the institutions. of the statesman, is a meek and hopeful submission under adversity, and a calm trust in Heaven.

b2. Pain.

a3. It preserves identity.

§ 148. The sense of pain is vested, with one or two exceptions to be hereafter noticed, entirely in the skin. Even in some of apparently the most painful operations, when the surgeon cuts the deepest, the pain disappears after the skin is cut through, only to reappear when the instrument, on extending its incision, touches the orifice from beneath. Even the heart, whose connection with the sensibilities is so remarkable that its expansion or contraction at sudden good or bad news often produces death, is not susceptible of actual pain. A nobleman of the Montgomery family, we are told, whose chest had been so opened by a fistulous affection that the heart was exposed to the touch, was brought to Dr. Harvey for examination. The organ was found to be entirely insensible. "I then brought him," said this accurate observer as well as great discoverer, "to the king that he might behold and touch so extraordinary a thing, and that he might perceive, as I did, that unless we touched the outer skin, or when he saw our fingers in the cavity, this young nobleman knew not that we touched the heart." So it is that the brain, when in like manner exposed, may be even pared away without sense of pain.

§ 149. Now, in this view let us contemplate the wisdom of the process by which the features which compose the

human face are thus sealed and sheltered. In itself, this individualism of the countenance is an impressive proof of a Divine contriver and of a future destiny. When we recollect that of the millions who inhabit the face of the earth, no two have ever been found so exactly alike as to baffle, when full opportunities were given, the power of discrimination; when we recollect how numerous are the purposes which this individualism of countenance subserves, how without it the sanctities of home, the security of commerce, the peace of society would be destroyed,-we may admire the wisdom and the benevolence by which this most exquisite of mechanisms is constructed. The design of one original distinctive human face, as it rises forth under the sculptor's chisel from the marble block, draws from us a recognition of the artist's genius almost in proportion as the marks of individuality of expression are blended with the signs of ideal power. How much greater should be our admiration of the handiwork of the Great Artificer by whom this sculptury, not on the solid block, but on the much more subtle and yielding material of the face, is indefinitely multiplied and perfected! And there is a point in this individuality of expression which takes us a step beyond this. It is as if we should enter into a large chamber where are collected an immense number of keys, each with a ward of a distinct pattern. We would at once draw two inferences— first, that of a designing and contriving cause; and, second, that of a purpose, i.e. a room which each key is meant to open. And thus in the distinct individuality of the myriads of faces with whom we meet, we may recognize not only the divine workmanship, but the future distinct destiny of each.

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"In my Father's house are many mansions." The severance of the mansions which these distinct individualities will open, the continuance, in other words, in the next world of that individualism which exists here, may be drawn from an examination of this complex mechanism with almost as great certainty as may the existence of a contriving first

cause.

§ 150. It is in the preservation of this individuality that we can find a reason for the sense of pain. An injunction is thus laid on all attempts to alter the distinctive marks of the countenance. Were the face as insensible to pain, and as susceptible of change, as the hair and nails, the whole of human confidence would be destroyed. The murderer would go into the surgeon-artist's hands and come out a philanthropist; men would be personated by others in the families, in the bank, in the exchange, in the senate. Sheridan, when recovering from a debauch, after a late session of the House of Commons, when asked his name by the watchman by whom he was picked up, answered "Wilberforce." The joke, for such it was, became for a moment a reality, and the excellent and pure statesman whose name was assumed, found himself for a day or two the subject of quite an unusual notoriety. But what would it be if false personation could be so sustained by a little plastic skill as to baffle the perceptions of the most acute?

§ 151. Now how, a priori, could a means be adopted to preserve this individuality? Human wisdom might suggest to seal it with an impenetrable cement. But Divine wisdom has doubled the guard. Not only is the surface so composed as to be in the highest degree unplastic, but the sense.