counterpoise of good; and besides they are directed by Providence, and must be submitted to: but these are afflictions not from the hand of GOD or Nature "for they do come forth of the DUST, and most properly may be said to spring out of the GROUND, and this is the reason they lay such stress upon our patience, and in the end, create such a distrust of the world, as makes us look up-and pray, Let me fall into thy hands, O God! but let me not fall into the hands of men."

Agreeable to this was the advice of Eliphas to Job in the day of his distress; 'acquaint thyself, said he, Now with God: indeed his poverty seemed to have left him. no other the swords of the Sabeans had frightened them away all but a few friends; and of what kind they were, the very proverb, of Job's comforters.

says enough. It is an instance which gives one great concern for human nature, "That a man, who always wept for him who was in trouble;

who never saw any perish for want of clothing; -who never suffered the stranger to lodge in the street, but opened his door to the traveller; that a man of so good a character, "that he never caused the eyes of the widow to

fail,-or had eaten his morsel by himself alone, and the fatherless had not eaten thereof; that such a man, the moment he fell into poverty, should have occasion to cry out for quarHave mercy upon me, O my friends!

ter,

for the hand of God has touched me. Gentleness and humanity (one would think) would melt the hardest heart and charm the fiercest spirit; bind up the most violent hand, and still the most abusive tongue; - but the experiment failed in a stronger instance of him, whose meat and drink it was to do us good; and in pursuit of which, whose whole life was a continued scene of kindness and of insults, for which we must go back to the same explanation. with which we set out, -and that is, the scandal of poverty.

"This fellow, we know not whence he is,"

was the popular cry of one part; and with those who seemed to know better, the query did not lessen the disgrace: Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary? — of Mary; great GOD of Israel! What!— of the meanest of thy people! (for he had not regarded the low estate of his handmaiden) and of the poorest! too (for she had not a lamb to offer, but was purified as Moses