you may have let slip some impatient word or phrase, which, at the moment, may scarcely strike you as it may strike a bystander. "How long you are!" "I wish you would make haste;" "Do bring that quickly;" are dangerous phrases to use. Oftentimes they mean little or nothing. It is the tone of voice which generally betrays what they mean. Be thankful to any one who tells you that it is a bad habit, and must minister to impatience of heart. "Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life."a A habit of repressing such words is the greatest possible help to overcoming the evil thing.

IV.

CONSIDERING SYMPTOMS.

ANOTHER temptation in weakness, and indeed in all illness, is constantly to be considering symptoms, thinking what will be the result of each one. Whether this or that is dangerous? what it is a symptom of?

Then, if the sick person is eagerly desiring to die, the temptation is to consider whether it is the symptom of a mortal disease. How long it may last? whether it proves that you are much worse, or that death is near at hand?

a Prov. iv. 23.

Or if you earnestly desire to recover your health, then it is scanned the other way. Is not this a good symptom? Does it not show how much better I am? Does it not prove that I am really recovering?

Nothing deceives and disappoints more than symptoms. We are poor judges of them, of what they lead to, or are proofs of. In one person a symptom may be very serious, which in another may be quite the reverse. It may prove a contrary thing in opposite states and constitutions. Therefore it is best to leave them to the physician to consider, and to turn away your minds from every temptation to consider the results and probabilities—to abstain from the common, but injurious habit of feeling your pulse, and trying to make discoveries from its state. Just to take the present moment as it is, to look on its circumstances as the very best for us, because they are those in which God has placed us, and which He could and would change, if in any thing He saw that other circumstances would be better for us. Your present pain is His sending, each trial is His sending; do not say, "Lord, we know not whither thou goest;"a for His gracious answer now and always is, "What is that to thee? follow thou Me."b

a John xiv. 5.

b John xxi. 22.

PART III.

Duties and Responsibilities of Sickness.

I.

CONTENTMENT.

THERE are few things by which sick people are more tempted than discontent; there is no form, perhaps, in which it does not offer itself to them-discontent with their lot, their circumstances, their friends, their suffering, and all things that surround them. It manifests itself either in complainings, or murmurings, or dissatisfaction; or difficulty in being pleased; or in seeking to get circumstances altered; or in a state of utter selfishness, which refuses to take an interest in other people, and things beyond itself; or in trying to make out that one's own case is the hardest, and the most trying, the least perceived by others; or in

constantly calling the attention of others to ourselves and our trials; or in craving for sympathy. All these things mark discontent. Often, too, it speaks by the countenance and by the voice-even the manner betrays it. Some people wish that it should be seen; they hope thus to get more sympathy; they take no pains to hide it. They like those people who will listen to their complainings; and all others they count hard-hearted. But is there no sin in discontent? Misery there surely is. Discontented spirits are ever "seeking rest, but finding none." In the society of others, they crave for attention and sympathy. When they are alone they turn inwardly upon themselves, wearied and disappointed-more hopeless than ever: they brood over their distresses, and never know the blessing of peace.

There is but one remedy for it all. That remedy lies within the reach of every sick person; but they must apply it for themselves, and must earnestly cry to God to give them the strength and the courage, the patience and the perseverance, to apply it faithfully and unweariedly. The remedy is contentment; but there are many ingredients in it:

1. To see and to believe that you are discontented.

2. To feel the greatness of the sin of discontent.

Matt. xii. 43.

3. Not to allow yourself any excuses or palliations, e. g., not to say, "Perhaps I am rather discontented sometimes, but then I have so much to make me so."

4. To hide nothing from yourself about it, but to say, "I am discontented."

5. To consider it a constant duty to fight against it; beginning with some small thing, and that which is the most obvious to yourself.

6. Remember that it is a holy war that you are beginning-one which you cannot fight alone, and for which you must daily, and earnestly, ask the help of God.

7. Do not be out of heart if you make very slow progress, and find the difficulties rather increase than diminish. "The battle is not yours, but God's."a

Your friends have been far more patient with you than you have given them credit for. You have wearied their spirits very often; they have tried with earnest desire to please you, and to make you happy; and they could not. You have complained of them; and at length have, after many hard thoughts of them, become estranged from them in heart. No wonder you are unhappy; your state is a very painful one, and calls for true pity. But have you asked yourself whether there may not be something in you, which hinders you from receiving what

a 2 Chron. xx. 15.