You will do well occasionally to make some fresh effort and exertion, partly for the sake of proving whether you are capable of more than you have been doing, and partly to show your friends that you are wishing to put forth your strength to the utmost, to join with the family, and to employ yourself to the utmost.

This will often end in bitter disappointment and discouragement. You will say, I

tried to step into life again, and I could not. I have stepped further than I could go, and am thrown back again, and seem further off than ever, and as if I could not get even so far the next time I try. Well, this is a sore trial; but it is better to have tried, and thus to learn what you can do, and especially that you are not lazy and self-indulgent in doing no more than you had previously done. What these efforts are to consist of must differ in each case: to some it may be seeing one or more friends; to others, writing a letter; to others, being dressed and laid on a sofa near the bed; to others, being taken out of the room; to others, sitting up in a chair; to others, going down stairs; to others, taking a drive, a walk, a journey each according to their several measures of weakness or ability. Settle it in your heart that the kindest of friends will rarely fully understand your state; that they may seem to do so to-day, and to-morrow may seem very obtuse

about it. There is but One who can fully understand it, and who can truly direct you what to do at all times.

Doubtless you often feel distressed because you are so deeply conscious of the pain which each act of life costs you: or, at any rate, the pain which you suffer in it, and with it. It seems to you sinfully ungrateful to Him who is always helping and upholding you, to feel the pain so much more vividly than His ever present almighty aid.

Be not discouraged; you must not repine about it; you cannot help feeling the pain and suffering; you may have a grateful, thankful heart in spite of it, and be very conscious of His presence and help.

VIII.

NERVOUSNESS.

THAT large class of diseases called nervous are pre-eminently hard to bear, and that class is greatly increased by the small knowledge that medical men have as yet obtained of the nerves and their real suffering. Many peculiarly distressing feelings, which cannot be called pain, are known by the name of nervous. There are few persons who would not rather hear that

certain symptoms are owing to any cause, however mortal the disease, than that they are nervous. Oh! how the word dies upon the heart! or rather, how it quickens every part of the frame into suffering. Only nervous! Why, what can be said more hopeless? What does it mean? Oftentimes it means that the pain is not understood, and that the physician sees no cause for it; and as he must give it some name, he calls it nervous. The sting of it lies in those words having a double meaning. Used by some persons, they are meant to express intense suffering. Used by others, they mean the figments of a diseased imagination, almost self-chosen suffering. The words said by one who really feels for you may be repeated to another person, and quickly change their meaning; and soon you may hear "Why do you lie here? Why do you not try to do this or that thing? Your physician says that your disease is only nervous. Why not break through it then, and be like other people?" How often are you tempted to—

"Pray for sharpest throbs of pain,

To ease you from doubt's galling chain !"

All temptation seems rife the tempter ever at hand. All the wretched, miserable sensations that are within you, you fancy are seen outwardly. The strange inconsistencies of nervousness are some of its bitterest trials. . You

fancy at the same moment that every one sees your trials and your fears; and that no one sees it, no one knows it, understands it, cares for it; that no one in the world suffers as you do, that your sufferings are quite peculiar, and therefore cannot be understood. Do not for one moment try to delude yourself into the vain fancy that it is not a very sore affliction. Do not speak of it lightly, or make it appear to others that you do not feel it. Face it all, look it full in the face; then say, Who sent me this trial? "The only wise God." Why did He send it? Because He saw that it was quite necessary for me, just fitted to all my needs, the only thing that could so truly "humble me, and prove me, and show me what is in my heart." Must I bear it always, all my life long? The present is all that I have to do with; "sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof." Alas! that I must bear it, and bear it alone! No, it is God's visitation. "He sees thee, and understands thee, as He made thee. He knows what is in thee, all thy own peculiar feelings and thoughts, thy dispositions and likings, thy strength and thy weakness. He views thee in thy day of rejoicing and thy day of sorrow. He sympathizes in thy hopes and temptations. He interests Himself in all thine anxieties and remembrances, all the risings and fallings of thy

Deut. viii. 2.

b Matt. vi. 34.

spirit. He has numbered the very hairs of thy head and the cubits of thy stature. He compasses thee round and bears thee in His arms: He takes thee up and sets thee down. He notes thy very countenance, whether smiling or in tears, whether healthful or sickly. He looks tenderly upon thy hands and thy feet: He hears thy voice, the beating of thy heart, and thy very breathing. Thou dost not love thyself better than He loves thee. Thou canst not shrink from pain more than He dislikes thy bearing it; and if He puts it on thee, it is as thou wilt put it on thyself, if thou art wise, for greater good afterwards."

Never meet this particular form of suffering by reasoning, or in any other way than by saying, "It is the will of God."

In nervous suffering the frequent consciousness of seeming irritable-of knowing that others think you so, makes the evil a hundredfold greater. If you could but feel that no one was observing you, the trial would be less. Sometimes, perhaps, some one notices it to you; a word to you is like a blow: you writhe and cry out for pain. People see only what is outward-they hear the irritable tone or wordthey see the countenance. They do not see the unutterable, awful struggle which is ever going on, and which, by the grace of God, prevents much evil from coming out. How difficult it is