I need not undertake to show how the Scriptures everywhere teach the doctrine of an overruling providence. The Bible asserts the omnipresence and omniscience of God; it teaches that his care extends over all his works; that he preserves and governs all his creatures and all their actions; that nothing can happen without his knowledge and permission; and that his plans and purposes are beneficent. God is love. He has no pleasure in the death of the wicked. He is kind even to the unthankful and the evil, causing his sun to shine on the evil and the good, and sending rain upon the fields both of the just and of the unjust. With a holy abhorrence of all sin, he is infinitely patient towards the sinner, and sees the returning prodigal a great way off. But if all this is so, then discontent is rebellion against the good God. It is a refusal to acquiesce in the allotments of providence. It is an arraignment of the wisdom and justice of the divine dispensations. Men little think that their murmuring and complaining is a great and aggravated sin, but God so regards it. Let us learn the lesson of trust in the fatherly care of God. Let us cherish the thought that just so far as we accept the divine will, and come into sympathy with God, we shall have peace and all things will work together for our good. Contentment thus becomes a Christian grace. It is not simple resignation. It is not submission to something which we cannot help, and which we bear with some degree of fortitude only because we cannot help it, cannot escape from it. It is not founded, as I have said, upon such heathen maxims as that "what is to be will be," or that "we must take what comes"; but it has its source in the conviction that God reigns, and that whatever he does or permits is best. Life will still have its lights and shadows. Trials will come and we cannot but know

We may

that they are trials. There will be times of mental exhilaration and times of mental depression. No man can wholly free himself from his surroundings. No man can perfectly control his own bodily states. And yet withal there will be peace. We may feel that we are resting on the bosom of omnipotence. cherish the conviction that the evils which we experience, whatever may be their nature or source, have some beneficent design, some moral purpose; that they constitute a part of our earthly probation and must in some way work together for good.

Paul says in our text that he had learned to be content. He gives us in another letter a specific instance which illustrates the way, or at least one of the ways in which he had learned the lesson. I refer to that familiar passage in the Second Epistle to the Corinthians, where he speaks of the "thorn in the flesh." What it was we know not; probably some form of bodily affliction, some painful infirmity that clung to him, weighed upon his mind and hindered his usefulness. "For this thing I besought the Lord thrice that it might depart from me. And he said unto me, my grace is sufficient for thee, for my strength is made perfect in weakness." The answer to the apostle's prayer brought content. He was satisfied. He was more than satisfied, for he adds, "Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in mine infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me.” He does not say, "I will try to be resigned"; he does not say, "Since this trial must needs be, I will submit and bear it as best I may." No, he says, "If this is God's will for me, I will rejoice in it; I will make it an occasion for the exercise of patience, humility and trust; I will glory in it, and take pleasure in it, and make it a stepping stone to higher things." This then is the first and indispensable condition of attaining the

grace of contentedness, that we recognize the providence of God in our lives and commit ourselves unreservedly into his hands.

Another motive to contentment is found in the consideration that every individual life has its own measure of blessing, its own advantages, its own opportunities. There is no condition so poor, so narrow, so seemingly hedged about, but that it still possesses possibilities of great happiness and great usefulness. I wish I might impress that thought upon your minds indelibly-impress it in such a way that you could never forget itthat every condition in life has its own peculiar advantages, its own opportunities, and may be made to yield up its treasures of happiness and blessing. Here, for example, is one whose life has been a long conflict with disease and pain. Can a life-long invalid be contented and happy? Yes; you and I have known such. We have known those whose life was one of pain and infirmity, one of seclusion from the world, and from the pleasures of society. And yet, accepting this lot as the appointment of God for them, they have found that it was not a barren land; that there were in it some pleasant valleys, some green fields and springs of water and fair prospects; and so, restricted, narrow as their lives were, they seemed to them worth living. One of the most cheerful and contented men I ever knew was a man who had been blind from his birth. Life seemed to be sweet and pleasant to him, though he had never seen the light of the sun, nor the beauty of the flowers, nor the face of father or mother, or wife, or child, or friend.

As out of the rugged mountains men dig treasures of gold and silver, iron and coal, so out of the hardships of life, out of its most inhospitable regions, come some of the richest treasures of human experience and

human character. May we not find in this fact an explanation of what has been so often observed, that the world's greatest benefactors have been educated in the school of adversity? Take the history of our own country and count over her great leaders, her statesmen, her legislators, her generals, her best presidents -and you will find that the great majority of them came from the humbler walks of life. The struggle with poverty and hardship developed a strength of character they would not have found in any other way. It is good for a man that he bear the yoke in his youth. It is good to face difficulties and to overcome them. The struggle with the lion and the bear prepared the shepherd boy for the conflict with Goliath.

As a further motive and aid to contentment we may reflect that things are never so bad as they might be. Men are rarely overtaken by calamities so complete and hopeless as to admit of no remedy and no alleviation. There are trials, but are there no joys? There are losses, but are there no gains? Listen once more to the language of the apostle: "We are troubled on every side, yet not distressed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed." It is a very suggestive remark of Jeremy Taylor, that there is no wise or good man who would change places or conditions with any other man in the world. He may envy some things that other men have; he may desire one man's wealth, or another man's power; he may wish to possess the learning of this one, or the fame of that; but there is no human being with whom he would change persons or characters entirely, ceasing to be himself and becoming some one else. Every man would rather be what he is than to be any other man.

A fourth consideration that should beget a spirit of

contentment is the shortness of human life. It is only a little while that we are here. We have here no continuing city, but are pilgrims and strangers on the earth, as were all our fathers. Neither the joys nor the sorrows of the world can be indefinitely prolonged, and it becomes those who weep to be as though they wept not, and those who rejoice as though they rejoiced not. As the passing traveler, hastening on his way, makes light of the inconveniences and discomforts of the journey, his mind filled with thoughts of home and rest, so the Christian may have such anticipations of heaven as shall make the light afflictions, which are but for a moment, work out for him a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory. At the gate of the celestial city every burden will be laid down. Those who enter there will hunger no more, neither thirst any more; neither shall the sun light on them, nor any heat; for the Lamb which is in the midst of the throne shall be their shepherd, and shall lead them to living fountains of waters; and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes. With such prospects as these, why should we murmur and complain here below? Why should we ever be discontented with our lot? If we know that God reigns; that the vicissitudes of life are ordered by him; that all things work together for good to those who trust in him; that the trials and sorrows of the world, sanctified to the soul, will issue in glory, honor and immortality-then surely the lesson of contentment ought not to be difficult, or at least impossible, for us to learn. If Paul achieved it we ought to, for none of us will be called to endure a hundredth part of what he endured in the service of Christ.

I may remark in closing, that there is one direction, and only one, in which we ought not to be content, and that is with respect to our own spiritual life and attain