herself to this then far-away region to engage in special work for the Master. But she soon found herself out of health, the victim of general debility and complete prostration of the nervous system. Ordinarily, such a physical condition is accompanied by innumerable evils, such a depression of spirits and melancholy, rendering life a burden, death a welcome friend, and the grave a wished-for place. But Miss White had learned how to suffer as a Christian, meekly enduring, while fast ripening for the mature blessedness of heaven. Of her long period of suffering, her painful disappointments, and her religious experience in the meantime, she wrote to her father. A brief paragraph may serve to show her beautiful spirit: "Notwithstanding all my bodily discomfitures, and with every earthly prospect blasted, my dearest hopes and expectations cut off apparently forever, I was supported, resigned, and felt that God did all things well. The promise that all things shall work together for our good,' was both a cordial and an anchor to my soul. Like clay in the hand of the potter, I could lie, satisfied to remain there as long as infinite wisdom saw best. My dear father, the grace of God is sufficient for every circumstance possible. And now do not grieve at all, nor give yourself any trouble or uneasiness, because I have thus been laid aside. Had it not been for the best, it would not have been permitted. I can see abundant reasons why it was best. We need much purifying before we shall become fitted and prepared for the Master's use. This I think was one great reason why this trial should be mine. It has been the greatest blessing I ever experienced. I needed to be weaned from the world, to be weaned from my studies. My heart was too much set upon them. Then, too, it has brought eternity and heaven so much nearer! the gospel, the word of God, and the Saviour, are so much more precious!—They have been tried and proved to be true and faithful! shall I then regret it? So far as my own imprudence in going beyond my strength brought it upon me, I am to blame, but as far as the agency of God was concerned, I bless him for it." Edward Payson, as he lay on the bed of his last illness, realized in a very extraordinary manner the spiritual benefits of affliction. He was one of the most illustrious of American Congregational ministers. His intellectual and moral powers were developed at a very early age in life. He was often known to weep under preaching when but a little child, but his great religious awakening occurred in his twenty-first year, after the death of his brother. From that time he resolved to live wholly for God, and consecrated himself to the service in a written covenant. A few years afterward he became a minister, and for twenty years served the Congregational church in Portland, Maine. His preaching was plain, practical, and pointed, always aimed to do good. Over seven hundred persons were received by him as a pastor, while as an evangelist he was instrumental in awakening and saving hundreds more. So constant and severe were his labors, that his physical strength at length gave way, and sickness laid him low. Here, as in health, he exhibited the power of Christian faith. With entire resignation to the will of God, he exulted every hour in the thought that God reigneth and doeth all things well. His mind rose over bodily pain, and in the strong visions of eternity he seemed almost to lose the sense of suffering. In a letter to his sister, September 19th, 1827, he uttered the following: "DEAR SISTER-Were I to adopt the figurative language of Bunyan, I might date this letter from the land of Beulah, of which I have been for some weeks a happy inhabitant. The celestial city is full in my view. Its glories beam upon me, its breezes fan me, its odors are wafted to me, its sounds strike upon my ears, and its spirit is breathed into my heart. Nothing separates me from it but the river of death, which now appears but an insignificant rill, that may be crossed at a single step, whenever God shall give permission. The Sun of righteousness has been gradually drawing nearer and nearer, appearing larger and brighter as He approached, and now He fills the whole hemisphere; pouring forth a flood of glory, in which I seem to float like an insect in the beams of the sun; exulting, yet almost trembling, while I gaze on this excessive brightness, and wondering, with unutterable wonder, why God should thus deign to shine upon a sinful worm. A single heart and a single tongue seem altogether inadequate to my wants: I want a whole heart for every separate emotion, and a whole tongue to express that emotion. But why do I speak thus of myself and of my feelings? Why not speak only of our God and Redeemer? It is because I know not what to say. When I would speak of them my words are all swallowed up. I can only tell you what effects their presence produces, and even of that I can tell you but very little. Oh, my sister, my sister! Could you but know what awaits the Christian; could you know only so much as I know, you could not refrain from rejoicing, and even leaping for joy. Labors, trials, conflicts, would be nothing: you would rejoice in afflictions and glory in tribulations; and, like Paul and Silas, sing God's praise in the darkest night, and in the deepest dungeon." Rev. Dr. Cyrus D. Foss, one of the bishops of the Methodist Episcopal Church, has wisely given to the public an account of his own experience during a long and critical illness. Seldom, if ever, has a more delightful spiritual epistle emanated from the heart and brain of mortal man. "February 5th, 1882," he says, "my health seemed perfect, as it had almost always been. For twenty-seven years no sickness had kept me in my bed a single day.. Then came ten weeks of failing strength, alarming symptoms in my foot, the slow and painfully reluctant surrender of one after another of my conferences and other appointments for work; then typhoid fever, seventy-five days in my room (including a month of oblivion); the then slow-oh, how slow-creeping back from the gates of the grave! "I had always preached a pretty high doctrine of providential and gracious help, of resignation and of joyful acquiescence in the will of God; too high, some of my friends thought. I was sometimes told that experience would very likely moderate my statements on these subjects. Now I know what I then believed. The teaching was true. I have been promoted into a higher class in the school of Christ-the sufferer's--and I have no fault to find with the Great Teacher. "One of the delightful experiences of my sickness (not creditable to me as being a surprise) was that in every strait I always found Jesus on the spot ahead of me. I never had to wait for him, nor look around for him. Such assurances as these kept chiming in my soul like silver bells: Even there shall thy hand lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me;' A very present help in trouble;' Before they call I will answer;' Lo, I am with you always.' At no time did I have to struggle for comfort of mind or anything else. Everything was ready at my hand, more than I would have dared to ask. When I was slipping downward little by little toward the grave, sickness and death seemed to me the easiest and most natural things in the world; but when the outlook changed, and convalescence began, this life looked magnificent. I would not have changed places with Gabriel; to be able to lay hold of God's work again with both hands would make earth a heaven. "When, after long confinement, the fever smote me, and I though it probable that the beginning of the end had come, I was taken up into a mountain apart,' and found my Tabor. A certain Wednesday was my diamond of days, and its splendor was followed by the serener glory of other days hardly less memorable. I was filled and thrilled with an altogether indescribable sense of the absolute verity of the great Christian beliefs, and of the magnificent privilege of having any place in the kingdom of God. It was superb to be, do, suffer anything to please him. The dying words of Dr. Roberts, the well-known Baltimore local preacher, came often to my lips. When an anxious friend, who feared that he would quickly exhaust his failing strength, said to him, 'Don't shout so; whisper what you wish to say;' he answered, 'Let angels whisper; redeemed men must shout.' Many a time the walls of my chamber echoed those words in no whispered tone. And yet my friends know that my religious experience, while sometimes highly emotional, is rarely demonstrative. "A month later, at another very critical stage of my illness, I was led most delightfully in a very different path. Again and again it occurred to me what a happy outcome of my sickness it would be if the Saviour should come into my room in visible form and instantly heal me. I knew if he would come and say, 'What wilt thou?' my quick reply would be, 'Lord, make me perfectly whole and perfectly holy.' I did not pray for such a miracle, nor wish it; but day after day, in my quiet afternoon hours, the inspir ing thought kept coming: How grand a testimony it would be if in these skeptical times I might go forth proclaiming that, in a single moment, the audible word of the visible Christ had perfectly cured me of a severe sprain, a broken bone, typhoid fever, and prostrating weakness; and if my testimony should be so confirmed by that of physicians and friends as to be lifted above the possibility of scientific doubt.' At length when this thought had grown so familiar that the realization of it would hardly have surprised me, there came in place of it a strong impression (like an audible voice, and yet there was no voice) sealing on my mind as never before the words, Thomas, because thou hast seen me thou hast believed. Blessed [I have always thought that means more blessed] are they that have not seen and yet have believed.' The delicious fancy of a possible miracle gave place to the solid fact of the greater blessedness of that dispensation of providence and grace which can transform and glorify all suffering. ""O that men would praise the Lord for his goodness, and for his wonderful works to the children of men'!" The following beautiful stanzas, showing what suffering doos for us, are from the German of Hartmann : "Trial, when it weighs severely, In the name his hands have moulded Through the suffering which he sends. "Suffering curbs our wayward passions, "Suffering keeps the thoughts compacted, By the world's beguiling art. In the chambers of the heart. |