202 TILE WORLD TO COME. that hand that has planted every herb in the field or the garden, and has made the bowels of the earth to teem with medicines for the recovery of our health and ease ; and blessed be his name who has rebuked our maladies, who has constrained the smarting diseases to depart by the use of balms and balsams that are hap-. pily applied ! P While we enjoy the benefits of common life, in health of body and in easy circumstances, we are too often thoughtless of the hand of God, which showers down these favours of hea- ven upon us in a long and constant succession ; but when he sees fit to touch us with his finger, and awaken some lurking malady within us, our ease vanishes, our days are restless and painful, and tiresome nights of darkness pass over us without sleep or repose. Then we repent that we have so long for- gotten the God of our mercies; and we learn to lift up our praises to the Lord, that every night of our lives has not been restless, that every day and hour has not been a season of racking pain. Blessed be the Lord that enables us, with- out anguish or uneasiness, to fulfil the common business of the day; and blessed be his hand that draws the peaceful cur- tains of the night round about us ! And even in the midst of moderate pains, we bless his name who gives us refreshing slumbers ; and we grow more careful to employ and improve every moment of returning ease, as the most proper way of ex- pressing our thankfulness to our almighty Healer. Alas, what poor, sorry, sinful creatures are we in the pre- sent state, who want to be taught the value of our mercies by the removal of them ! The man of a robust and vigorous make, and a healthy-constitution, knows not the true worth of health and ease, nor sets a due value upon these-blessings of heaven ; but we are taught to thank God feelingly, for an easy hour after long-repeated twinges of pain : We bless that goodness which gives us an easy night after a day of distressing anguish. Bles- sed be the God of nature and grace, that has not made the gout or the stone immortal, nor subjected our sensible powers to an everlasting chölic or tooth -ache. 2. Pain in the flesh more effectually teaches us to sympathize with those who suffer. We learn a tenderness of soul experi- mentally by our own sufferings. We generally love self so well, that we forget our neighbours under special tribulation and dis- tress, unless we are made to feel them too. In a particular man- ner, when our nature is pinched and pierced through with some smarting malady, we learn to pity those who lie groaning under the same disease. A kindred of sorrows and swings works up our natures into compassion, and we find gyr own hearts more sensibly affected with the groans of our friend's under a sharp fit of the gout -or rheumatism, when . we ourselves have felt the stings of the sane distemper.
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