January 1

perplex our guide. Especially let us check the workings of a vain curiosity. To this we are naturally prone. All pant to draw back the veil, and peep into futurity. But none are entrusted with its secrets. Even our Lord's own disciples were rebuked for wishing to know the times and the seasons which the Father reserved in his own power. This advice will be found to be not only our duty but our privilege—our "strength" here "is to sit still." We may consider the year before us, as a desk containing three hundred and sixty-five letters, addressed to us, one for every day, announcing its trials, and prescribing its employments—with an order to open daily no letter but the letter for the day. Now we may be strongly tempted to unseal beforehand some of the remainder; but this would only serve to embarrass us, while we should violate thereby the rule our Owner and Master had laid down for us—"Take, therefore, no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof."

But Paul's ignorance was not entire. Though he knew not what in particular would befall him at Jerusalem, yet the Holy Ghost testified that in every place bonds and afflictions awaited him; so that he was sure of one thing—sure of being always a sufferer, for the sake of the Lord Jesus. And thus it is with us. Though the future is not laid open to our view, yet it is not concealed from us in every respect and degree. Though we know not what is to come in the detail, we can apprehend much of it in the mass. Indeed, without some reliance on the general course of things, we could not properly carry on the system of life. Many of our present duties derive their existence and importance from some future relations. Instinct, in the brute creation, teaches them to look forward: and the turtle and the crane and the swallow observe the time of their coming; and the ant provideth her meat in the summer and gathereth her food in harvest. And is reason given us in vain? Or is there nothing for it to operate upon beyond the present hour? "The prudent man foreseeth the evil and hideth himself," says the Scripture. And the same authority adds, "Let thine eyes look right on, and let thine eyelids look straight before thee."

With regard then to the future, in every period, relation, and condition of life, some things may be reckoned upon. Thus, in the natural world, we know that the seasons will come round in their time and place with little variation. "While the earth remaineth, seed-time and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night, shall not cease."

We also know that the general state and usages of society will be what they ever have been. "The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun. Is there any thing whereof it may be said, See, this is new? It hath been already of old time which was before us."

We are sure no creature possessions and enjoyments will fully meet our hopes and wishes. They never have produced satisfaction. They were never designed to do it—They are incapable of doing it.

We may certainly expect that trials of one kind or another will be our lot. They grow out of our very state and nature. "Man is born to trouble as the sparks fly upward."