July 27

Now for a season, if need be, ye are in heaviness through manifold temptations. - 1 Peter 1:6.

LET us consider the duration of the Christian’s sorrows. Brevity is the most painful circumstance that can attach to enjoyment; but it is the most alleviating with regard to suffering and distress. In the hour of pain and infirmity, time flaps over us with leaden wings, and “hope deferred maketh the heart sick; but when the desire cometh it is a tree of life.” And come it “will, and will not tarry.” No; it is only “for a season, if need be, we are in heaviness through manifold temptations.” And what is this season? What is the length of time itself to eternity? and what is the length of life to time? and what is the length commonly of suffering even to life? The sacred writers, therefore, labour to express the brevity of this in every possible way.

Thus, they tell us that the church shall have tribulation “ten days;” and ten days will be soon gone. Then they tell us that the suffering period is only “for a night,” “weeping may endure for a night.” How soon the night passes away! “but joy cometh in the, morning.” We read, also, of the “hour of temptation,” and not only so, but we read of “a moment:”- “These light afflictions, which are but for a moment;” and even this will not satisfy inspiration. Isaiah tells us that for “a small moment” God has forsaken “his people, but with everlasting kindness will he have mercy on them.” Therefore, let us sing, or sigh,-

“Yet a season, and, we know,

Happy entrance shall be given;

All our sorrows left below,

And earth exchanged for heaven.”