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was the matter just now when you were groaning so dismally.

Marianne. O really, mamma, there was nothing the matter; only one is miserable sometimes, you know; I often am but then I soon grow cheerful again; that is one comfort.

Mother. Stay; I think you have used the wrong word: you mean that you soon get merry again.

Marianne. Well it's all the same.

Mother. All the same! O no, very different indeed. The most wicked and miserable persons in the world may sometimes be merry; but it is impossible they should ever be cheerful: cheerfulness you know implies an easy, contented, serene mind. Mirth is only excited by some temporary amusement; and this may happen when the heart is aching, and the conscience stinging all the time. A cheerful mind and a guilty conscience can never exist together. Now, although there is no objection to a little girl like you, being merry now and then, yet, it is very requisite that you should not only learn to distinguish between words of such different meanings, but that now, while you are young, you should cultivate those habits and tempers with which cheerfulness will grow ; that you may feel the difference as well as know it. If this had been done already, Marianne, you would have escaped that fit of melancholy this afternoon, and many a one before it.

Marianne. As to that, I fancy every body is in a mopish mood now and then, when they are dull, and when it rains.

Mother. Really, Marianne, we should be badly off in this climate, if we must always be dull when it rains. To be sure, if every body was obliged to stand still at their windows, and watch the drops as they fall, it would be no wonder if it were so.

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Marianne. Well, mamma, it was only because just then I had nothing else to do.

Mother. That, I grant you, is a reason:-the best reason, Marianne, that you have yet given me for being miserable. But this was your own fault; there is no one, young or old, but may find something to do if they please.

Marianne. No really; just then there was nothing in the world that I could think of to do, that I liked.

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Mother. That you liked? O, that was it. Now then I believe we shall arrive at the true cause of this fit of melancholy; you were idle: Now I perfectly understand what it was that made you say “O dear, O dear,” and gape and groan: yes, indeed, it is a miserable thing to be idle. Indolent people may often have a fit of mirth, or a good game of play, but their mirth is sure to subside into dulness, they can never know what it is to bé cheerful.

Marianne. But indeed, mamma, I don't think it was being idle that made me miserable then; it was because I felt so miserable that I did not like to do any thing.

Mother. I think you mistake there: suppose now, when you first came in from play you had thought of winding this cotton for me; and suppose by a little effort you had overcome the inclination you felt to sit still, and had actually done it; do you think you would then have felt so dull and dismal as you did standing still for three quarters of an hour at the window?

Marianne. No, because then I should not have had time to see the bad weather, and to think how dull it

was.

Mother. So I thought it is thus that regular employment keeps off those capricious fits of melancholy to which the indolent are always liable. When useful and industrious people are unhappy, they can always tell

you the reason: but the idle are very often so, when, as you said, nothing at all is the matter.

Marianne. Well, I should very much like to be cheerful always.

Mother. It is a desirable thing, indeed, my dear! but then you must see that you lay a good foundation for cheerfulness and this can only be formed by habits of industry; by good tempers; in one word, by a peaceful conscience. While you are a child, the difference between high spirits and good spirits-between mirth and cheerfulness is not so apparent: but by and by, when you will no longer feel inclined to be merry, you must either be habitually cheerful or habitually dull. Cheerfulness differs essentially from mirth, in its being a lasting companion, one that does not forsake us even in old age. It endures through life; bears persons up under its calamities and crosses; and when genuine, shines brightest as we descend into the vale of years. "In laughter there is sorrow; and the end of mirth is often heaviness;" but christian cheerfulness has no such alloy.

XXXV.

PSALM CXIX. 67.

"Before I was afflicted I went astray."

THERE are few objects less likely to interest the minds of the young than that of affliction. It is a thing which, generally speaking, they know only by description. They are therefore ill qualified to sympathize in the trials of others; nor are they prone to anticipate trouble for themselves. Very young persons, with but few exceptions, have beheld the world only as a scene of enjoyment: to them the past appears all sunshine, and

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the future seems glittering with hope and joy. The word affliction is scarcely understood: They are aware that some persons meet with misfortunes; but these, by their sagacity and forethought, they hope to avoid. They see that others are afflicted with painful diseases but the vigour and bloom of their youth leads them to imagine that they have no such calamities to dread. And when they hear it asserted, from authority they cannot contradict, that “man is born to trouble," and that, "in this world we must have tribulation," they flatter themselves that their portion of it will not arrive until a time when the chief enjoyments of life must necessarily cease; a time when they fancy they shall have no great objection to being afflicted; especially, according to the general and unrealizing ideas they attach to the word. It is not needful to use arguments in order to dispel these illusions. The first approach of real suffering, in whatever form it may appear, will do more than a series of the most elaborate discourses to inform them of the reality, the nature, the use, the painfulness, and the impossibility of escaping,-affliction.

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In the mean time, we hope to justify our choice of a subject which may have been thought unsuitable, by directing our attention principally to the first word of the text. When the Psalmist says, before I was afflicted, I went astray," he refers to that period of life, and those circumstances, in which most young persons are placed; and to whom, therefore, these words must be singularly appropriate.

There was a time then, it appears, when David knew nothing of affliction. While he was yet a stripling, fair and ruddy, keeping those few sheep in the wilderness, the world appeared to him as smiling and agreeable as it may do to the reader. He would have been surprised could he then have read as his own, such language as bitter experience afterwards wrung from him, while he

was yet a stranger to the tyranny of a patron, the ingratitude of friends, the malice of enemies, the harshness of relations, the rebellion of children, the disaffection of subjects; to domestic calamities and public cares: he did not, certainly, anticipate his declension from the good ways of God: nor had he yet discovered that earthly happiness is, itself, unsatisfying; which would probably have surprised him more than the rest. David possessed a lively and fertile imagination: and while leading a pastoral life, he was doubtless alive to the beauties of nature; and his enthusiasm was kindled amid the splendours of distant worlds. Probably with a mind elevated and excited by such contemplations, he was not aware how little the feelings of genuine devotion mingled with these intellectual enjoyments ;-and would have been astonished to know that in after years, when better acquainted with himself and with God, he should be compelled to exclaim, "my soul cleaveth to the dust."

But when, with the sanguine feelings of youth, the world in its more captivating forms began to invite his regard; when in the sunshine of royal favour, and under the secret consciousness of being himself the subject of high predictions, he would have thought it strange, could he have foreseen that he should ever make those sad exclamations; "I am afflicted very much;-sorrow and anguish have taken hold upon me ; I found trouble and sorrow!"

But when in addition to the splendours of a court, the honours of a favourite, the fascinations of society,-when, in addition to all this, the bewitching voice of fame first surprised him--when the the gratifying chorus of "Saul his thousands, and David his ten thousands," reached his ears,-could he then have believed that he should ever be tempted to say, even in his haste, “all men are liars!" Had this been foreseen he would have

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