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Faith as a grain of mustard laughs at the pains we groan for. Not the body but the soul is the man. Rouse the soul and it cannot feel the body. Exalted, enraged, frightened, we may be hurt and know it not. Men have been mortally wounded, and scarcely knew it till their anger passed. Why, reader, as we muse on what we might be—as we look within and catch the eye of the genius that smiles us on,—as we think even of what some glorious hearts have suffered, beating in no better flesh than this of our's, we grow ashamed of these paltry metaphysics,—we could dash pen and paper on the ground, and scorn ourself that we ever sought God's purpose in pains and sorrows which so many brave have smiled to encounter.

From this lofty self-possession we turn with contempt to the converse abnegation wherein lies all the fear and folly of the world. "Know ye not, brethren, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are?" The witch-believer will be bewitched; the Methodist will be thrown by the Power; the Dervish will dance, and the Medium will turn bloodless, as the spirits they yield to clutch at their consent. But the royal soul may be above the charms of the charmer, and dictate the coming of its angels and its fiends.

It is a good thing to think of, that we are better prepared to judge our troubles when they have passed than while their stress is on us. If a man is in an ill humor, and knows that its cause was some certain irregularity, he knows how long it should last; and this knowledge, timely thought of, will diminish that pain by half. If our troubles slay us, there needs