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For a dream cometh through the multitude of business; and a fool's voice is known by multitude of words.-Ecclesiastes v. 2, 3.

Our temper, even when we are asleep, as well as when awake, seems to depend much on habitual devoutness, quietness, moderation in worldly matters, and self-controul.

Sorrow is better than laughter: for by the sadness of the countenance the heart is made better.

For as the crackling of thorns under a pot, so is the laughter of the fool: this also is vanity.-vi. 3. 6.

Yielding pacifieth great offences.-x. 4.

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This is true, with both real and imaginary offences. When real offence is given by us, it is our bounden duty to yield. "If thou hast done foolishly in lifting up thyself, or if thou hast thought evil, lay thy hand upon thy mouth:" (Proverbs xxx. 32.) The manner also of yielding is here adverted to, in terms that show a very delicate and high sense of moral honour. "If the spirit of the ruler rise up against thee, leave not thy place for yielding pacifieth great offences." For if a man, conscious of deserving censure, thinks that by withdrawing he sets matters right again, it is a great mistake. By thus withdrawing, he seems to acquit himself; whereas he ought to have waited, to see whether the person whom he has offended would condemn him. If the offended party, after a reasonable space of time, retires; or if he remains, and cheerfully passes on to another subject; the offender may venture to consider himself as tacitly acquitted: but he must not, in any case, if the offence be real, acquit or justify himself.

With regard to imaginary affronts, one would not call them "great offences," were it not for their great frequency, and the great trouble which they occasion. Here, also, yielding is a course by which a man may gain much, while he loses nothing. A prudent person will indeed try to keep

out of the way of casual offences; but since, in the chancemedley of life, he may not be able always to do this, his better course then is, not to be obstinate about trifles; not to show temper; and, in short, to concede any thing that is not of an essential character. Some people have a natural, happy talent of overleaping difficulties; others stick at them, explain, discuss, re-state, and re-argue the point, which, after all, was but a misunderstanding: others, again, exhibit a sullenness, or an abruptness of manner, which leaves as painful a wound as contention. "Yielding," seems not inconsistent with a calm, meek, condescending explanation, if the other party will bear it. In all relations of life, conjugal, domestic, social, and public, wise men discover, as they grow older, the necessity of often giving way.

He shall not cry, nor lift up, nor cause his voice to be heard in the street.

A bruised reed shall he not break, and the smoking flax shall he not quench: he shall bring forth judgment unto truth.-Isaiah xlii. 2, 3.

He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth: he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he openeth not his mouth.-liii. 7.

It is good for a man that he bear the yoke in his youth.

He sitteth alone and keepeth silence, because he hath borne it upon him.-Lamentations iii. 27, 28.

The yoke is here meant, principally, of affliction. Afflictions from God, coming in our early life, are good, being designed both to expel youthful vanities, and to harden the temper to manly virtues. Joseph learned some of his best Court-rules in the prison. To keep time; punctually to mind orders; to allot provisions; to read the meaning

of men in their countenances; to bear cutting injuries and disappointments; to repress his feelings, and keep silence, committing all to God- - these habits, well learned before he was thirty years of age, would be of essential service to him in various parts of his duty as Viceroy of Egypt.

Not less remarkable is the character of the prophet Daniel, who was one of those whose calamities are mourned over in this very Book of Lamentations. Dragged away, before the twentieth year of his age, into captivity, he is at Babylon tempted to eat of the royal dainties, but is permitted, together with his companions, to decline them. All his days he passes at, or near, Babylon. Early inured to fasting, we find him thus mortifying the flesh for three whole weeks, when nearly ninety years of age. And, when past ninety, he is still able to superintend the hundred and twenty provinces, into which Darius divided his kingdom. To the end of time it will be seen, that it was well for him, for his people, and for the whole Church of God, that he bore "the yoke in his youth.”

Then was Nebuchadnezzar full of fury, and the form of his visage was changed against Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego: therefore he spake, and commanded that they should heat the furnace one seven times more than it was wont to be heated.— Daniel iii. 19.

The king spake, and said, Is not this great Babylon, that I have built for the house of the kingdom by the might of my power, and for the honour of my majesty?

While the word was in the king's mouth, there fell a voice from heaven, saying, O king Nebuchadnezzar! to thee it is spoken: The kingdom is departed from thee.-iv. 30, 31.

The possession of Power has a tendency to harden the heart against both God and man. Such men as Pharaoh,

Sennacherib, Nebuchadnezzar, Herod, and Pontius Pilate, -and, the Chief Priests, Pharisees and Sadducees-are described in the Bible, in order that persons possessing power, whether Civil or Ecclesiastical, may tremble, when reflecting on the talent committed to them.

There are characters, also, of a description as low as that of the commonly-so-called tyrant; namely, Aspirants, who are bent on gaining power at all hazards; and those who are Newly-possessed of power, which they are disposed to use only for their own selfish ends. Dubious in their claims, uncertain of success, suspicious of slights, elated by circumstances, and risking but a small stake of character, they are often capable of the most outrageous measures. But Divine Providence, after suffering them for a time, restrains the remainder of their wrath.

The persons, in whose hands power may be viewed as safely and beneficially lodged, are those who adore the Majesty, and imitate the Holiness and Mercy of the Most High. A Prince, a Senator, a Judge, should be a man who meditates in the law of the Lord "day and night." "He that ruleth over men must be just, ruling in the fear of God."

Of the Temporal Rulers above named, in Nebuchadnezzar alone do there appear any marks of the converting grace of God. The closing verses of his history (Daniel iv. 34-37) can scarcely be regarded as expressing less than a genuine change of heart; for when we consider how much it must have cost a mighty heathen monarch to proclaim, in a State-Document, his own humiliation, and the Sovereign Power of Jehovah the God of the Captive Jews, we can hardly refrain from remembering that verse, and applying it to him" He that humbleth himself, shall be exalted." In his former State-Document (Daniel iii. 28, 29, "shall be cut in pieces") there was much of remaining bitterness, arrogance, and intolerance: but in the latter one, he writes like a man quite softened and subdued in his spirit; more like one that had entered the kingdom of God as a little child: "Now I Nebuchadnezzar praise and extol and honour the King of heaven, all whose works are truth, and his ways judgment: and those that walk in pride he is able to abase." He is supposed to have died

the year following; "taken away from the evil to come," perhaps before new temptations to pride had ruffled him.

And God said to Jonah, Doest thou well to be angry for the gourd? and he said, I do well to be angry, even unto death.

Then said the LORD, Thou hast had pity on the gourd, for the which thou hast not laboured, neither madest it grow; which came up in a night, and perished in a night:

And should not I spare Nineveh, that great city, wherein are more than sixscore thousand persons that cannot discern between their right hand and their left hand and also much cattle?-Jonah iv. 9-11.

A spirit of Selfishness appears to have been the besetting sin of this servant of God. The hope of self-preservation first tempts him to fly from the path of duty: afterwards, self-indulgence places him well-pleased beneath his gourd, musing on the ruin of a great city: finally, self-justification prompts the most morose, the most unbecoming reply conceivable, from a creature to his pitying and forbearing God. Thus Jonah passes from our view, under a cloud; a warning, far more than an example. In a Minister of Christ, above all others, Selfishness of every kind ought to be annihilated.

Seek ye the LORD, all ye meek of the earth, which have wrought his judgment; seek righteousness, seek meekness: it may be ye shall be hid in the day of the LORD's anger.-Zephaniah ii. 3.

A most consolatory direction, this, in dark and troublous times!

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