THE IVY. 311 



his Master's foes, has come off more than con- 

 queror, through him who loved him : and who, 

 tottering now on life's extremest verge, is regarded 

 as most triumphantly secure of his crown, most 

 enviably nearer to heaven — he too has fightings 

 without and fears within ; he too, while the body 

 still detains him, is militant here below. 



The universal acknowledgement of all, whether 

 uttered by the lips, or secretely made in the heart's 

 recesses, in that voice of which God alone is cog- 

 nizant, is ever, " We in this tabernacle do groan, 

 beincr burdened." I have known some dear self- 

 doubting children of Zion go heavily in perpetual 

 grief, merely because no outward cross was, at 

 that particular time, laid on them. A somewhat 

 closer acquaintance with God and with themselves 

 has never failed, in such cases, to convince them 

 that He, not they, was the best judge when, and 

 how, and of what kind the discipline prepared for 

 them should be. But the very apprehension en- 

 gendered by such supposed exclusion from the 

 badge of His servants, was in itself, no light 

 cross ; and they, contending against their own 

 misgivings, were equally militant here below. 



If such be the general experience of those 

 most highly favoured in external things, what shall 

 we say of such as, like the winter Ivy, stand ex- 

 posed to the fiercest assaults of blight, and blast, 

 and storm and external desolation, that the ele- 



