Melrose Abbey. The same great lesson is as surely and far more painfully impressed on the contemplative soul, in the din of a great community. M. G. L. D.

FIRST WEEK-WEDNESDAY.

FAMINE IN THE BEGINNING OF AUTUMN.

THE indication of spring in the change of atmosphere, so marked sometimes for a week or two in the early part of that season, that it is called by the French L'eté de San Martin, (Saint Martin's summer,) attunes the feelings to hope, with respect to what is in the womb of time, and soon to be enjoyed more uninterruptedly. And again, the balmy breath of summer, maturing vegetables, and covering the valleys with the green blade that affords the promise of a fruitful harvest, cheers and enlivens those who are at ease in their possessions. Being out of reach of want themselves, they little wot of the extremities of hunger and privation, of discontent, of envy, and of longing desire, which are endured and called into exercise amongst their fellow beings, who are a few grades below them in the scale of providential bounty. Then the humane and benevolent, whose sympathies for the poor are much awakened by cold, (an evil which they partially share with them,) feel as if at liberty to relax from their care and exertion, and conclude that the season of heavy privation is over. How little do they know the truth, in the case of a year of scarcity! It is not till the sun rises high above the horizon, and his influence warms the bosom of the earth, that the truly pinching time of famine arrives. The scanty crop has been husbanded during winter; its gleanings still eke out a meal in the early part of summer; but then all is expended, and famine, that scourge of the Lord, meets the poor with inevitable sternness.

"O, who can warm himself in winter's frost
By thinking of meridian summer's heat ?"

Or who can satisfy the present cravings of hunger, by gazing on crops not yet ripened for the sickle? Any one who has penetrated the lanes, the cellars, and the garrets of the crowded city, and breathed the tainted air, which, in dun vapors, hangs around them, must shudder at the helplessness of man, and the extent of his capacity of suffering. Strong exertion, and fixed purpose to lend aid, only alleviate bodily wants in a degree, while they too often draw forth most painful exhibitions of moral evil. Selfishness, envy, deceit, and trickery, are vices which are stirred into more lively action by a dispensation of rebuke and judgement. The heart of the philanthropist has often been chilled, and his extended hand checked, by the sight of the human character, as it is displayed when struggling under the afflictions of want, without being subdued by them. Yet these are the fruits which God, who penetrates the heart, knows to be in the germ all the while that his rain and sunshine have been shed on it. Has He been patient so long? let not man fret because of a fellow sinner. When He smites, let the soul of the reconciled go out in pity and in prayer.

But, regard it as we may, famine is one of the sorest evils, coming direct from the Divine Hand, that falls upon man. It is of not uncommon occurrence, and against it industry and contrivance have little power. Not only does the uncivilized Caffre pine under its influence, and draw his famine-belt tighter, as the pinching foe gripes him more closely, but the industrious and ingenious European bows under its dominion, and, hunger-bitten, sinks and dies.

We look to second causes, and impute our years of dearth to wet and cold, to hot and parching seasons, to cycles of weather, to comets, and many other accidents, some of them real and others imaginary, and thus wilfully conceal from our view the power of God, who blesseth a land, and maketh it to bring forth fruit abundantly, and, again, who “turneth a fruitful land into barrenness for the wickedness of them who dwell therein." He has said, "that nation will I punish with famine ;" and "I will send the famine among them." To his people Israel, He

made this denunciation, "If ye will not yet for all this hearken unto me, then I will punish you seven times more for your sins. I will break the pride of your power, and I will make your heaven as iron, and your earth as brass." Again, "the Lord shall smite thee with blasting and mildew; and the heaven that is over thy head shall be brass, and the earth that is under thee shall be iron." According to the Mosaic law, after six years of culture, the seventh was to be a Sabbath of rest unto the land, and a sabbath to the Lord. When, through want of faith in the Divine care, which was to furnish them meat in the sabbatical year, the Israelites left off the observance of this law, they did not expect that God would reckon with them for their disobedience. Yet, nearly a thousand years after the law was promulgated, where an account is given of burning the houses of gold and the palaces, and of carrying away captive to Babylon those who had escaped the sword, we are reminded that a strict account had been preserved of every act of disobedience. The sabbatical years were still to be required of them, and to be forcibly exacted, for they were to be kept in captivity "till the land had enjoyed her sabbaths: for, as long as she lay desolate, she kept sabbath, to fulfil threescore and ten years."*

Another remarkable instance of retribution, appears in the failure to release the bondmen in the year of jubilee. The law was, that if a brother were waxen poor, he might pay his debt by means of his labor, and that of his family; but this could not extend beyond the year of release, when he was to depart, both he and his children, and return to the possession of his fathers. They were not to be sold as bondmen, or ruled over with rigor; for they were God's servants, which He brought forth out of the land of Egypt. The cupidity or unfaithfulness of the wealthy in Judea, had led them to disobey this law. But when the time of retribution arrived, while the king saw his sons and the nobles slain before his eyes, and was himself carried captive, with all the people possessing wealth and substance, "Nebuzar-adan, the captain of the

* 2 Chron. xxxvi. 21

guard, left of the poor of the people, which had nothing in the land of Judah, and gave them vineyards and fields at the same time."* So that they were "returned to the possession of their fathers," while those who had wronged them, entered on a more severe foreign bondage.

We surely greatly err, if we content ourselves with saying, we are not now under the Jewish dispensation; we are not under a discipline of temporal rewards and punishments; and thus neglect the acts of God's providence, which are as certainly a part of his administration now, as in former ages, and as directly affect each individual of the whole race of Adam, as they did the children of Abraham. Those shall know who follow on to know the Lord. It is to those who are subdued under his rebukes that He sendeth his word, to heal them. They who watch the ruling hand of God, shall become wiser in reading his purposes, and their own necessities. If a man abuse his corporeal frame by excesses, he is visited with bodily distempers, at the present day, whether he be Jew or Gentile. If he waste his days in sloth, his substance will become wasted also. If he refuse to cultivate his mental powers, ignorance and stupidity must be the consequence. If he drink to excess, he will be deprived for a time of reason. Need he wonder, then, if he should misapply the wholesome grain which is good for food, by extracting from it a spirit that consumes his senses and his strength, that God should, for a time, prevent the grain from growing, and leave him to feel that the sun and the shower are withheld in wrath. When he is lifted up, as if by his own wisdom and power he had gotten all this great wealth, doth not God regard it, and will He not remind him from whence his prosperity flowed? When, as a nation, we glory in our skill and ingenuity, and feel as if, through our various mechanical contrivances, nothing shall be withholden from us, do we not expose ourselves to a national rebuke, and ought we not, when we meet it, to humble ourselves under it?

It has been a subject of philosophical investigation,

Jeremiah xxxix. 10.

whether famine and privation, as instruments, are calculated to subdue the will, to awaken the intellectual powers, and to enlarge the mind; and the conclusion generally arrived at is a negative one. When bodily necessi

ties are clamant, the mind is absorbed in them. When the unsubdued will is in a state of suffering, it is only excited to further rebellion. If it cannot be proved, however, that famine has been frequently the instrument of turning the heart to God, very many of his reconciled children can tell how their straits and necessities have sent them to prayer, and how His hand, shown in their deliverances, has enabled them to glorify His name; and, at the same time, there are very many examples of intellectual might contending with poverty, and gathering knowledge in the face of much privation. When to this laudable spirit is added the love of God, and contentment with his dispensation, one of the noblest characters is formed, of which humanity, in this state of things, is capable. To this, the apostle had attained; but we must remark that, if, in whatsoever state he was, he had learned to be content; if he knew both how to be abased, and how to abound, how to be full and how to be hungry, how to abound and to suffer need, it was because he leaned not on himself, but on Christ which strengthened him; it was because his portion was not of this world, but of a better and enduring substance; it was because the object which commanded the strenuous efforts of his energetic mind, was not silver and gold, not corn and wine, but the gathering in of lost sheep to the fold, the guiding of them in the paths of peace, and teaching of them and himself, to glorify their Lord with and by what He bestowed, whether of a temporal or spiritual character, and whether granted in large measure or in small.

M. G. L. D.