.... "We will not say... the former days were the best. I do not believe it. I own we have been humbled and exercised, and been ensnared and drawn aside, and have betrayed nature again and again,-to our rebuking and shame, but still the present days are the best. He has used all to our blessing; and the heart is a little nearer to Him, and the hope more surely is making Him its object.
" That is a fine bold saying of faith in Psa. 49, though, perhaps, in its fullest sense, we may, through preventing grace, have not been called to utter it. 'Wherefore should I fear in the days of evil, when the iniquity of my heels shall encompass me about.'
"There is the early springing of the year's growth in its infant greenness, while as yet it has not been broken or withered, and it is lovely to the eye; but it is not fit for the sickle, as it is when broken and tossed by summer and autumn sun and wind, and [with us] the experience of the soul is after such a pattern. It is freshest and more pleasant in its earlier buddings, but it is far less ready then, for the bosom of Him that binds the sheaves."