24 and healthful breezes fanned you, and ministries of love gladdened your habitations. And yours have been all the ineffable consolations of the Gospel of Christ, and the hopes of a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory. Count this war only a divine judgment, nevertheless, it is no more than a solitary cloud on a firmament still lustrous with the sun and stars of His infinite loving-kindness, and scarcely weakens the force of the inspired exhortation —" In every thing give thanks" Nor this only. This balancing of accounts with God, to feel that He has done us, on the whole, more good than evil, is a very pitiful and unworthy view, to take of the duty of thanksgiving. Our text takes much higher ground. It enjoins thankfulness in all circumstances. Even if they should seem utterly distressing. And teaches us that true thanksgiving is not a selfish emotion gratified by prosperity, but a vital grace in the soul, existing independent of circumstances or condition. Let us then in our brief remainder of discourse consider Thankfulness as a gracious affection of the soul—What it is ? and Hoio it is to be strengthened ? First.—What is the thankfulness which the text enjoins ? And we answer that it is not a simple, but a composite emotion—consisting of joy from benefits. And love for the benefactor. Simple joy alone has no determinate moral quality ; it may be good, it may be thoroughly evil. Without love it is altogether bad and abominable. Thankless delight belongs to the
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