hate me may see it and be ashamed, for thou Lord hast holpen and comforted me.

My Dear Hearers, this is religion. This is, indeed, that life of God in the soul, which he will first prove and then own. He proves its reality, by bringing it to the test. He improves. its power by exercise, and teaches all his children to prepare for it. Think it not strange concerning the fiery trial that is to try you, as though some strange thing happened unto you. It is a part of a plan: it is a means to an end: it is a process that bespeaks present value and future advancement :Ye are now in heaviness through manifold temptations, that the trial of your faith being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, may be found unto praise, and honour, and glory, at the appearing of Jesus Christ.

This gold is tried by SATAN, who, as we learn from the cases of Job and Peter, is aiming to destroy what God means only to purify. Satan will seek to place such men as Hophni and Phineas at the altar, if it be but to distress and drive away from it such worshippers as Hannah.

The WORLD is a fiery trial to a faithful heart: either vexing it, as it did Hannah's; or dividing it, as it did Elkana's.

The FLESH, called the old man with his affections and lusts, is for a time permitted to try the reality of the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness.. No fire is

found by the believer more severe than this; leading him often to cry out, O wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me?

The FAMILY is sometimes a fierce fire. Our family comprehends the greatest portion of our world it is to us the most interesting, and therefore is capable of becoming the most trying, portion. The family is often our furnace: it has pains as necessarily secret as severe; and where they can be told, they are told in vain to any but God. Such was the family of Hannah.

But why do I stop at the family: we have just seen that the CHURCH itself is a fire, by which the faith and patience of its true members will be tried. It will try whether we, like Hannah, can honour the house and ordinances of God, while Hophni and Phineas are profaning it: whether we can acknowledge a true minister of God, and meekly bear with his infirmities, though, like Eli, he mistakes our case, and chills the heart which he should cherish: whether we can receive the promises of God from his mouth, though it sometimes speaks unadvisedly. The Church is a fire to try the Church.

Ignorance can see nothing but misery in such a process and malice stands ready, like Penninah, to insult and provoke the desolate. God hath forsaken her: persecute and take her, for there is none to deliver.

But, understand, ye brutish among the people;

and, ye fools, when will ye be wise? Doth he not sit by his gold as a refiner, while ye stand by it misconceiving or mocking?-Doth he not sit by it to watch over the furnace, to regulate the heat; to determine the time of trial, and to bring his gold out of it seven times purified.

A proof of this is before your eyes in the text. This woman out of weakness was made`strong. She looked beyond her difficulties, and wrought through them :-perplexed, but not in despair; per secuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed. She teaches us, as I said, what religion is, and what is its value.

We have thus seen true religion to be a divine life, and we have seen it tried. Let us, in the next place, observe it owned and honoured of him who gave it; for, them that honour God, he will honour.

The servants of God, like Hannah, may have to pass through many trying dispensations to those good things which God hath prepared for them that love him; but, though weeping may endure for a night, joy will certainly come in the morning. The night was past: the precious seed of faith, prayer, and patience had been sown weeping and now the Lord removes the error from Eli's mind, and puts comfortable words into his mouth. Eli said, Go in peace, and the God of Israel shall grant thee thy petition that thou hast asked of him.

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The life of faith can take comfort from a word, and rest a world upon a promise. God, who sent her a token for good, enabled her to receive it, and to rest on it. And she said, Let thy handmaid find grace in thy sight. So the woman went her way, and did eat, and her countenance was no more sad. Her affairs without the Sanctuary actually remained in the same state as before; but a transaction had passed within it, which placed them in a new point of view. The favourable aspect of God, gives a new aspect to every thing besides.

And they rose Lord, and re

The time for God to honour the faith which he had tried, was now fully come. Hannah had left the temple, cheered and satisfied. early, and worshipped before the turned, and came to their house-and the Lord remembered Hannah- and she bare a son, and called his name Samuel, saying, Because I asked him of the Lord.

The Lord not only honours the work which he has proved, but he often does so beyond all that we can ask or think. Hannah had asked for a man-child; but it was not in her contemplation to ask for a SAMUEL-that light of Israel-that Prophet mighty in word and deed before Godthat blessing and pattern to the world in every age. She returns, in due time, with this child; and, in presenting him to Eli with a heart overflowing at the recollection of the place, time and circum

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stances of her trial, she says, "O my Lord, as thy soul liveth, my Lord, I am the woman that stood by thee here praying unto the Lord. For this child I prayed, and the Lord hath given me my petition, and to him I dedicate the gift for

ever."

They, that sow in tears, shall reap in joy; and the testimony of such witnesses is the soul of history. Let us mark the state of her mind by its grateful acknowledgments..

She brought the child to Eli, and said, O my Lord, I am the woman that stood by thee here praying. "You recollect," as if she had said, "a poor broken-hearted creature-drunk, indeed, with grief, though not with wine. You saw me here reduced to the one help and hope of the comfortless. I am the woman whom you sent away with a word of encouragement, and here is the answer to my prayer: for this child I prayed; and I am come this day to give him up to that God, who is all my salvation and all my desire. For, thankful as I am for the child, yet my heart rejoiceth in the Lord: there is none holy as the Lord; neither is there any Rock like our God. I have been cruelly scorned and reproached, but talk no more so exceeding proudly: let not arrogancy come out of your mouth: for the Lord is a God of knowledge, by Him actions are weighed: I stand a living witness to this truth. The Lord killeth,