then, could be the cause of her dejection ?—Oh, there was no special cause; she did not know that she was particularly uncomfortable, only things were very different from what she expected-not at all like what she had been used to.

"And have you, my young friend," said Uncle Barnaby, "suffered discontent, for which you can assign no specific cause, to enter your bosom, and prey on the vitals of domestic comfort? Come, you shall make me your father confessor. Show

me some of the lurking places of the monster, and we will try to hunt him home, and see what he is made of. Now, tell me what you did expect in the marriage state, and wherein your expectations have been disappointed."

Lucy L., like the young apprentice referred to in the previous illustration, found it by no means easy to give a direct answer to this question. My uncle helped her out, by reminding her of a conversation which had taken place a few months previous to her marriage, when she had been warned by her father and her friend, whose counsel she then sought, that she was entering on an engagement which would entail on her many new cares, anxieties, labours, and sacrifices; and that she ought well to consider whether her attachment to the object of her choice was strong enough to enable her to bear them all with a good grace. That she then professed herself-having counted the cost-quite willing to conform to the sphere of life to which her connexion would introduce her; and that she could contemplate nothing but pleasure in taking up with a humble cottage home, in personal exertions to render it comfortable to the man she loved, and in relinquishing any personal indulgences that might

be found incompatible with his resources or his wishes. "And what," he asked, 66 were the hardships she had now to encounter which were not then pointed out to her?"

After a little further conversation with her good old friend, Lucy was brought to perceive, and to admit, that her discontent was groundless, and her complaints frivolous and vexatious-vexatious, both to herself and all around her. When she had been disposed to complain of enjoying comparatively little of her husband's society, she had been calculating on the false estimate of how much she enjoyed during the period of courtship, when he used occasionally to break away from business for two or three days, and spend almost the whole time of these visits to her father's house, either in rural walks, or fireside chat. Perhaps he did not then tell her, that these occasional interruptions to business required extra application for weeks before and after; and it had not occurred to her, that it was unreasonable now to expect that such needless sacrifices should be made, for the sake of useless gratification, and that she ought to content herself with the regular intervals of business for the enjoyment of her husband's society, and rejoice that he was steadily and fully employed in providing for the maintenance of a family. A day lost from business now, she should consider, was of more consequence than when he was a single man, and had only a single man's expenses to meet.

In her present circumstances, it was found necessary to look carefully at the expenditure of every shilling; and if this required her to spare many little expenses in dress or personal indulgence, of which she had formerly thought nothing,

she ought not to be surprised or disappointed. It was but the reality of the sacrifice which she had found it very easy to talk about.

While in the house of her parents, she was not aware for how many comforts she was indebted to the ministrations of two or three well-qualified servants, under the direction of an experienced mistress; and she had thought that she could easily dispense with such attendance. She now found, that the entire charge of household business, with only the assistance of a young, ignorant, and, perhaps, awkward servant, involved the doing and superintending of many things which she had not been used to do, and on which she had not calculated, but of which she certainly had no just cause to complain. If she had not expected it, she ought to have done so; and use and experience would soon make all these things easy.

Then, too, when she anticipated becoming the mother of a family, she had thought only of the sleeping or the smiling babe, as described by painters and poets. She had not taken into account the frailty and fretfulness of real infants, and the weariness, anxieties, and cares, that belong to a real mother. On a little consideration, she was led to admit that she ought to have expected these things, and that now they came upon her, she ought to bear them with patience and cheerfulness, and not ungratefully disregard the many blessings meeting in her circumstances, or make herself and others needlessly unhappy, by repining at the common inconveniences of life.

Lucy L. has long since learned to endure hardships without murmuring, and to be habitually

contented and cheerful, though every thing is not just according to her mind.

I remember occasionally visiting, either with my parents or my uncle, two maiden ladies, distant relatives of the family: but I do not remember visiting them twice in the same habitation. They seldom resided more than a year in a place, and generally entertained their friends with long details of the inconveniences of their present residence, and the advantages of another, to which they were contemplating a removal. But it invariably turned out, that things were not as they expected, and that they were destitute of some convenience which they had been accustomed to enjoy. They could not bear the confinement of a town, after having been used to a spacious garden and extensive prospects in the country. They could not bear the country, after having been used to the society and accommodations of a town. In the city, it was impossible to enjoy the glorious spectacle of sunrise; in the village, they bewailed the absence of gas lamps to illuminate, and policemen to guard them, as they proceeded on their evening visits. The last disappointment was always the greatest, because the present habitation was expected to combine with its own accommodations, those of all former abodes, however incompatible with each other; and the absence of any one of these formed a distinct subject for repining. "It is not at all what we have been used to. It is very different from what we expected:" and life was passed in vain expectations and wearying disappointments.

"It is not at all what I expected," said a young professor of religion. "Instead of being all

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pleasantness and peace, I find difficulties in the ways of religion that I never anticipated. I did expect, when I became religious, that I should find among religious people nothing but kindness and goodness; that I should easily conquer all my evil propensities, and that I should always be happy in the prospect of heavenly blessedness; but I am completely disappointed in many respects. There are many restraints and sacrifices, on which I did not calculate, and to which I find it hard to yield. I am sometimes reproved by those who are by no means perfect themselves. Some of those who at first seemed most kind and affectionate, most ready to encourage and urge me forward, now treat me with comparative coldness and neglect. Besides, I meet with so many trials and discouragements, both from within and without, that I often fear I shall not hold out to the end."

"Ah," said my uncle, "religion is not in fault for all that. You are disappointed, because you have expected from religion what it never promised to bestow; and you have not obtained its pleasures, because you have neglected to apply it to the purposes for which it was designed. There is no engagement whatever, that you shall find the way to heaven a smooth and flowery path. On the contrary, you are expressly and faithfully told, that strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life;' that we must through much tribulation enter into the kingdom of God;' that we must deny ourselves, and take up our cross daily, and follow Christ, Matt. vii. 14; Acts xiv. 22; Luke ix. 23. Then you have no right to expect perfection in fellow Christians, for it is not to be found here, and it certainly is not in your.

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