The things of time, of the earth, often obscure the heavenly and eternal ones. What need that God stir up faith in His people continually! We often shrink from the exercises by which He does this very thing, but when one sees the results, the end, oh how preferable to be tried, and exercised, and cast upon God, than the absence of these, and spiritual torpor creeping in and deadening the spiritual aspirations and joys.