"For we through the Spirit by faith wait for the hope of righteousness." (Gal. 5:5, R. V.)

THERE are times when things look very dark to me so dark that I have to wait even for hope. It is bad enough to wait in hope. A long-deferred fulfillment carries its own pain, but to wait for hope, to see no glimmer of a prospect and yet refuse to despair; to have nothing but night before the casement and yet to keep the casement open for possible stars; to have a vacant place in my heart and yet to allow that place to be filled by no inferior presence-that is the grandest patience in the universe. It is job in the tempest; it is Abraham on the road to Moriah; it is Moses in the desert of Midian; it is the Son of man in the Garden of Gethsemane.

There is no patience so hard as that which endures, "as seeing him who is invisible;" (Heb.11:27) it is the waiting for hope.

Thou hast made waiting beautiful; Thou has m............