Let us learn the lesson of patience. “Behold the husbandman waiteth for the precious fruit of the earth, and hath long patience for it, until he receive the early and latter rain.” Delay does not mean denial. Too often one generation sows and another has to reap. God is a jealous God, “visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate Him.”

In the early years of Israel’s existence as a separate people, God commanded them to give the land of Canaan rest every seventh year.

“Six years thou shalt sow thy land, and shalt gather in the fruits thereof: but the seventh year thou shalt let it rest and lie still; that the poor of thy people may eat, and what they leave the beasts of the field shall eat. In like manner thou shalt deal with thy vineyard, and with thy olive yard.” From the anointing of Saul to be king this law was not observed. After four hundred and ninety years God gave the nation into captivity for seventy years. During this period the land had rest; seventy sabbath years to compensate for the sabbath years of which it had been deprived. Those Israelites sowed the bitter seed of disobedience, and their descendants had to reap the harvest in exile and captivity.

A leading surgeon performed a critical operation before his class one day. The operation was successful, as far as his part was concerned. But he turned to the class and said: “Six years ago a wise way of living might have prevented this disease. Two years ago a safe and simple operation might have cured it. We have done our best to-day as the case now stands, but Nature will have her word to say. She does not always repeal her capital sentences.” Next day the patient died, reaping the fruit of his excesses.

Paul says: “Let us not be weary in well-doing; in due season we shall reap if we faint not.”

In a recent chat with an interviewer, Mr. Edison quite unconsciously preached a most powerful sermon on perseverance and patience.

He described his repeated efforts to make the phonograph reproduce the aspirated sound, and added: “From eighteen to twenty hours a day for the last seven months I have worked on this single word ‘specia.’ I said into the phonograph, ‘specia, specia, specia,’ but the instrument responded, ‘pecia, pecia, pecia.’ It was enough to drive one mad! But I held firm, and I have succeeded.”

An insurance case was brought to Daniel Webster when he was a young lawyer in Portsmouth. Only a small amount was involved, and a twenty-dollar fee was all that was promised. He saw that to do his client full justice, a journey to Boston would be desirable, in order to consult the law library. He would be out of pocket by the expedition, and for the time he would receive no adequate compensation. But he determined to do his best, cost what it might. He accordingly went to Boston and looked up the authorities, and gained the case.

Years after, Webster, who had meanwhile become famous, was passing through New York. An important insurance case was to be tried that day, and one of the counsel had suddenly been taken ill. Money was no object, and Webster was begged to name his terms and conduct the case.

“I told them,” said Mr. Webster, “that it was preposterous to expect me to prepare a legal argument at a few hours notice. They insisted, however, that I should look at the papers; and this I finally consented to do. It was my old twenty-dollar case over again; and as I never forget anything, I had all the authorities at my fingers’ ends. The court knew that I had no time to prepare, and were astonished at the range of my acquirements. So you see, I was handsomely repaid both in fame and money for that journey to Boston; and the moral is that good work is rewarded in the end.”

Two men were digging in California for gold. They worked a good deal and got nothing. At last one of them threw down his tools and said:

“I will leave here before we starve”; and he left.

The next day his comrade’s patience was rewarded by finding a nugget that supported him until he made a fortune.

“Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil. Though a sinner do evil an hundred times, and his days be prolonged, yet surely I know that it shall be well with them that fear God, which fear before Him; but it shall not be well with the wicked, neither shall he prolong his days, which are as a shadow; because he feareth not before God.”

The idea that because a person does a thing in the dark it will never be brought to light, is fatal—God says it shall be brought to light. It is folly for a man who has covered his sins to think there shall be no resurrection of them and no final adjudication. Look at the sons of Jacob. They sold Joseph and deceived their father. Twenty long years rolled away, and away down to Egypt their sin followed them; for they said: “We are guilty of the blood of our brother.” The reaping time had come at last, for those ten boys who sold their brother.

I was once preaching in Chicago, and a woman who was nearly out of her mind came to me. You know there are some people who mock at religions meetings, and say that religion drives people mad. It is sin that drives people mad. It is the want of Christ that sinks people into despair. This was the woman’s story: She had a family of children. One of her neighbors had died, and her husband had brought home a little child. She said, “I don’t want the child,” but her husband said, “You must take it and look after it.” She said she had enough to do with her own, and she told her husband to take that child away. But he would not. She confessed that she tried to starve the child; but it lingered on. One night it cried all night; I suppose it wanted food. At last she took the clothes and threw them over the child, and smothered it. No one saw her; no one knew anything about it. The child was buried. Years had passed away; and she said, “I hear the voice of that child day and night. It has driven me nearly mad.” No one saw the act; but God had seen it, and this retribution followed it. History is full of these things. You need not go to the Bible to find it out.

“Herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit . . . after his kind.”—Gen. i: 12.

“Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles?”—Matt. vii: 16.

“For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die: but if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live.”—Romans viii: 13.

CHAPTER IV.