, but her eyes were not yet opened to her true
needs, and she had not yet learned the prayer God would have her offer,
"Be merciful to me, a SINNER."

Children, when you pray, do not be discouraged, if God does not answer
you INSTANTLY. His way is not as our way; and though he hears us, and
means to answer us, he may see that we are not yet ready to receive and
appreciate the blessing we seek. Besides, there is no TIME with God as
we count time. WE reckon by days and weeks, by months and years, but
with him all is "one, eternal NOW;" and he goes steadily on, executing
his purposes of love and mercy, without regard to those points and
measures of time which seem so important to us. We must remember, too,
that it takes longer to do some things than others. A praying woman
whose faith was greatly tried, once asked her minister what this verse
meant,--Luke xviii. 8: "I tell you that he will avenge them SPEEDILY."
He replied, "If you make a loaf of bread in ten minutes, you think you
have done your work speedily. Supposing a steam-engine is to be built.
The pattern must be drafted, the iron brought, the parts cast, fitted,
polished, tried,--it will take months to complete it, and then you may
consider it SPEEDILY executed. So, when we ask God to do something for
us, he may see a good deal of preparation to be necessary,--obstacles
are to be removed, stepping-stones to be laid,--in the words of the
Bible, the rough places are to be made plain, and the crooked ways
straight, before the way of the Lord is prepared, and he can come
directly with the thing we have asked."

It was thus with Tidy. She kept praying all the time to be free, but the
Lord, who meant to give her a larger and better freedom than she
asked, led her through such rough and crooked paths that she was quite
discouraged, and nearly gave up all for lost.

This was her painful condition when she was driven, for the first time
in her life, with a gang of men and women to work in the cotton-field.

CHAPTER XV. COTTON.

LET us look into a cotton-field; we will take this one of a hundred
acres. The cotton is planted in rows, and requires incessant tillage to
secure a good crop. The weeds and long grass grow so rankly in this warm
climate that great watchfulness and care are required to keep them down.
If there should be much rain during the season, they will spread so
rapidly as perhaps quite to outgrow and ruin the crop.

Two gangs of laborers work in the