will suit us. Yet, like petted
children, we continue persistently to cry for the thing we have not.
Sometimes it is a mere question of waiting. The thing we sigh for
will come in time, but not yet. To wait is the test of many persons;
and if they are impatient, they fail in the one point that determines
the whole. Many young persons seem to think life will all be gone
before they taste any of its sweets. They must have everything at
once, and cannot postpone any of its enjoyments or advantages. No
quality is more fatal to success and lasting happiness than
impatience.

This being a common attitude of mind towards fancied blessings, how
does God deal with it? For a long time He may in compassion withhold
the fatal gift. He may in pity disregard our petulant clamour. And He
may in many ways bring home to our minds that the thing we crave is
in several respects unsuitable. We may become conscious under His
discipline that without it we are less entangled with the world and
with temptation; that we can live more holily and more freely as we
are, and that to quench the desire we have would be to choose the
better part. God may make it plain to us that it is childish to look
upon this one thing as the supreme and only good. Providential
obstacles are thrown in our way, difficulties amounting almost to
impossibilities absolutely prevent us for a while from attaining our
object, and give us time to collect ourselves and take thought. And
not only are we prevented from attaining this one object, but in
other respects our life is enriched and gladdened, so that we might
be expected to be content. If we cannot have a king like other
nations, we have the best of Judges in abundance. And experience of
this kind will convince the subject of it that a Providence shapes
our ends, even although the lesson it teaches may remain unlearnt.

For man's will is never forced: and therefore if we continue to pin
our happiness to this one object, and refuse to find satisfaction and
fruit in life without it, God gives in anger what we have resolved to
obtain. He gives it in its bare earthly form, so that as soon as we
receive it our soul sinks in shame. Instead of expanding our nature
and bringing us into a finished and satisfactory condition, and
setting our life in right relations with other men, we find the new
gift to be a curse to us, hampering us, cutting us off in unexpected
ways from our usefulness, thwarting and blighting our life roun