derness, in spite of the
manna and the quails, and the water from the rock, so we for a course
of years have been hardening ours in spite of the spiritual gifts which
are the portion of Christians. Instead of listening to the voice of
conscience, instead of availing ourselves of the aid of heavenly grace,
we have gone on year after year with the vain dream of turning to God
some future day. Childhood and boyhood are past; youth, perhaps middle
age, perhaps old age is come; and now we find that we cannot "love the
thing which God commandeth, and desire that which He doth promise;" and
then, instead of laying the blame where it is due, on ourselves, for
having hardened ourselves against the influences of grace, we complain
that enough has not been done for us; we complain we have not enough
light, enough help, enough inducements; we complain we have not seen
miracles. Alas! how exactly are God's words fulfilled in us, which He
deigned to speak to His former people. "O inhabitants of Jerusalem,
and men of Judah, judge, I pray you, betwixt Me and My vineyard. What
could have been done more to My vineyard that I have not done in it?
wherefore, when I looked that it should bring forth grapes, brought it
forth wild grapes[2]?"

Let us then put aside vain excuses, and, instead of looking for outward
events to change our course of life, be sure of this, that if our
course of life is to be changed, it must be from within. God's grace
moves us from within, so does our own will. External circumstances
have no real power over us. If we do not love God, it is because we
have not wished to love Him, tried to love Him, prayed to love Him. We
have not borne the idea and the wish in our mind day by day, we have
not had it before us in the little matters of the day, we have not
lamented that we loved Him not, we have been too indolent, sluggish,
carnal, to attempt to love Him in little things, and begin at the
beginning; we have shrunk from the effort of moving from within; we
have been like persons who cannot get themselves to rise in the
morning; and we have desired and waited for a thing impossible,--to be
changed once and for all, all at once, by some great excitement from
without, or some great event, or some special season; something or
other we go on expecting, which is to change us without our having the
trouble to change ourselves. We covet some miraculous warning, or we
complain that we are not in happier circumstances