By Mrs. Charles E. Cowman

      "I called upon him, but he gave me no answer" (S. of Sol. 5:6).

      The Lord, when He hath given great faith, hath been known to try it by long delayings. He has suffered His servants' voices to echo in their ears as from a brazen sky. They have knocked at the golden gate, but it has remained unmovable, as though it were rusted upon its hinges. Like Jeremiah, they have cried, "Thou hast covered thyself with a cloud, that our prayer should not pass through." Thus have true saints continued long in patient waiting without reply, not because their prayers were not vehement, nor because they were unaccepted, but because it so pleased Him who is a Sovereign, and who gives according to His own pleasure. If it pleases Him to bid our patience exercise itself, shall He not do as He will with His own!

      No prayer is lost. Praying breath was never spent in vain. There is no such thing as prayer unanswered or unnoticed by God, and some things that we count refusals or denials are simply delays. --H. Bonar

      Christ sometimes delays His help that He may try our faith and quicken our prayers. The boat may be covered with the waves, and He sleeps on; but He will wake up before it sinks. He sleeps, but He never oversleeps; and there are no "too lates" with Him. --Alexander Maclaren

      Be still, sad soul! lift thou no passionate cry,
      But spread the desert of thy being bare
      To the full searching of the All-seeing eye;
      Wait! and through dark misgiving, black despair,
      God will come down in pity, and fill the dry
      Dead place with light, and life, and vernal air.
      --J. C. Shairp