The Persistency of Waiting.
THE fulfillment of waiting on the Lord is "patient continuance in well-doing." Waiting includes perseverance. Patience is essential to compliance with the requirement to "wait on the Lord." An apostle says: "The husbandman waiteth for the precious fruit of the earth, and hath long patience for it." So, all who would serve the Lord must wait patiently for the results, and for the reward of their labors. They do not at once see the fruit of what they sow, and hence they need to cheer themselves with the assurance, "In due season we shall reap, if we faint not." The Chinese have a proverb that "with time a mulberry leaf becomes satin." When it is said that "waters wear the stones," the understanding is that this result is not reached by force, but by continual dropping. Some one has defined perseverance as failing nineteen times and succeeding the twentieth time, like Bruce's famous spider, which has taught the world the best lesson that spider ever taught. Jeremy Collier said: "Perpetual pushing and assurance put a difficulty out of countenance and make a seeming impossibility give way." This is illustrated in the discovery of America by Columbus, and in the success of the missionary work in Burmah, where Adoniram Judson labored six years before he could rejoice over the first convert. Fitly did Dr. Samuel Johnson, more than a century ago, say: "All the performances of human art at which we look with praise or wonder, are instances of the resistless force of perseverance. It is by this that the quarry becomes a pyramid, and that distant countries are united by canals. If a man was to compare the effect of a single stroke of the pickax, or of one impression of the spade, with the general design and last result, he would be overwhelmed by the sense of their disproportion; yet those petty operations, incessantly continued, in time surmount the greatest difficulties; and mountains are leveled and oceans bounded by the slender force of human beings." Those who steadfastly wait on the Lord are amply repaid for their persistency in complying with a cardinal requirement. A prophet's cheering words may be accepted by him when he says: "The vision is yet for an appointed time; wait for it, because it will surely come." The tarrying of the vision is not the failing of the vision. Waiting for it will certainly be crowned with the seeing of it. There is much endurance in waiting. David could say: "On thee, O Lord, do I wait all the day." His waiting endured unto the end. It was through "all the day," embracing the entire day, and not merely a part thereof. He did not wait temporarily, but continually. Quaint Thomas Brooks, two hundred years ago, said: "No grace, not the most sparkling and shining grace, can bring a man to Heaven of itself without perseverance; not faith (which is the champion of grace), if it be faint and fail; not love (which is the nurse of grace), if it decline and wax cold; nor humility (which is the adorner and beautifier of grace), if it continue not to the end; not obedience, not repentance, not patience, no, nor any other grace, except they have their perfect work. It is not enough to begin well, except we end well. Manasseh and Paul began ill, but ended well; Judas and Demas began well, but ended ill." There is so much inconstancy in the religion of many that they can hardly be said to "wait on the Lord." Of such the prophet complains, saying: "Your goodness is as a morning cloud, and as the early dew it goeth away." That is not true of those who "wait on the Lord;" for it is declared: "They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary, and they shall walk, and not faint."—The Watchman.