or do we look for another?" (S. Matt. ii. 2, 3.)1 When, like the poor widow, we cry, "Avenge me of mine adversary;' and, in spite of our "continual coming," we seem to gain no aid nor redress, how difficult it is to act on the advice of the Psalmist, which he found so full of recompense in his own experience, "Wait on the Lord; be of good courage, and He shall strengthen thine heart; wait, I say, on the Lord" (Ps. xxvii. 12, 14.) Waiting is much more difficult than working. Yet our Lord bids us "stand still and see the salvation of the Lord which He will show to us" (Ex. xiv. 13), but at the same time He intimates how few comparatively will have the requisite amount of faith and patience: "Shall not God avenge His Own elect, which cry day and night unto Him, though He bear long with them? I tell you, that He will avenge them speedily. Nevertheless, when the Son of Man cometh, shall He find faith on the earth?" (S. Luke xviii. 1-8.)

"When the Son of Man cometh !" It is to the coming of the Son of Man, whether in the season of providential deliverance, or in the hour of death, or at the day of judgment, that we must look for the answer to this petition. Each deliverance we experience now should be to us a guarantee of further and final deliverance. He hath, therefore He will-is the logic of faith. "I was delivered out of the mouth of the lion. And the Lord shall deliver me from every evil work, and will preserve me unto His heavenly Kingdom" (2 Tim. iv. 17, 18). "Thou hast delivered my soul from death; wilt not Thou deliver my feet from falling, that I may walk before the Lord in the light of the living?" (Ps. lvi. 13.)

But we must be content with only partial and temporary deliverances so long as we remain here. To the very last, we shall be liable to dangers and defeats. "Strait is the gate,

1 See Farrar's "Life of Christ," vol. i., pp. 268-272.

and narrow is the way that leadeth unto life" (S. Matt. vii. 14). "We must through much tribulation enter into the Kingdom of God" (Acts xiv. 23). This one mark S. John found on all those whom he saw "clothed with white robes, and with palms in their hands”. "these are they which came out of great tribulation" (Rev. vii. 9, 14). So long as we are in the enemy's country, in "the world which lieth in the wicked one (Ev Tậ πOVNρậ—1 S. John v. 19), we must expect to be harassed continually, and be ever in readiness for the onsets of our cruel and malicious foe. But ere long the summons of our release shall come, and from the danger of the battle-field we shall be translated to the Paradise of rest and peace. The weariness of our long journey through the "great and terrible wilderness, wherein are fiery serpents and scorpions" (Deut. viii. 15) shall be soon over, and we shall be brought by Jesus, "the Captain of our Salvation (Heb. ii. 10), into the long expected Land of Promise."

"Rest comes at last, though life be long and dreary:

The day must dawn, and darksome night be past :
All journeys end in welcomes to the weary,

And Heaven, the heart's true Home, will come at last." 1

And thus, as the Prayer begins with "Our Father, Which is in Heaven," so it ends with that Home where we shall be "delivered from evil.” And when from that Heavenly Home we look back upon the trials and troubles and temptations of our earthly course, and are able to estimate aright, as we never could do here, how terrible and how continual were the dangers which always and every where encompassed us, how many and how mighty were the enemies which beset us,

1 Faber's Hymns.

2 καὶ ἥλιος μετὰ νύκτα φαιδρότερος, καὶ ἐγρήγορσις ἡδείων μετὰ τὸν ὕπνον, καὶ ὑγιεία ποθεινοτέρα μετὰ τὴν πείραν τῶν ἐναντίων, καὶ τράπεζα XapieσTÉρa μETÀ THV VηoTelav (S. Basil, Hom. 1).-"Post tempestatem dulcior est serenitas" (Quintil. Declam. 321).

how awful were the issues which depended upon victory or defeat, how unceasing was the care which preserved us amidst snares which we never saw, and protected us in conflicts of which we were only imperfectly conscious, and how "His goodness and mercy followed us all the days of our life," till it brought us to "dwell in the House of the Lord for ever (Ps. xxiii. 6), we shall acknowledge with the Psalmist, "If the Lord had not been on our side, we had been swallowed up quick... the waters had overwhelmed us, and the stream had gone over our soul: the deep waters of the proud had gone even over our soul." And through a long and happy eternity we shall sing our grateful praises to Him Who has so bountifully answered our prayers: "Praised be the Lord, Who hath not given us over for a prey unto their teeth.

Our soul is escaped, even as a bird out of the snare of the fowler: the snare is broken, and we are delivered" (Ps. cxxiv. 6—8).

INDEX OF AUTHORS QUOTED.