But when sorrow comes, anxiety, danger, how changed we are all of a sudden.  How gracious we are when pangs come upon us—­like the wicked queen-mother in Jerusalem of old, when the invaders drove her out of her cedar palace.  How we cry to the Lord then, and get us to our God right humbly.  Then, indeed, we feel the need of prayer.  Then we try to wrestle with God, and cry to Him—­and what else can we do?—­like children lost in the dark; entreat Him, if there be mercy in Him—­as there is, in spite of all our folly—­to grant some special providence, to give us some answer to our bitter entreaties.  If He will but do for us this one thing, then we will believe indeed.  Then we will trust Him, obey Him, serve Him, as we never did before.

Ah, if there were in Christ any touch of pride or malice!  Ah, if there were in Christ aught but a magnanimity and a generosity altogether boundless!  Ah, if He were to deal with us as we have dealt with Him!  Ah, if He were to deal with us after our sins, and reward us according to our iniquities!

If He refused to hear us; if He said to us,—­You forgot me in your prosperity, why should I not forget you in your adversity?—­What could we answer?  Would that answer not be just?  Would it not be deserved, however terrible?  But our hope and trust is, that He will not answer us so; because He is not our God only, but our Saviour; that He will deal with us as one who seeks and saves that which is lost, whether it knows that it is lost or not.

Our hope is, that the Lord is very pitiful and of tender mercy; that because He is man, as well as God, He can be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; that He knoweth our frame, He remembereth of what we are made:  else the spirit would fail before Him, and the souls which He has made.  So we can have hope, that, though Christ rebuke us, He will yet hear us, if our prayers are reasonable, and therefore according to His will.  And surely, surely, surely, if our prayers are for the improvement of any human being; if we are praying that we, or any human being, may be made better men and truer Christians at last, and saved from the temptations of the world, the flesh, and the devil—­oh then, then shall we not be heard?  The Lord may keep us long waiting, as He kept St Monica of old, when she wept over St Augustine’s youthful sins and follies.  But He may answer us, as He answered her by the good bishop—­“Be of good cheer.  It is impossible that the son of so many prayers should perish.”  And so, though He may shame us, in our inmost heart, by the rebuke—­“Except ye see signs and wonders, ye will not believe”—­He will in the same breath grant our prayer, undeserved though His condescension be, and say—­“Go in peace, thy son liveth.”

SERMON XX.  THE JUDGMENTS OF GOD.

LUKE XIII. 1-5.