Patiently, nobly, magnanimously, God waits; waits for the man who is a fool, to find out his own folly; waits for the heart that has tried to find pleasure in everything else, to find out that everything else disappoints, and to come back to Him, the fountain of all wholesome pleasure, the well-spring of all life, fit for a man to live. God condescends to wait for His creature; because what He wants is not His creature's fear, but His creature's love; not only his obedience, but his heart; because He wants him not to come back as a trembling slave to his master, but as a son who has found out at last what a father he has still left him, when all beside has played him false. Let him come back thus. _Discipline and other Sermons_. Thrift. August 13. The secret of thriving is thrift; saving of force; to get as much work as possible done with the least expenditure of power, the least jar and obstruction, the least wear and tear. And the secret of thrift is knowledge. In proportion as you know the laws and nature of a subject, you will be able to work at it easily, surely, rapidly, successfully, instead of wasting your money or your energies in mistaken schemes, irregular efforts, which end in disappointment and exhaustion. _Lecture on Thrift_. 1869. Revelations. August 14. Only second-rate hearts and minds are melancholy. When we become like little children, our very playfulness tells that we are _seeing deep_, when we see that God is love in His _works_ as well as in Himself, and we look at Nature as a baby does, as a beautiful mystery which we scarcely wish to solve. And therefore deep things, which the intellect in vain struggles after, will reveal themselves to us. _MS._ 1842. Christ comes in many ways. August 15. Often Christ comes to us in ways in which the world would never recognise Him--in which perhaps neither you nor I shall recognise _Him_; but it will be enough, I hope, if we but hear His message, and obey His gracious inspiration, let Him speak through whatever means He will. He may come to us by some crisis in our life, either for sorrow or for bliss. He may come to us by a great failure; by a great disappointment--to teach the wilful and ambitious soul that not in _that_ direction lies the path of peace; or He may come in some unexpected happiness to teach that same soul that He is able and willing to give abundantly beyond all that we can ask or think. _MS. Sermon_. 1874. Lesson of the Cross. August 16. On the Cross God has sanctified suffering, pain, and sorrow, and made them holy; as holy as health and strength and happiness are. _National Sermons_. 1851. The Ideal Unity. August 17.