“And again, look at another class of plants--look at our bulbs. Does not the gardener find a quiet nook for them in the garden where they will never be disturbed, and put them in, and let them come up year after year undisturbed and unmolested? Is it because he loves them more that he leaves them to bloom at their own time and in their own fashion, and does not even cut down their leaves when the blooming season is over? Why is he so cruel (as the ignorant folk might put it) to some of his plants, and so tender to others? Why does he treat them so differently? Why do some grow up and flourish for a season only, and are rooted up and cast away at its close, whilst others remain year by year in the ground, or are tended in warmth and luxury in the glass homes provided for them? Why such inequalities when originally all start alike from a tiny seed germ, one of which scarce differs from another? Is it because the gardener is partial or cruel? or because he knows as no untrained person can, what is best for each, and how in the end, after patient waiting and watching, the most perfect garden will arise up under his hand? And if this is so in our little world, can we not understand that it must be something the same in the great garden of God--that kingdom of Christ for which we are waiting and watching, and for which He is working in His own all-powerful and mysterious way? Ah! how often I think of that as I go about my daily toil--that reign of the Lord’s upon earth, when the wilderness shall blossom as the rose, where sorrow and pain and sin shall be done away, and we shall see the meaning of all those things which perplex and bewilder us now, and understand the love in the Father’s heart, although the discipline seemed hard to understand at the first.” Bride raised her eyes with the light shining in them which the thought of the coming kingdom of the Lord always brought there. “Ah! yes,” she said softly, “we shall know then--we shall understand then--we shall see face to face. O Abner, would that that day might come quickly! Ah! why does not God hear the cry of His people in their trouble and perplexities, and send forth the Great Deliverer? Are we not praying for His appearing hour by hour and day by day? Why does He tarry so long?”