No answer came! Say not that, brethren. Assuredly, an answer did come, if you prayed aright. It may be that you did not get what you wanted, or keep what was departing; for GOD knew your choice was an unwise one, and therefore of His love would not grant it. But He gave you a compensation, and more than a compensation. Just as when CHRIST prayed that the cup of His last agony might pass from Him. GOD rather strengthened Him from heaven to endure the agony, and made it His way to glory—so, when you have deprecated, or besought, against the will of GOD choosing for you, He has enabled you to bear the calamity, to do without the thing coveted, and has made all to work for your good. What He does it may be you know not now, but you shall know hereafter. And when in heaven’s light you see that the continued or bestowed prosperity would have made you proud and ungodly, that power or influence (though you meant it not) would have been perverted by you to your ruin, that the child taken away, had it remained, would have destroyed itself, and been a curse to you, that the disappointment, and the toil, and the suffering, which you so prayed against, were just the things that planted and nurtured in you Christian graces, and worked out for your glory—oh! then you will see that GOD did answer your prayers, and you will bless him fervently for sending His own answer instead of the one you dictated. Meantime, in the light of this hope, remember always to add to your prayers for specific blessings the holy proviso, “Nevertheless not as I will, but as Thou wilt.”