Now I wonder how many of my hearers to-day are wandering in the desert just like these Hebrews, and have been wandering in a wilderness for years and years. I am pretty sure that that is so with some of you old folks with white hair on your heads. Ah! it is so very far away in the Eastern world and in Old Testament times, this story of these wanderers, never living in a comfortable house, never owning any land, packing up, and on again, wondering where they are going to die, with nothing much to look forward to. Yes, but here in London, living in your own house, in your own workshop, there are men and women wandering in the wilderness. Ah! what a deal of weary waiting there is for young men and maidens, in this artificially bad society of ours at the present day—which has been made by selfishness much more than by the love of God and the love of man—waiting with divine instincts that God has put into their hearts; dreaming of a land of promise, a land of rest, a land flowing with milk and honey. Ay, it is wandering in a wilderness. Our hearts were not made to live in a wilderness; our hearts were made to live in homes; we were all meant to be in a promised land. There is no need to ask who is to blame. There the wildernesses are, and they have to be got through. It is not easy. Many a time the bravest heart breaks down. The last straw breaks the camel's back. Some little extra worry or care adds itself on, and then the gentle woman or the courageous, uncomplaining man is broken in heart and spirit—oh! so weary—ay, and if they have a tender conscience, upbraiding themselves, counting it sin to feel so tired. Why have they not been doing good? Have they not been following the steps of Jesus? And there they are worn out in being good as He was. Do you remember how sometimes He sighed a great sigh? how sometimes He was so sick of men and their waywardness and selfishness and wilfulness, that for His soul's sake He fled from them and hurried off to the mountain-top to get away above the world, up beneath the blue sky into the purer air, up where God was direct above Him, and He all alone; then came back next morning all the braver and able to bear the battle once again? No, do not blame yourself if you are often very weary. Do not try to pretend that you like your wilderness, that you do not wish anything different. You may have got so used to your wilderness as to be like those people in the old Bastille. Some of the prisoners, we are told, were not willing to go into the world again; they did not know it. So there are hearts that get so wedded to sorrow that they are almost afraid to have done with it. Still, as a general rule, hearts do long for joy, for sunlight, for success. It is human nature, and there is no harm in being weary when the clouds are always over the heavens. Christ was weary, and He understands you and your heart.