"HOPE _thou in_ GOD." The creature has perished. God is imperishable! Thou mayest be saying in the bitterness of thy spirit, "_All these things are against me_;" there may be no gleam of light in the tempest, no apparent reason for the dark dispensation; you feel it is with stammering lips and a misgiving heart you give utterance to the reluctant word, "Thy will be done." But, "_My soul, wait thou only upon God_;" (or, as Calvin translates this, "_Be silent_ before God;") "_for my expectation is from Him_."[29] "_Commit also thy way unto the Lord, and He shall bring it to pass._"[30] Here is the province of faith,--_implicit trust_ in dark dealings. God brings His people into straits; sends often what is baffling and unaccountable, to lead them devoutly to say, "_Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him_." Oh, beautiful is it thus to see HOPE sitting, like the sea-bird, calmly on the crested wave! While others (strangers to the peace of the gospel) are beating their breasts in tumultuous grief, indulging in wild paroxysms of rebellious sorrow,--beautiful is it to see the smitten one prostrate at the feet of the great CHASTENER, saying through tear-drops of resignation, "_Even so, Father; for so it seems good in Thy sight!_" Believe it, in the apparently rough voice of thy God, there is, as in the case of Joseph to his brethren, tones of dissembled love, disguised utterances of affection--"_Although thou sayest thou canst not see Him, yet judgment is before Him; therefore trust thou in Him._"[31] [29] Psalm lxii. 5. [30] Psalm xxxvii. 5. [31] Job xxxv. 14. Besides, this lofty grace of Hope requires stern discipline to bring it into exercise, and to develop its noble proportions. It is the child of tribulation. The apostle thus traces its pedigree--"_Tribulation worketh patience; and patience, experience; and experience,_ HOPE."[32] As there can be no rainbow in the natural heavens without the cloud, so Hope cannot span the moral firmament, with its triumphal arch, without the clouds of tribulation. As the mother eagle is said, when other expedients fail, to put a thorn in the side of her nest to urge her young brood to fly, so tribulation is the thorn which drives Hope to the wing. [32] Rom. v. 3, 4.