_THE PROCESS AND THE END_
"_Ye have seen the end of the Lord: that the Lord
is very pitiful, and of tender mercy._"
--JAMES v. 7-11.
And so we are bidden to be patient. "We must wait to the end of the Lord."
The Lord's ends are attained through very mysterious means. Sometimes the
means are in contrast to the ends. He works toward the harvest through
winter's frost and snow. The maker of chaste and delicate porcelain
reaches his lovely ends through an awful mortar, where the raw material of
bone and clay is pounded into a cream. In that mortar-chamber we have no
hint of the finished ware. But be patient, even in this chamber of
affliction the ware is on the way to glory!
And so it is with the ministries of our Lord. He leads us through discords
into harmonies, through opposition into union, through adversities into
peace. His means of grace are processes, sometimes gentle, sometimes
severe; and our folly is to assume that we have reached His ends when we
are only on the way to them. "The end of the Lord is very pitiful, and of
tender mercy." "Be patient, therefore," until it shall be spoken of thee
and me, "And God saw that it was good."