Say, fellows, are you "game" to consider a tough little word in the
language to-day? All right, brace up, for it is one of the hardest
things a fellow has to tackle, and the main reason _why_ it is hard is
that you can't tackle it, but have to wait.

There! I have said it--the word is W-A-I-T.

The boys who went to France say they didn't so much mind "going over
the top" as they did the sometimes long waiting and suspense which
preceded.

In every fellow's boyhood days there are necessary periods of waiting;
not idle waiting, mind you. The "prodigal son" couldn't stand it,
you remember. "Dad, give me what is coming to me, and let me get
away from the humdrum life of the farm. I want to see life!" and he
picked his fruit green and ate it. That poor fellow got an awful
stomach-ache--and it was the worse ache of _emptiness_ and not of
fullness!

But maybe you are wondering what all this has to do with these three
parables of the kingdom spoken by our Lord. Just this: they are "wait"
parables. The servants of the man who had sowed wheat in his field,
said: "Master, look! tares are coming up with the wheat--what shall we
do?" Their master said, "Wait." Then when the harvest ripened and the
thing could be safely handled without injuring the wheat, the tares
were separated and destroyed. A fellow struggling along, trying to do
right, finding it up-hill work and the denial of many so-called
pleasures, sees another fellow running a loose and reckless program,
doing all the forbidden things, yet without injury apparently.