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He who has a house ready furnished does not mind the dismantling of his lodging. True, it is not pleasant to have the furniture of even our lodging disturbed and broken, to have the things in it scattered and pulled to pieces; for even a lodging becomes dear when we are used to it, every corner an old acquaintance and almost an old friend: every part of it brings some thoughts, habits, and employments to remembrance. We do not leave it without pain, nor are we driven from it without some natural sorrow. But if we have a house ready when the lodging is gone, our sorrow is less, our regret slighter, for it is not our all: we are not left houseless. The Hebrews were in trouble: persecution had fallen upon them. Therefore, when the heathen were let loose upon them, and the malice that was not allowed to take their lives was allowed to spoil their goods, they "took it joyfully," remembering that "they had in heaven a better and an enduring substance," that, though men destroyed the lodging and its furniture, they could not reach or touch the home. They had thus" done the will of God," not only by active obedience, but by patient submission. However, the promise on which their hopes were fixed, even "the hope of eternal life," was still at a distance. They must wait on till it should be fulfilled. To be able thus to wait they needed "patience"; and to exercise that patience St. Paul wrote our text: "Yet a little while, and He that shall come will come, and will not tarry." "A little while!" says the unbeliever, as he hears it — "a little while! are one thousand eight hundred years a little while"? Such are the thoughts of the sceptic. If we were to weigh time in man's puny scales, it would not be a little while. To us worms, creeping along the earth for a small space, for our few years, it is not a little while. But He who spoke these words, "I come quickly," is the same "to whom a thousand years are but as a day," the same that "inhabiteth eternity." To Him years are as seconds on the stop-watch, and centuries roll round as swiftly as the hands on the dial. The humble Christian does not understand this, but he believes it; for it is the word of Him whom he has found to be the truth of God. And those words, "Yet a little while," are a fruitful source of comfort to his soul. Come with me to the death-bed of a Christian missionary, and see what those words do there. Morning is just beginning to break over the eastern hills. The missionary's wife has been watching all night by the bedside of her fever-stricken husband. In an hour or two she will be a widow and desolate. "Yet a little while." He knows that he is leaving her: he knows that he shall soon cease to behold that face on which for so many years he has never looked but in love, and which has never looked but in love upon his own. Yet a few more years or months and her work also will be done; and she also shall be where he is, and the loving fellow servants shall meet never to part again in their Father's home. Come with me, yet not to foreign lands, but to our own, and not to a distant part, but near at hand. Come to the abode of poverty; poverty brought on by no crime — poverty which God's visitations have brought on. "Yet a little while." It will soon be over: I shall soon have done with this little room, this scanty furniture, these poor garments: I shall soon want not even the little food I now want for my mortal body. "Yet a little while," and He who for my sake became poor will make me eternally rich through His poverty. Yes, we might run through the whole range of Christian faith: we might look into Christians of every rank of life, from the peer that wears a coronet down to the aged widow driven at last even from her little room into the shelter of a workhouse: we might ask the princely Christian merchant at his desk, the Christian tradesman at his counter, the Christian soldier at his post, the Christian mechanic at his work, yea, the Christian pauper (for such I have met) breaking stones by the roadside of the country, or picking oakum in the town, and they would all tell us, if we asked them, to what they are looking, and what assurance cheers them in their way, and they would all say, "Yet a little while." But do these words bring comfort to any but the Christian? Ask the wealthy worldling with his splendid mansion, its costly furniture, its comforts and its luxuries. Oh no; it is his misery to think that all these are only for a little while — that he must leave them all so soon; and it would mar everything if on his splendid furniture, his majestic trees, his noble mansion, were written in clear, plain characters, "a little while." Ask the bright girl, who is only a creature of this world, full of life and spirits, bounding with joy and health, enjoying with keen relish all the enjoyments of the world, the excitement of the dance; would that bright child of fashion, that joyous and excited creature of amusement, desire to have written on her wardrobe, on her novels, and to meet her wherever she goes — "a little while? .... Happy Christian!" for thou dost believe what thy God has said. Thou does not believe that this life is all of life, nor this world all: thou dost believe that this is God's school, and above is God's home, and that thou art now under tutors, and that now afflictions are thy teachers, troubles thy discipline, temptations the searching tests of thy truth, thy purity, thy integrity, thy love to God, thy sense of sin; that this is all meant to make thee fit for thy Father's house, to form thy Saviour's likeness in thy soul; and, believing this, thou dost rejoice to think, "that yet a little while," and when the fires have melted thee and taken off thy dross, thou wilt not be sorry that the heat is over — when trial is done, thou wilt not be sorry to receive the crown of righteousness.

(W. W. Champneys, M. A.)

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KJV: For yet a little while, and he that shall come will come, and will not tarry.

WEB: "In a very little while, he who comes will come, and will not wait.