understanding,' it is second best that we should taste the whip, that
it may bring us to run in harness on the road which He wills. If we
habitually looked at calamities as His loving chastisement, intended
to draw us to Himself, we should not have to stand perplexed so often
at what we call the mysteries of His providence.

The next step in the story is the yielding of the sinful heart when
smitten. The worst affliction is an affliction wasted, which does us
no good. And God has often to lament, 'In vain have I smitten your
children; they received no correction.' Sorrow has in itself no power
to effect the purpose for which it is sent; but all depends on how we
take it. It sometimes makes us hard, bitter, obstinate in clinging to
evil. A heart that has been disciplined by it, and still is
undisciplined, is like iron hammered on an anvil, and made the more
close-grained thereby. But this king took his chastisement wisely. An
accepted sorrow is an angel in disguise, and nothing which drives us
to God is a calamity. Manasseh praying was freer in his chains than
ever he had been in his prosperity. Manasseh humbling himself greatly
before God was higher than when, in the pride of his heart, he shut
God out from it.

Affliction should clear our sight, that we may see ourselves as we
are; and, if we do, there will be an end of high looks, and we shall
'take the lowest room.' Thus humbled, we shall pray as the
self-confident and outwardly prosperous cannot do. Sorrow has done its
best on us when, like some strong hand on our shoulders, it has
brought us to our knees. No affliction has yielded its full blessing
to us unless it has thus set us by Manasseh's side.

The next step in the story is the loving answer to the humbled heart,