“That is true, no doubt; but I have a strong desire that you should become a scholar; and sometimes the desire is so strong that I feel as if I could not be denied.”

“I don’t feel so.”

“Wouldn’t you like to study, and become a scholar?”

“Why, yes, I should like nothing better; but how can I do it?”

“I don’t know, and that is what troubles me, though I ought not to be troubled. I know that God will open the way, if it is best, and I ought to leave it there; but somehow I can’t help having anxiety about it.”

“Well, I can’t be at present,” added James, as if perfectly satisfied with his situation.

Thus James was led on, and his mother too, not knowing whither Providence was guiding them. James was going up higher all the while, although it scarcely seemed so to his doting mother. The Lord was laying a deeper foundation than could have been laid if she had had her own way. “Man deviseth his own way, but the Lord directeth his steps.”