There is no test of character more severe or difficult to bear than the suspense of waiting. The man who can act eases his soul under the greatest calamities; but he who is compelled to wait, unless he be of hardy fibre, eats his heart out in a futile despair. If the troops were compelled to halt under the relentless guns of masked batteries, they would be caught up in the stir of charge. It will lead to the demoralisation and scatter of the troop, which would result in great loss. Now, the characteristic trial of youth is this experience of waiting at a moment when the whole nature craves expression and the satisfaction of action. The greater the volume of energy in the man who has yet to find his vocation and place, the more trying the ordeal. There are moments in the life of the youth when it seems impossible to realise any of its dreams and the splendour of the dreams filled the young soul with despair. The clearer the consciousness of the possession of the power, the stronger the fear that he could not find ways to contribute to the society. The reality of this crisis in spiritual experience —the adjustment between the personality and the physical, social, and industrial order in which it must find its place and task —is the measure of its possible painfulness. His pain has its roots in his ignorance of his own powers and of the world. He strives again and again to put himself in touch with organised work; he takes up one task after another in a fruitless endeavour to succeed. He does not know what he is fitted to do, and he turns helplessly from one form of work for which he has no faculty to another for which he has less. His friends begin to think of him as a ne'er-do-well; and, more pathetic still, the shadow of failure begins to darken his own spirit. And yet it may be that in this halting, stumbling, ineffective human soul, vainly striving to put its hand to its task, there is some rare gift, some splendid talent, waiting for the ripe hour and the real opportunity! In such a crisis sympathetic comprehension is invaluable, but it is rarely given, and the youth works out his problem in isolation.