The beginning of the way to heaven, is to feel that we are on the way to hell.

There are few professing Christians, it may be feared, who strive to imitate Christ in the matter of private devotion. There is abundance of hearing, reading, talking, professing, visiting, contributing to the poor and teaching at schools. But is there, together with all this, a due proportion of private prayer? Are believing men and women sufficiently careful to be frequently alone with God?

Amidst the flood of dangerous reading, I plead for my Master's book; I call upon you not to forget the book of the soul. Do not let newspapers, novels, and romances be read, while the prophets and Apostles be despised. Do not let the exciting and sensual swallow up your attention, while the edifying and the sanctifying can find no place in your mind.

We are evidently no friends of Satan. Like the kings of this world, he wars not against his own subjects. The very fact that he assaults us should fill our minds with hope.

There must not only be good preaching, but good hearing.

Trials are intended to make us think, to wean us from the world, to send us to the Bible, to drive us to our knees.

Jesus hears us, and in His own good time will give an answer... He may sometimes keep us long waiting...but He will never send us empty away.