The Swamp of Despond is that place set before the narrow gate where true and false pilgrims alike are assaulted by their own internal corruption and pollution. The dirt and scum that has attached itself to our hearts and minds is agitated and revealed by both the workings of a guilty conscience and the devouring avarice of the enemy of our souls.The

Prayer is a shield to the soul

Yet my great-grandfather was but a water-man, looking one way and rowing another: and I got most of my estate by the same occupation.

He hath given me rest by His sorrow, and life by His death.

It is possible to learn all about the mysteries of the Bible and never be affected by it in one's soul. Great knowledge is not enough.

[Mr. Gifford] made it much his business to deliver the people of God from all those false and unsound rests that by nature we are prone to make and take to our souls. He pressed us to take special heed that we took not up any truth upon trust - as from this or that, or any other man or men - but to cry mightily to God that He would convince us of the reality thereof, and set us down therein by his own Spirit in the holy word.

I am now a man of despair, rejected, abandoned, shut up in this iron cage from which there is no escape.