When a miner looks at the rope that is to lower him into the deep mine, he may coolly say, "I have faith in that rope as well made and strong." But when he lays hold of it, and swings down by it into the tremendous chasm, then he is believing on the rope. Then he is trusting himself to the rope. It is not a mere opinion - it is an act. The miner lets go of every thing else, and bears his whole weight on those well braided strands of hemp. Now that is faith.

Never despair of a child. The one you weep the most for at the mercy-seat may fill your heart with the sweetest joys.

A happy and a glorious Easter will this one be to all of us who get a new vision of the risen Christ, and prostrate ourselves in humble adoration at His feet, and cry out: "Rabboni! Rabboni!" Then shall we set our hearts, lifted into a new atmosphere, on things above, and reach an actual higher life. We shall know more of what it is to live by Christ, in Christ, for Christ, and with Christ, till we reach the marvelous light around the throne in glory.

Conversion by the Holy Spirit is a spiritual illumination of the soul. God's grace lights up the dark heart. And when a man has once been kindled at the cross of Christ, he is bound to shine.

Seek for a fresh invoice of grace. Unbelief can scoff or growl; faith is the nightingale that sings in the darkest hour. Faith can draw honey out of the rock and oil out of the flint. With Christ in possession and heaven in reversion, it marches to the time of the One-hundred-and-third Psalm over the roughest road, and against the most cutting blast.

The firmament of the Bible is ablaze with answers to prayer.

It is the easiest thing in the world for us to obey God when He commands us to do what we like, and to trust Him when the path is all sunshine. The real victory of faith is to trust God in the dark, and through the dark. Let us be assured of this, that if the lesson and the rod are of His appointing, and that His all-wise love has engineered the deep tunnel of trial on the heavenward road, He will never desert us during the discipline. The vital thing for us is not to deny and desert Him.