ood time. And if He does bring us to it, it
is little matter whether He brings us to it through joy or through
sorrow, through honour or through shame, through the Garden of Eden or
through the Valley of the Shadow of Death. For what matter how bitter
the medicine is if it does but save our lives?

_National Sermons_.

. . . Your sense of sin is not fanaticism; it is, I suppose, simple
consciousness of fact. As for helping you to Christ, I do not believe I
can one inch. I can see no hope but in prayer, in going to Him yourself,
and saying: "Lord, if Thou art there, if Thou art at all, if this be not
all a lie, fulfil Thy reputed promises, and give me peace and the sense
of forgiveness, and the feeling that, bad as I may be, Thou lovest me
still, seeing all, understanding all, and therefore making allowance for
all!"

I have had to do that in past days; to challenge Him through outer
darkness and the silence of night, till I almost expected that He would
vindicate His own honour by appearing visibly, as He did to St. Paul and
St. John; but He answered in the still, small voice only; yet that was
enough.

_Letters and Memories_.

. . . Dear friend, the secret of life for you and for me is to lay our
purposes and our characters continually before Him who made them, and
cry, "Do _Thou_ purge me, and so alone shall I be clean. Thou requirest
truth in the inward parts. Thou wilt make me to understand wisdom
secretly." What more rational belief? For surely if there be any God,
and He made us at first, He who makes can also mend His own work if it
gets out of gear. What more miraculous in the doctrines of regeneration
and renewal than in the mere fact of creation?

_Letters and Memories_.

As for the sins of youth, what says the 130th Psalm? If Thou, Lord, were
extreme to mark what is done amiss, who could abide it? But there is
mercy with Him, therefore shall He be feared. And how to fear God I know
not better than by working on at the special work which He has given us,
trusting to Him to make it of use to His creatures, if He needs us.
Therefore fret not nor be of doubtful mind, but just do the duty which
lies nearest.

_Letters and Memories_.

Yes; this is our comfort, this is our hope; Christ, the Great Healer, the
Great Physician, can deliver us, and will deliver us from the remains of
our old sins, the consequences of our own follies. Not, indeed, at once
or by miracles, but by slow education.