soever, the wicked
man turneth away from his wickedness which he has committed, and doeth
that which is lawful and right, he shall save his soul alive. Have I any
pleasure in the death of him that dieth saith the Lord, and not rather
that he should be converted and live?" Never believe the devil when he
tells you that God hates you. Never believe him when he tells you that
God has been too hard upon you, and placed you in such circumstances of
temptation, ignorance, poverty or anything else, that you cannot mend.
What does the promise of your Baptism say? "Be you poor, tempted,
ignorant, stupid, be you what you will, you are God's child--your
Father's love is over you, His mercy ready for you." You feel too weak
to change. Ask God's Spirit to give you a strength of will you never
felt before. You feel too proud to change. Ask God's Spirit to humble
your proud heart, to soften your hard heart; and you will find to your
surprise that when your pride is gone, when you are utterly ashamed of
yourself, and see your sins in their true blackness, and feel unworthy to
look up to God, that then will come a nobler, holier, manlier
feeling--self-respect, and a clear conscience, and the thought that, weak
and simple as you are, you are in the right way; that God and the Angels
of God are smiling on you; that you are in tune again with all earth and
heaven, because you are what God wills you to be. Not His proud,
peevish, self-willed child, fancying yourself strong enough to go alone,
when you are really the slave of your own passions and appetites and the
playthings of the devil; but His loving, loyal son through the strength
of God, and able to do what you will, because what you will God wills
also.

_National Sermons_.

To escape atheism and despair, let us remember that the Creator and
Ordainer of the circumstances of life is not chance or Nature, but the
Father of our Lord Jesus Christ and of us.

When you feel you are in the deepest and gloomiest doubt, pray the prayer
of desperation; cry out, "Lord, if Thou dost exist, let me know that Thou
dost exist! Guide my mind by a way that I know not into Thy truth," and
God will deliver you.

_Letters and Memories_.

Sad as your letter was, it gave me pleasure; for it is always a pleasure
to see life springing out of death, health returning after disease,
though, as doctors know, the recovery from asphyxia or drowning is always
as painful as the temporary death itself