where we have trusted Him most and been most
consecrated in His service that we shall value most when we look
back on life from the end. May you be largely satisfied with His
blessing and Himself!'

'November 20, 1889.

'I wonder if your experience is anything like mine--that I have
often got less benefit than I had hoped from special withdrawals
from common surroundings to get more into the presence of the Lord.
One or two prominent instances of this have happened to me. I am
glad He can be found anywhere, and that He is easy of access always
with favourable or unfavourable surroundings.

'About feeling--never mind that at all. Things are so whether we
feel them or not. Let us take God at His word, and not consider
our feelings. God refuses no one who comes to Him in sincerity. Let
us be sure of this. I once heard Spurgeon say a good thing: "When
doubts or the devil comes and says, 'You are not saved; you are not
right with God,' I go to Him and say, 'If I never came before, I
come now; if I never trusted before, I trust now.'" That cuts off
all doubts about the present as standing on the past, and gives a
fresh start.

'All over the kingdom there is a hunger and thirst among many for a
life of greater nearness to God; a feeling not only of the need of
God being more of a daily, hourly reality and factor in our life,
but that without Him more real and present life is not a
satisfactory thing. When this feeling takes possession of one, we
do not need to give up things as denying ourselves for Christ, so
much as that we are changed in attitude towards many things. We
drift away from them. Things that were gain to us we count loss for
Christ. Our aims are different. May our lives be more fully taken
captive thus! To a life lived thus, death is not a breaking off of
anything; it is an enlargement of sphere.'

'Hamilton: December 5, 1889.

'All I know about the process is just going to God and telling what
I want, and asking to be allowed to have it. "Seek, and ye shall
find; ask, and ye shall receive." I know no secret but this.... God
understands His scholars, and knows how to teach each one.
Different scholars may require different ways. We may trust