Reviver of the souls of men.

XII

TESTS OF FAITH, LOVE, AND RIGHTNESS

What are the experimental bases of our Christianity? and whereby shall
we know that we are of the truth and assure our hearts before Him?

Our answers to such questions may appear discouraging, but it is far
better that we should experience discouragement (not that we would
really wish to say a word to throw back the weakest believer from his
faith), than that we should attempt to fill ourselves with the formulas
that the Pharisees do eat.

Some time ago, in discussing the definite points and peculiar
characteristics of Christian life and experiences, we took as a
comparison the changes of state in a material body, from solid to
liquid, and from liquid to gaseous. We observed that, just as in
nature the most important practical and theoretical investigations were
made upon bodies in the neighbourhood of those points where they
undergo a change of state, so it is also true in the world of grace
that our most valuable observations and inquiries relate to certain
critical points in the life--as conversion and sanctification; points
which may sometimes, like the freezing and boiling points of a material
substance, approach almost, if not quite, to coincidence, but which,
like them, may be very widely separated.

Suppose, then, to resume our figure, we were to propose to ourselves
the question, "How shall I know whether a body near the melting point
has passed from the solid to the liquid state?" In some cases it would
be extremely easy to give an answer: with ice, under ordinary
circumstances, we should simply say that it becomes mobile; the word of
the Supreme Law having gone forth, the waters flow. But our test would
not do for all liquids, because there are some that do not answer
readily to it, but are extremely sluggish in the neighbourhood of their
melting points, so that they seem almost solid even when liquid. We
are obliged, then, to look for a better test, and we should probably
observe that the most convenient would be found in the fact that an
addition of heat produces a change in temperature in a body that has
passed its melting point. Place a thermometer in melting snow, it
marks zero until the snow is really melted, and after that it rises.

Now, in a similar manner, we should find that many of the tests
popularly applied to discriminate spiritual life, are only partially
accurate; and since our method is a purely expe