y are his own. But a
crutch, of however good wood it may be made, and however good a lame man
may be at using it--still, a crutch at its best is but an outside
additament; it is not really and originally a part of a man's very self
at all. And yet a lame man is not himself without his crutch. Other men
do not need to give a moment's forethought when they wish to rise up to
walk, or to run, or to leap, or to dance. But the lame man has to wait
till his crutches are brought to him; and then, after slowly and
painfully hoisting himself up upon his crutches, with great labour, he at
last takes the road. Mr. Ready-to-halt, then, is a man of God; but he is
one of those men of God who have no godliness within themselves. He has
no inward graces. He has no past experiences. He has no attainments
that he can for one safe moment take his stand upon, or even partly lean
upon. Mr. Ready-to-halt is absolutely and always dependent upon the
promises. The promises of God in Holy Scripture are this man's very
life. All his religion stands in the promises. Take away the promises,
and Mr. Ready-to-halt is a heap of heaving rags on the roadside. He
cannot take a single step unless upon a promise. But, at the same time,
give Mr. Ready-to-halt a promise in his hand and he will wade the Slough
upon it, and scale up and slide down the Hill Difficulty upon it, and
fight a lion, and even brain Beelzebub with it, till he will with a
grudge and a doubt exchange it even for the chariots and the horses that
wait him at the river. What a delight our Lord would have taken in Mr.
Ready-to-halt had He come across him on His way to the passover! How He
would have given Mr. Ready-to-halt His arm; how He would have made
Himself late by walking with him, and would still have waited for him!
Nay, had that been a day of chap-books in carpenters' shops and on the
village stalls, how He would have had Mr. Ready-to-halt's story by heart
had any brass-worker in Galilee told the history! Our Lord was within an
inch of telling that story Himself, when He showed Thomas His hands and
His side. And at another time and in another place we might well have
had Mr. Ready-to-halt as one more of our Lord's parables for the common
people. Only, He left the delight and the reward of drawing out this
parable to one He already saw and dearly loved in a far-off island of the
sea, the Puritan tinker of Evangelical England.

2. And now, after all that, would you