eople when they feel the first
approaches of resentment or envy or contempt towards others; or if in all
little disagreements and misunderstandings whatever they should have
recourse at such times to a more particular and extraordinary
intercession with God for such persons as had roused their envy,
resentment, or discontent--this would be a certain way to prevent the
growth of all uncharitable tempers." You may think that I am taking a
roundabout way of accounting for my friend's so concerned attitude at
twelve o'clock that business day; but the whole thing seemed to me so
unusual at such a time and in such a place that I was led to such guesses
as these to account for it. In so guessing I see now that I was
intruding myself into matters I had no business with; but all that day I
could not keep my mind off my blushing friend. For, like Mr. Standfast,
my dear friend blushed as he stood up and offered me the chair he had
been kneeling at. "But, why, did you see me?" said Mr. Standfast. "Yes,
I did," quoth the other, "and with all my heart I was glad at the sight."
"And what did you think?" said Mr. Standfast.

3. "Was it," asked Valiant-for-truth, in a holy curiosity, "was it some
special mercy that brought thee to thy knees even now?" Yes; Valiant-for-
truth had exactly hit it. Gracious wits, like great wits, jump together.
"Yes," confessed Standfast, "I continue to give thanks for my great
deliverance." My brethren, you all pray importunately in your time of
sore trouble. Everybody does that. But do you feel an obligation, like
Standfast, to abide still on your knees long after your trouble is past?
Nature herself will teach us to pray; but it needs grace, and great grace
continually renewed, to teach us to praise, and to continue all our days
to praise. How we once prayed, ay, as earnestly, and as concernedly, and
as careless as to who should see or hear us as Standfast himself! How
some of us here to-night used to walk across a whole country all the time
praying! How we hoodwinked people in order to get away from them to pray
for twenty miles at a time all by ourselves! Under that bush--it still
stands to mark the spot; in that wood, long since cut down into ploughed
land--we could show our children the spot to this day where we prayed,
till a miracle was wrought in our behalf. Yes, till God sent from above
and took us as He never took a psalmist, and set our feet upon a still
more wonderful rock. How