epends wholly on light. If it does not see light, by
and by, it cannot see light. The ear that hears no sound loses the
power to hear sound. Light is essential to the healthful eye: sound to
the ear: air to the lungs: blood to the heart. Just as really are these
five things essential to a strong healthful christian life.

The _second_ of these is a heart-love for the old Book of God. Not
reading it as a duty--taking a chapter at night because you feel you
must. I do not mean that just now. But reading it because you _love_ to;
as you would a love letter or a letter from home. Thinking about it as
the writer of the one hundred and nineteenth psalm did. Listen to him
for a moment in that one psalm, talking about this book: "I delight," "I
will delight," "My delight"--in all nine times. "I love," "Oh! how I
love," "I do love," "Consider how I love," "I love exceedingly," again
nine times in all. "I have longed," "My eyes fail," "My soul breaketh,"
speaking of the intensity of his desire to get alone with the book.
"Sweeter than honey," "As great spoil," "As much as all riches," "Better
than thousands of gold," "Above gold, yea, above fine gold." And all
that packed into less than two leaves. Do you love this Book like that?
Would you like to? Wait a moment.

The _third_ essential is right habits of prayer. Living a veritable life
of prayer. Making prayer the chief part not alone of your life, but of
your service. Having answers to prayer as a constant experience. Being
like the young man in a conference in India, who said, "I used to pray
three times a day: Now I pray only once a day, and that is _all_ day."
Feet busy all the day, hands ceaselessly active, head full of matters of
business, but the heart never out of communication with Him. Has prayer
become to you like that? Would you have it so? Wait a moment.

The _fourth_ essential is a pure, earnest, unselfish life. Our lives are
the strongest part of us--or else the weakest. A man knows the least of
the influence of his own life. Life is not mere length of time but the
daily web of character we unconsciously weave. Our thoughts,
imaginations, purposes, motives, love, will, are the under threads: our
words, tone of voice, looks, acts, habits are the upper threads: and the
passing moment is the shuttle swiftly, ceaselessly, relentlessly,
weaving those threads into a web, and that web is life. It is woven, not
by our wishing, or willing, but irresistibly, unavoidably, w