th young Gillespie in the woods of Kenmure,
Rutherford wrote of himself to his friend, and said:--'At my first entry
on my banishment here my apprehensions worked despairingly upon my
cross.' By that he means, and Gillespie would quite well understand his
meaning, that his banishment from his work threw him in upon his
conscience, and that his conscience whispered to him that he had been
banished from his work because of his sins. God is angry with you, his
conscience said; He does not love you, He has not forgiven you. But his
sanctified good sense, his deep knowledge of God's word, and of God's
ways with His people, came to his rescue, and he went on to say to
Gillespie that our apprehensions are not canonical. No, he says, our
apprehensions tell lies of God and of His grace. So they do in our case
also. When any trouble falls upon us, for any reason,--and there are
many reasons other than His anger why God sends trouble upon
us,--conscience is up immediately with her interpretation and explanation
of our troubles. This is your wages now, conscience says. God has been
slow to wrath, but His patience is exhausted now. As Rutherford says in
another letter, our tearful eyes look asquint at Christ and He appears to
be angry, when all the time He pities and loves us. Is there any man
here to-night whose apprehensions are working upon his cross? Is there
any man of God here who has lost hold of God in the thick darkness, and
who fears that his cross has come to him because God is angry with him?
Let him hear and imitate what Rutherford says when in the same distress:
'I will lay inhibitions on my apprehensions,' he says; 'I will not let my
unbelieving thoughts slander Christ. Let them say to me "there is no
hope," yet I will die saying, It is not so; I shall yet see the salvation
of God. I will die if it must be so, under water, but I will die
gripping at Christ. Let me go to hell, I will go to hell believing in
and loving Christ.' Rutherford's worst apprehensions, his best-grounded
apprehensions, could not survive an assault of faith like that. Imitate
him, and improve upon him, and say, that with a thousand times worse
apprehensions than ever Rutherford could have, yet, like him, you will
make your bed in hell, loving, and adoring, and justifying Jesus Christ.
And, if you do that, hell will have none of you; all hell will cast you
out, and all heaven will rise up and carry you in.

'Challenges' is another o