allow at the
deepest. O, dear brethren! rise to the height of your possibilities, and
live as close to God as He lets you live, and nothing will much trouble
you.

III. And now, lastly, a word about the simple explanation of the failure
to realise this continual presence.

'Can two walk together except they be agreed?' Certainly not. Our
fathers, in a sterner and more religious age than ours, used to be
greatly troubled how to account for a state of Christian experience
which they supposed to be due to God's withdrawing of the sense of His
presence from His children. Whether there is any such withdrawal or not,
I am quite certain that that is not the cause of the interrupted
communion between God and the average Christian man.

I make all allowance for the ups and downs and changing moods which
necessarily affect us in this present life, and I make all allowance,
too, for the pressure of imperative duties and distracting cares which
interfere with our communion, though, if we were as strong as we might
be, they would not wile us away from, but drive us to, our Father in
heaven. But when all such allowances have been made, I come back to my
text as _the_ explanation of interrupted communion. The two are _not_
agreed; and that is why they are not walking together. The consciousness
of God's presence with us is a very delicate thing. It is like a very
sensitive thermometer, which will drop when an iceberg is a league off
over the sea, and scarcely visible. We do not wish His company, or we
are not in harmony with His thoughts, or we are not going His road, and
therefore, of course, we part. At bottom there is only one thing that
separates a soul from God, and that is sin--sin of some sort, like tiny
grains of dust that get between two polished plates in an engine that
ought to move smoothly and closely against each other. The obstruction
may be invisible, and yet be powerful enough to cause friction, which
hinders the working of the engine and throws everything out of gear. A
light cloud that we cannot see may come between us and a star, and we
shall only know it is there, because the star is _not_ visibly there.
Similarly, many a Christian, quite unconsciously, has something or other
in his habits, or in his conduct, or in his affections, which would
reveal itself to him, if he would look, as being wrong, because it blots
out God.

Let us remember that very little divergence will, if the two paths are
prolonged far e