their feelings and insist upon caution in
their dealings with God.

Let us never forget that such a truth as this cannot be learned by rote
as one would learn the facts of physical science. They must be
_experienced_ before we can really know them. We must in our hearts live
through Abraham's harsh and bitter experiences if we would know the
blessedness which follows them. The ancient curse will not go out
painlessly; the tough old miser within us will not lie down and die
obedient to our command. He must be torn out of our heart like a plant
from the soil; he must be extracted in agony and blood like a tooth from
the jaw. He must be expelled from our soul by violence as Christ
expelled the money changers from the temple. And we shall need to steel
ourselves against his piteous begging, and to recognize it as springing
out of self-pity, one of the most reprehensible sins of the human heart.

If we would indeed know God in growing intimacy we must go this way of
renunciation. And if we are set upon the pursuit of God He will sooner
or later bring us to this test. Abraham's testing was, at the time, not
known to him as such, yet if he had taken some course other than the one
he did, the whole history of the Old Testament would have been
different. God would have found His man, no doubt, but the loss to
Abraham would have been tragic beyond the telling. So we will be brought
one by one to the testing place, and we may never know when we are
there. At that testing place there will be no dozen possible choices
for us; just one and an alternative, but our whole future will be
conditioned by the choice we make.

_Father, I want to know Thee, but my coward heart fears to give up its
toys. I cannot part with them without inward bleeding, and I do not try
to hide from Thee the terror of the parting. I come trembling, but I do
come. Please root from my heart all those things which I have cherished
so long and which have become a very part of my living self, so that
Thou mayest enter and dwell there without a rival. Then shalt Thou make
the place of Thy feet glorious. Then shall my heart have no need of the
sun to shine in it, for Thyself wilt be the light of it, and there shall
be no night there. In Jesus' Name, Amen._

III

_Removing the Veil_

Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest by
the blood of Jesus.--Heb. 10:19

Among the famous sayings of the Church fathers none is better