Let me plunge into the midst at once, with a few simple suggestions on SECRET DEVOTION.
I ask my younger Brother, then, to keep sacred, with all his heart and will, an unhurried time alone with the Lord, night and morning at the least. I do not intrusively prescribe a length of time. But I do most earnestly say that the time, shorter or longer, must be _deliberately spent_; and even ten minutes can be spent deliberately, while mismanagement may give a feeling of haste to a much longer season. Do not, I beseech you, minimize the minutes; seek for such a fulness of "the Spirit of grace and of supplications," [Zech. xii. 10.] as shall draw you quite the other way. But if the time, any given night or morning, _must_ be short, let it nevertheless be a time of quiet, reverent, collected worship and confession and petition. One thing assuredly you can do: you can, if you will, secure a real "Morning Watch" before your day's work begins. I do not say it is easy. Young men very commonly sleep sounder and longer than we seniors do; they are not always easy to rouse in a moment. But they can direct some of their energy to contrive against themselves, or rather _for_ themselves, how to secure a regular early rising to meet their Lord. Most ingenious, not to say amusing, are some of the devices which friends of mine have confided to me; schemes and stratagems to get themselves well awake in good time. But after all, in most lodging-houses surely it must be possible to be called early, and to instruct the caller to show no mercy at the chamber door. Anyhow, I do say that the fresh first interview with the all-blessed Master must at all costs be secured. Do not be beguiled into thinking it can be arranged by a half-slumbering prayer in bed. Rise up--if but in loving deference to Him. Appear in the presence chamber as the servant should who is now ready for the day's bondservice in all things but in this, that he has yet to take the day's oath of obedience, and to ask the day's "grace sufficient," and to read the day's promises and commands, at the Master's holy feet.