Part 59

Christian reader, let us watch against the tendency to slip aside from the narrow, yet safe, the _sometimes_ rough, yet _always_ pleasant, path of simple, wholehearted obedience. Let us keep guard--jealous, careful guard--over "faith and a pure conscience," for which nothing can compensate. Should trial come, let us, instead of turning aside into Egypt, wait on God; and thus the trial, instead of proving an occasion of stumbling, will prove an opportunity for obedience. Let us, when tempted to slip into the course of the world, remember him "who gave himself for our sins, that he might deliver us from this present evil world, according to the will of God, and our Father." (Gal. i. 4.) If such was his love for us, and such his sense of the true character of this present world, that he gave himself, in order to deliver us from it, shall we deny him by plunging again into that from which his cross has forever delivered us? May God Almighty forbid! May he keep us in the hollow of his hand, and under the shadow of his wings, until we see Jesus as he is, and be like him, and with him forever.