through our coarse-minded love of this present world.  Only, those who are appointed to perseverance, and through that to eternal life, always kindle again; they are kindled again, and they love the return of their lost warmth.  They recover themselves and address themselves again and again to the race that is still set before them.  They prove themselves not to be of those who draw back unto perdition, but of those that believe to the saving of the soul.  Now, if you have only too good ground to suspect that you are but a temporary believer, what are you to do to make your sure escape out of that perilous state?  What, but to keep on believing?  You must cry constantly, Lord, I believe, help Thou mine unbelief!  When at any time you are under any temptation or corruption, and you feel that your faith and your love are letting slip their hold of Christ and of eternal life, then knot your weak heart all the faster to the throne of grace, to the cross of Christ, and to the gate of heaven.  Give up all your mind and heart, and all that is within you, to the one thing needful.  Labour night and day in your own heart at believing on Christ, at loving your neighbour, and at discovering, denying, and crucifying yourself.  It will all pay you in the long run.  For if you do all these things, and persistently do them, then, though you are at this moment all but dead to all divine things, and all but a reprobate, it will be found at last that all the time your name was written among the elect in heaven.

The perseverance of the saints, the “five points” notwithstanding, is not a foregone conclusion.  The final perseverance of the ripest and surest saint is all made up of ever-new beginnings in repentance, in faith, in love, and in obedience.  Begin, then, every new day to repent anew, to return anew, to believe and to love anew.  And if all your New-Year repentances and returnings and reformations are all already proved to be but temporary—­even if they lie all around you already a bitter mockery of all your professions—­still, begin again.  Begin to-night, and begin again to-morrow morning.  Spend all the remainder of your days on earth beginning.  And, ere ever you are aware, the final perseverance of another predestinated saint will be found accomplished in you.

SECRET

   “The secret of the Lord is with them that fear Him.”—­David.

A truly religious life is always a secret life:  it is a life hid, as Paul has it, with Christ in God.  The secret of the Lord, says the Psalmist, is with them that fear Him.  And thus it is that when men begin to fear God, both their hearts and their lives are henceforth full of all kinds of secrets that are known to themselves and to God only.  It was when Christiana’s fearful thoughts began to work in her mind about her husband whom she had lost—­it was when all her unkind, unnatural, and ungodly carriages to her dear friend came into