Then, again, our salvation itself sometimes, our true sanctification, puts on a lion’s skin and not unsuccessfully imitates an angry lion’s roar.  Some saving grace that up till now we have been fatally lacking in lies under the very lip of that lion we see standing straight in our way.  God in His wisdom so orders our salvation, that we must work out the best part of it with fear and trembling.  Right before us, just beside us, standing over us with his heavy paw upon us, is a lion, from under whose paw and from between whose teeth we must pluck and put on that grace in which our salvation lies.  Repentance and reformation lie in the way of that lion; resignation also and humility; the crucifixion of our own will; the sacrifice of our own heart; in short, everything that is still lacking but is indispensable to our salvation lies through that den of lions.  One man here is homeless and loveless; another is childless; another has a home and children, and much envies the man who has neither; one has talents there is no scope for; another has the scope, but not the sufficient talent; another must now spend all his remaining life in a place where he sees that anger and envy and jealousy and malevolence will be his roaring lions daily seeking to devour his soul.  There is not a Christian man or woman in this house whose salvation, worth being called a salvation, does not lie through such a lion’s thicket as that.  Our Lord Himself was a roaring lion to John the Baptist.  For the Baptist’s salvation lay not in his powerful preaching, but in his being laid aside from all preaching; not in his crowds increasing, but in his Successor’s crowds increasing and his decreasing.  The Baptist was the greatest born of woman in that day, not because he was a thundering preacher—­any ordinary mother in Israel might have been his mother in that:  but to decrease sweetly and to steal down quietly to perfect humility and self-oblivion,—­that salvation was reserved for the son of Elisabeth alone.  I would not like to say Who that is champing and pawing for your blood right in your present way.  Reverence will not let me say Who it is.  Only, you venture on Him.

‘Yes, I shall venture!’ said Christian to the two terrified and retreating men.  Now, every true venture is made against risk and uncertainty, against anxiety and danger and fear.  And it is just this that constitutes the nobleness and blessedness of faith.  Faith sells all for Christ.  Faith risks all for eternal life.  Faith faces all for salvation.  When it is at the worst, faith still says, Very well; even if there is no Celestial City anywhere in the world, it is better to die still seeking it than to live on in the City of Destruction.  Even if there is no Jesus Christ,—­I have read about Him and heard about Him and pictured Him to myself, till, say what you will, I shall die kissing and embracing that Divine Image I have in my heart.  Even if there is neither mercy-seat nor intercession