Page:Heavenly Bridegrooms.djvu/105

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Heavenly Bridegrooms
101

ask for and receive a tender conscience, an enlightened reason, and a sanctified common sense. Then he will no longer be afraid to use his own reason and his own good sense. I have recently received from the Lord as I believe the following unsectarian motto:

"'Love everybody, learn of everybody, and follow nobody but the Lord Jesus Christ!'

"To obtain and retain constant Divine guidance and tuition I find that my higher nature must bear complete and easy sway over my lower nature; that the 'old man' must be wholly put off and the new man wholly 'put on'; that the affections and thoughts of my 'upward man' must have easy and complete control over every appetite, passion, and desire of my 'outward man'; and that I must keep myself so full of the Lord, that I can live ' a heavenly life upon earth,' in all places and under all conceivable circumstances, just as easily and naturally as I can breathe the sweet air of heaven. * * *

"This loving and indescribable union with God, is no longer a mere matter of faith with me, but it is a matter of actual knowledge and sweet experience. * * *

"While enjoying these heavenly experiences the Lord has given me better health than during any eleven months for the last twenty years. And he has dealt more tenderly with me than any human mother ever dealt with a helpless infant. * * *

"I sincerely hope that the love and goodness of the Lord, so bountifully manfested in giving me such large foretastes of heaven while yet in the body, will prove helpful and encouraging to every honest-hearted reader. But since the ways of the Lord are infinite in variety let no one look for an experience precisely like mine. I have prayed for years that the Lord would make me just as pure, just as holy and just as useful as lay within the scope of human and Divine possibilities. He is now taking His own way to answer my prayers." (Under the Divine Touch, by Chester E. Pond, 1432 Chestnut St., Philadelphia. Pa. First published in the Mount Joy Herald, Mt. Joy, Pa., under dates of April 8th and 15th, 1882.)