cure the sick, and houses of refuge and industry to reclaim the vicious. Some even think that the charity of money is sufficient to send souls to heaven even after they have passed from the natural to the spiritual world. And so of holiness. Attention to the external duties of the Sabbath, a solemn countenance, a sober garment, and a careful supervision of speech, is considered striving to enter in at the strait gate.
These are the principal modes of striving, which too many of us adopt. The grand error in all seems to lie in this:—that it is a Striving with God. But the strife which the Lord inculcates in the gospel, is striving with SELF—striving against our evils—against our corruptions, our pride, our cunning, our covetousness, our vanity, our indolence, our inconstancy, our obstinacy—in one word, our SELFISHNESS. We must strive, fight against all these: we must pray for, and have faith and confidence in, the divine aid; and live the life of charity and holiness. In the practice of every grace and virtue; keeping the straight line of duty; swerving neither to the right hand nor to the left; always watchful, always setting the Lord before us, and looking to Him for help, we must have strife continually with self-love and the love of the world; and this will bring us safely through the strait gate into the heavens of our Father.
