Dear seeker of salvation, doubting, fearing Christian, you are beaten by the billows of sin and fear, swept by the gusts of doubt. Look through the mists, and behold the pilot! Christ comes to you to take every thing in charge. Will you let Him come? Will you give Him charge? Will you just throw off the whole load of sin, doubt, and fear on Him, and rest?
If you could once get away, my friends, from that sense of mediocrity and nothingness to which you are shut up, under the stupor of your self-seeking and your sin, how easy would it be for you to believe! Nay, if but some faintest suspicion could steal into you of what your soul is, and the tremendous evils working in it, nothing but the mystery of Christ's death and passion would be sufficient for you.
Nothing but Christian faith gives to the furthest future the solidity and definiteness which it must have if it is to be a breakwater for us against the fluctuating sea of present cares and thoughts.
Above all things I entreat you to preserve your faith in Christ. It is my wealth in poverty, my joy in sorrow, my peace amid tumult. For all the evil I have committed, my gracious pardon; and for every effort, my exceeding great reward. I have found it to be so. I can smile with pity at the infidel whose vanity makes him dream that I should barter such a blessing for the few subtleties from the school of the cold-blooded sophists.
This is the work of God that ye believe on Him whom He hath sent.
