over you,
of Christ's present will that you should walk in His ways, of the bright
hopes of the future, and the solemn vision of that great White Throne
and the retribution that streams thence, do you think it would be
possible for you to fall into sin, to yield to temptation, to be annoyed
by any irritation or bother, or overweighted by any duty? No! Whosoever
lives with the thoughts that God has given us in His Word familiar to
His mind and within easy reach of His hand, has therein an armlet
against all possible temptation, a test that will unveil the hidden
corruption in the sweetest seductions, and a calming power that will
keep his heart still and collected in the midst of agitations. If the
Word of God in that lower sense of the principles involved in the gospel
of Jesus Christ, dwell in your hearts, the fangs are taken out of the
serpent. If you drink any deadly thing it shall not hurt you, and you
will 'be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might.'

Bring the greatest truths you can find to bear on the smallest duties,
and the small duties will grow great to match the principles by which
they are done. Bring the laws of Jesus Christ down to the little things,
for, in the name of common sense, if our religion is not meant to
regulate trifles, what is it meant to regulate? Life is made up of
trifles. There are half a dozen crises in the course of your life, but
there are a thousand trivial things in the course of every day. It would
be a poor kind of regulating principle that controlled the crises, and
left us alone to manage with the trifles the best way we could.

But in order that there shall be this continual operation of the motives
and principles involved in the gospel upon our daily lives, we must have
them very near our hand, ready to be laid hold of. The soldier that
would march through an enemy's country, having left his gun in the hands
of some camp follower, would be very likely to be shot before he got his
gun. I remember going through the Red Sea; at the mouth of it where the
entrance is narrow, and the currents run strong, when the ship
approaches the dangerous place, the men take their stations at appointed
places, and the ponderous anchors are loosened and ready to be dropped
in an instant if the swirl of the current sweeps the ship into dangerous
proximity to the reef. It is no time to cut the lashings of the anchors
when the keel is grating on the coral rocks. And it is no time to have