f. It is
not slavish dread, nor is it cowardice, but the well-grounded emotion of
men that know themselves too well to be confident and know the world too
well to be daring and presumptuous.

Don't you think that Peter had had a pretty rough experience in his life
that had taught him the wisdom of such an exhortation? And does it not
strike you as very beautiful that it should come, of all people in the
world, from his lips? The man that had said, 'Though all should forsake
Thee, yet will not I.' 'Why cannot I follow Thee now?' 'Bid me come to
Thee on the water.' 'This be far from Thee, Lord, it shall not be unto
Thee'--the man that had whipped out his sword in the garden, in a spasm
of foolish affection, now, in his quiet old age, when he has learnt the
lesson of failures and follies and sins and repentance, says in effect:
'Remember me, and do not you be presumptuous.' 'Pass the time of your
sojourning here in fear.' 'If I had known myself a little better, and
been a little more afraid of myself, I should not have made such a fool
of myself or such shipwreck of my faithfulness.'

Dear friends, no mature Christian is so advanced as that he does not
need this reminder, and no Christian novice is so feeble as that,
keeping obedient to this precept, he will not be victorious over all his
evils. The strongest needs to fear; the weakest, fearing, is safe. For
such fearfulness is indispensable to safety. It is all very well to go
along with sail extended and a careless look-out. But if, for instance,
a captain keeps such when he is making the mouth of the Red Sea where
there are a narrow channel and jagged rocks and a strong current, if he
has not every man at his quarters and everything ready to let go and
stop in a moment, he will be sure to be on the reefs before he has tried
the experiment often. And the only safety for any of us is ever to be on
the watch, and to dread our own weakness. 'Blessed is the man that
feareth always.'

Such carefulness over conduct and heart is fully compatible with all the
blessed emotions to which it seems at first antagonistic. There is no
discord between the phrase that I have quoted about 'joy unspeakable and
full of glory,' and this temper, but rather the two help one another.
And such blended confidence and fear are the parents of courage. The man
that is afraid that he will do wrong and so hurt himself and grieve his
Saviour, is the man that will never be afraid of anything else. Mar