been more deeply exercised;
but you may perhaps not be able to hold it so fast or retain it so long.
Testing trials are the method of the divine government, discipline the
order of Christ's house. He that endureth to the end shall be saved, but
he that falls away in the middle shall not. The fair profession that
grows over an unhumbled heart "dureth for a while," but does not endure
to the end. When tribulation or persecution ariseth because of the word,
the religion which reached no further than the surface cannot maintain
its place there; it withers root and branch. The inward affection, such
as it was, and the outward profession together disappear. From him that
hath not shall be taken even that which he seemeth to have.

In the earlier centuries of the Christian era the profession of faith,
when lightly assumed, was frequently and suddenly scorched off the
so-called Christian's lips by the pitiless persecution of heathen
governments: in subsequent ages, and down even to our own day, Papal
fires have burned fiercely in many lands, and before them every faith
has faded except that which is of God's own planting, and grows in the
secret depths of believing souls. Nationally for several generations we
have enjoyed freedom; but let us beware. The divine law, "All that will
live godly in Christ Jesus must suffer persecution" (2 Tim. iii. 12),
has not been repealed. Nor is this merely a caveat thrown in to keep our
theology correct; it is a present and pressing truth. In every season
and in every climate the sun of persecution is hot enough to kill the
religion which grows in accidentally softened, natural affections, over
a whole and unhumbled heart. Experience incontestably establishes the
fact, although it may be difficult for philosophy to explain the reason
of it, that slight persecutions have often been as effectual as the
heaviest in blasting the deceptive appearance of religion, which, under
favouring circumstances, grew for a time in the life of an unrenewed
man. In point of fact, a sneer from some leading spirit in a literary
society, or a laugh raised by a gay circle of pleasure-seekers in a
fashionable drawing-room, or the rude jest of scoffing artisans in a
work-shop, may do as much as the fagot and the stake to make a fair but
false disciple deny his Lord.

Young disciples, whose faith and hope are bursting through the ground,
should be, not indeed distrustful of the Lord, but jealous of
themselves. "Let hi