s
most precious blood.

Oh, awful thought! Life and death, the Devil himself, and the Lord
Jesus Christ Himself, fighting in your heart and in mine, and in the
heart of every human being round us! And yet most blessed thought,
hopeful, glorious,--full of the promise of eternal victory! For
greater is He that is with us, than he that is against us; and He
who conquered Satan for Himself, can and will conquer him for us
also. No thing can separate us from the love of Christ; no thing,
yea no angel, or devil, principality, or power; no thing, but only
ourselves, only our own proud and wayward will and determination to
the Devil's voice in our hearts, and not the voice of Christ, the
Word of Life, who is nigh us, in our hearts, even in our darkest
moments, loving us still, pitying us, ready, able and willing to
help all who cast themselves on Him, and raise us, there and then,
the very moment we cry to Him and renounce the Devil and our own
foolish will, out of self-will into God's will, out of darkness into
light, out of hatred into love, out of despair into hope, out of
doubt into faith, out of tempest into peace, out of the death of sin
into the life of righteousness, the life of love and charity, which
abideth for ever. Oh, listen not to the lying, slanderous Devil,
who tells you that by your own sin you have lost your share in
Christ, lost baptismal grace, lost Christ's love--Lost His love?
His, who, were you in the very lowest depths of hell, would pity you
still? His love, who Himself went down into hell, and preached to
the spirits in prison, to show that he did care even for them? Not
so: into Him you have been baptized. His cross is on your
foreheads, His Father is your Father:--and can a father desert his
child, even though he sinned seventy and seven times, if seventy and
seven times he turn and repent? Can man weary God? Can the
creature conquer and destroy the love of his Creator? Can Christ
deny Himself? Not so; whosoever thou art, however sorely tempted,
however deeply fallen, however disgusted and terrified at thyself,
turn only to that blessed face which wept over Jerusalem, to that
great heart which bled for thee upon the cross, and thou shalt find
him unchanged, the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever, the Lord of
life and love, able and willing to save to the uttermost all who
come to God through Him, and the accusing Devil shall turn and flee,
and thou shalt know that thy Redeemer livet