rn how far our doubts
and despondencies are the direct result of physical causes, and another
great thing is, when we can not trace any such connexion, to bear
patiently and quietly what God _permits_, if He does not authorise. I
have no more doubt that you love Him, and that He loves you, than that
I love Him and that He loves me. You have been daily in my prayers.
Temptations and conflict are inseparable from the Christian life; no
strange thing has happened to you. Let me comfort you with the assurance
that you will be taught more and more by God's Spirit how to resist; and
that true strength and holy manhood will spring up from this painful
soil. Try to take heart; there is more than one foot-print on the
sands of time to prove that "some forlorn and shipwrecked brother" has
traversed them before you, and come off conqueror through the Beloved.
_Don't stop praying for your life._ Be as cold and emotionless as you
please; God will accept your naked faith, when it has no glow or warmth
in it; and in His own time the loving, glad heart will come back to you.
I deeply feel for and with you, and have no doubt that a week among
these mountains would do more towards uniting you to Christ than a mile
of letters would. You can't complain of any folly to which I could not
plead guilty. I have put my Saviour's patience to every possible test,
and how I love Him when I think what He will put up with.

You ask if I "ever feel that religion is a sham"? No, never. I _know_ it
is a reality. If you ask if I am ever staggered by the inconsistencies
of professing Christians, I say yes, I am often made heartsick by them;
but heartsickness always makes me run to Christ, and one good look at
Him pacifies me. This is in fact my panacea for every ill; and as to my
own sinfulness, that would certainly overwhelm me if I spent much time
in looking at it. But it is a monster whose face I do not love to see;
I turn from its hideousness to the beauty of His face who sins not, and
the sight of "yon lovely Man" ravishes me. But at your age I did this
only by fits and starts, and suffered as you do. So I know how to feel
for you, and what to ask for you. God purposely sickens us of man and of
self, that we may learn to "look long at Jesus."

And this brings me to what you say about Fenelon's going too far, when
he says we may judge of the depth of our humility by our delight in
humiliation, etc. No, he does not go a bit too far. Paul says, "I will