y, and believingly upon God; then answers
will surely be given to your prayers. You may not be called upon to
serve the Lord in the way the writer does, and therefore may never have
answers to prayer respecting such things as are recorded here; but in
your various circumstances, as to your family, your business, your
profession, your church position, your labour for the Lord inn army way,
you may have answers as distinct as any here recorded.

Should this, however, be read by any who are not believers in the Lord
Jesus, but any who are going on in the carelessness or
self-righteousness of their unrenewed hearts, then I would
affectionately and solemnly beseech such, first of all to be reconciled
to God by faith in the Lord Jesus. You are sinners. You deserve
punishment. If you do not see this, ask God to show it unto you. Let
this now be your first and especial prayer. Ask Him also to enlighten
you not merely concerning your state by nature, but especially to reveal
the Lord Jesus to your hearts. God sent Him, that He might bear the
punishment, due to us guilty sinners. God accepts the obedience and
sufferings of the Lord Jesus, in the room of those who depend upon Him
for the salvation of their souls; and the moment a sinner believes in
the Lord Jesus, he obtains the forgiveness of all his sins. When thus he
is reconciled to God, by faith in the Lord Jesus, and has obtained the
forgiveness of his sins, he has boldness to enter into the presence of
God, to make known his requests unto God; and the more he is enabled to
realize, that his sins are forgiven, and that God, for Christ's sake,
is well pleased with those who believe on Him, the more ready he will be
to come with all his wants, both temporal and spiritual, to his Heavenly
Father, that He may supply them. But as long as the consciousness of
unpardoned guilt remains, so long shall we be kept at a distance from
God, and especially also as it regards prayer. Therefore, dear reader,
if you are an unforgiven sinner, let your first and especial subject of
your prayer be, that God would be pleased to reveal to your heart the
Lord Jesus, His beloved Son.

March 5. To day it is twenty years since the Scriptural Knowledge
Institution for Home and Abroad made its beginning. When I look back
upon that day, with reference to this work, I desire with gratitude to
exclaim, What has God wrought! His name be magnified for it! I desire to
take courage from all His former goodnes