claim the gospel in its power; many who are still in obscurity will
come forward. I see the dawn; the day itself I shall behold not here,
but from a higher place. You will live to witness it below. Despise not
the words of a gray-headed old man, who would give you, with true
affection, a few hints relative to this great day.

"The more divine a power is, the more to be deprecated is its
perversion. When those last times are spoken of in Scripture, in which
the gospel shall be spread over the whole world, it is declared that the
truth will not only have to contend with the proportionably more violent
counterworking of the enemy, but also with a great measure of delusion
and error within the kingdom of light. Such is the course of things
that every truth has its shadow; and the greatest truth is attended by
the greatest shadow. Above all things take care that the tempter do not
introduce his craft into the congregation of the faithful. There will be
those for whom the simple gospel will not suffice. When a man has
experienced the forgiveness of his sins, and has for a little while
enjoyed the happiness of that mercy, it not unfrequently appears to his
evil and inconstant heart too humiliating a condition to be constantly
receiving grace for grace. There is no other radical cure for a proud,
self-willed heart than every day and every hour to repeat that act by
which we first came to Christ. Pray that you may have more of that
childlike spirit which regards the grace of your Lord as a perennial
fountain of life. Especially avoid the error of those who seek life for
the sake of light, who would make religion a mere stepping-stone to
intellectual superiority. Such persons will never attain to a vital
apprehension of divine things; for our God is a jealous God, and will be
loved by us for his own sake. The intellectual power, the mental
enlargement arising from converse with the great objects of faith is
always to be regarded as a secondary and supplementary benefit to that
which it is the immediate object of the gospel to bestow. Despise not
human greatness or talent or ability of any kind, but beware lest you
overvalue it. I see a time coming--indeed it is already at hand--in
which gifted men will lift up their voices for the truth; but woe to the
times in which admiration and applause of the speaker shall be
substituted for laying to heart the truth which he delivers! Perhaps in
the next generation there will be no one in so