preachers remember this. What we men need is not so much an answer to
our doubts, as more nourishment for our faith.

The positive method is the only way of victory in our struggle with the
evil that dwells in our own nature and besets our own hearts. The reason
why many men fail, is because they thrust the vice out and then forget
to lay hold on the virtue. They evict the unclean spirit and leave a
vacant house. To cease to do evil is important, but to learn to do good
is far more important. Reformation never saved a man. Transformation is
the only way. And to be transformed, a man must welcome the Spirit of
Good, the Holy Spirit, into his heart, and work with Him every day,
doing the will of God.

There are two ways of fighting fever. One is to dose the sick people
with quinine and keep the fever down. The other is to drain the marshes,
and purify the water, and cleanse the houses, and drive the fever out.
Try negative, repressive religion, and you may live, but you will be an
invalid. Try positive, vital religion, and you will be well.

There is an absorption of good that guards the soul against the
infection of evil. There is a life of fellowship with Christ that can
pass through the furnace of the world without the smell of fire on its
garments,--a life that is full of interest as His was, being ever about
His Father's business; a life that is free and generous and blessed, as
His was, being spent in doing good, and refreshed by the sense of God's
presence and approval.

Last summer, I saw two streams emptying into the sea. One was a
sluggish, niggardly rivulet, in a wide, fat, muddy bed; and every day
the tide came in and drowned out that poor little stream, and filled it