is a truth of vast importance to the Christian.

Many people's wills have become so in bondage to the impure affections
and desires of their depraved hearts that they have no will to do right
and shun the wrong. The desires of the heart sway their scepter of power
over the will, and it acts to the granting the heart its wishes. This is
a sad picture. A human being created to be free, but now a wretched
slave. When he wills to do good evil is present with him; the good he
would do, he does not do; and the evil he would not do, that is what he
does. O miserable man! A person who has rejected the mercy of God and
has yielded to the inclinations of an unholy heart until he has no
power to accept the offers of mercy and shun the ways of sin, is an
object of the greatest pity. To him there is no hope of escaping the
damnation of hell.

There is a time in the life of every rational young man and woman when
they can accept the blessed offers of salvation which God extends
through his Son, if they will. God gives the Holy Spirit to operate upon
the depraved heart, making it to feel something of the realities of a
Savior's love and goodness, and something of the awfulness of sin. The
Holy Spirit does not take hold upon the will and compel it to serve God,
or force it into right action. He just takes hold upon the heart,
suppressing its love for sin, and awakening desires for a better life,
thus removing the unrighteous scepter the heart swayed over the will,
giving the will freedom and power to accept or reject the mercies of
God. While the impure affections and unholy desires of a depraved heart
are being restrained by the power of the Holy Spirit, before the will is
set the way of life and the way of death, each subject to choice. Now is
the time for whosoever will to come and drink of the water of life
freely, and whosoever will now call upon the name of the Lord shall be