Therefore he knew God. The articles of his creed were not many, but he
was fixed on this foundation-truth of all religion. Further than this,
he knew God as taking a living interest in His creatures, as one who
could be approached by them in prayer and communion, and who was
sympathetically responsive to their needs. He somehow knew God, also,
as being righteous and holy, and he must have had a rudimentary idea of
the Christ, as it unfolded itself in the great promise of a deliverer
from evil made to our first parents in Paradise. However scanty in
number were the articles of his creed, they were not scanty in results.
They produced a great life and a great name. The results were that "he
walked with God." Walking is the habitual exercise of a man's life. A
man runs sometimes. Under great strain, or the demand of special
circumstances, he runs, but finds that exhaustion follows; or if he
runs too frequently, total collapse is the inevitable consequence. Two
of the most eminent ministers of our times recently died owing to
overstrain and over-exertion. But we have some now living who have
done signal service for the Church during a ministry of fifty years,
and who are still hale and having a green old age. To walk at a steady
pace, fulfilling life's responsibilities and the demands of duty, is to
fulfil the will of God and serve our generation. This rule refers to
man's religious and spiritual life. To walk onward and upward in the
highest things is to grow in excellence and grace.

As man is a social being, he must walk with someone in life. Perpetual
solitude dries up the springs of existence, and true manhood is
shrivelled up. Solitary confinement is the saddest and cruellest
punishment that can be inflicted by man on his fellow. The prisoner in
the Bastille, when his reason reeled through prolonged silence and
loneliness, was saved from mental collapse by the friendship of a rat;
and a similar story is told of an English prisoner, who, under similar