I have long been persuaded that there is no such thing as an honest
private journal, even where the entries are punctually made under
present impressions. There is so much of positive, active evil always at
work in the mind, that to give a fair transcript of idle unprofitable
thoughts and corrupt imaginings, is out of the question: evil is dealt
with in generals, good in particulars, and the balance cannot be fairly
struck. Those confessions of indwelling sin that remorse will wring from
us, and which perhaps are penned at the moment in perfect sincerity,
being unaccompanied with, the specifications that would invest them in
their naturally hideous colors, beneath the searching light of God's
holy and spiritual law, wear the lovely garb of unfeigned humility. The
reader, coming to such self-condemnatory clauses, is struck with
admiration at the saintly writer's marvellous self-abasement, only
lamenting that he should, in the excess of his lowly-mindedness, have
written such, bitter things against himself, at a time when he was
grieving, resisting, almost quenching the Holy Spirit within by
obstinate transgression.

And if the present, how much more is the past liable to be glossed over?
To be faithful here is next to impossible, for Satan helps us to deceive
ourselves and instructs us to carry out the deception to others. This
consideration might well cause the pen of autobiography to drop from a
Christian's hand, did not an earnest desire to glorify God in his
merciful dealings, together with the consciousness that to no other
could the task he safely delegated, act as a counterpoise to the
discouragement. I do desire to magnify the exceeding riches of God's
grace to me, if I may do so without increasing the charge of arrogant
assumption. I know that among the diversity of gifts which he bestows on
his creatures, he granted me a portion of mental energy, a quickness of
perception, a liveliness of imagination, an aptitude for expressing the