Therefore, dear friends, here is the true secret of tranquillity, in
an age of questioning and doubt. Let me have that divine Voice
speaking in my heart, as I may have, and no matter what questions may
be doubtful, this is sure--'We know in whom we have believed'; and we
can say, 'Settle all your controversies any way you like: one thing I
know, and that divine Voice is ever saying it to me in my deepest
consciousness--the Son of God is come and hath given us an
understanding that we may know Him that is true; and we are in Him
that is true.' Labour for more of this inward, personal conviction of
the preciousness of Jesus Christ to strengthen you against a hostile
world.

And remember that there are conditions under which this Voice speaks
in our souls. One is that we attend to the instrument which the
Spirit of God uses, and that is 'the truth.' If Christians will not
read their Bibles, they need not expect to have the words of these
Bibles interpreted and made real to them by any inward experience. If
you want to have a faith which is vindicated and warranted by your
daily experience, there is only one way to get it, and that is, to
use the truth which the Spirit uses, and to bring yourself into
contact, continual and reverent and intelligent, with the great body
of divine truth that is conveyed in these authoritative words of the
Spirit of God speaking through the first witnesses.

And there must be moral discipline too. Laziness, worldliness, the
absorption of attention with other things, self-conceit, prejudice,
and, I was going to say, almost above all, the taking of our religion
and religious opinions at secondhand from men and teachers and books
--all these stand in the way of our hearing the Spirit of God when He
speaks. Come away from the babble and go by yourself, and take your