Can we be sane, and at the same time pretend to select a better standard, a better rule, a better aim, than that which God prescribes? Now, pure and undefiled religion just consists in making that standard, that rule, that aim, our own. Like the ship on the ocean, driven by the wind and tost, it may often seem as if all hope were gone; but if we be godly, that is, if we have religion in the heart as the Spirit of God plants it there, One comes to us even upon the angry waves, and his presence makes a calm. Whatever be our condition, here is a Guide. Whatever be our perplexity, here is a Counsellor. Whatever be our loneliness, here is a Friend. Whatever be our tendency to wander, here is one at our right hand, proclaiming, "I am the way." Could the heart of man be persuaded to follow the Lord fully, would he consult only for an hour with reason, and with common sense, thousands more might be found in the path which leads to glory and to honour. THE SOVEREIGNTY OF TRUTH. And let it be remembered that the directions which are given to guide the godly in the way are authoritative and divine. We have more than a royal road to heaven--we have a divine one. The man whose religion is planted in the heart, is not guided by opinions, but by verdicts; and these are the verdicts of the unchanging One. They are not conjectures--they are the decisions of an infallible Judge; they are the very maxims, the very laws by which we shall be tried, when we stand before the great white throne, and the Judge of the quick and the dead. Some men act as if they were at liberty to cancel the decisions of God; to review them, and indorse or reverse them at pleasure. In this manner, the word of the Supreme, which he cannot alter without ceasing to be true, is made to bend to men's liking; and if it will not bend, they break it. But the man who holds the lamp, and is therefore truly wise, makes it a maxim in his life that he cannot judge the Word of God--It judges him. He cannot bring his religion to the Bible--He must get his religion from it. He does not consult the sacred page with the view of welcoming or rejecting it at pleasure. Nay, it is the sovereign umpire in every perplexity. It is the director of his steps, and the sun of his soul. Guided by it, and by it alone, that man walks under the direction of the Father of lights, with whom is no darkness at all, to that abode where the glory of God is manifested to all, and the Lamb is the light thereof. THE LAMB OUR LIGHT. They who have thus surrendered their souls to the guidance of God in his Word, have felt, in their own experience, how blessed it is to have Him for their light; they never yet were in a position for which the only wise God has not made provision; the lamp of life is always trimmed by the very hand which lit it.