We cannot glance at the lives of godly men without noticing the prominence which belongs to this subject of religion in the heart. Their first aspiration is for the friendship of God, and their next, their perpetual longing is to have the heart right with Him; "to keep the heart with all diligence, for out of it are the issues of life." We open the life of one man of God at random. He says, "An inward sweet sense of divine things at times came into my heart, and my soul was led away in pleasant views and contemplations of them." "The sense I had of divine things would often of a sudden kindle up, as it were, a sweet burning in my heart, an ardour of soul that I know not how to express." "I was almost constantly in ejaculatory prayer wherever I was. Prayer seemed as the breath by which the inward burning of my heart had vent." "My former delights never reached the heart, and did not arise from any sight of the divine excellence of the things of God." "My heart panted after this, to lie low before God as in the dust, that I might be nothing, and God might be /all/; that I might become as a little child." "Oftentimes in reading the Holy Scriptures, every word seemed to touch my heart; I felt a harmony between something in my heart and those sweet and powerful words."[4] WITNESSES. Another says, "O God, impress more deeply on my heart thine exceeding great and precious promises, that I may perfect holiness in thy fear." "Though God's pure Word is presented to worldly men in ever such a variety of ways; though the provision be ever so daintily served up, none of them relish it at heart. As well might the preacher have the restless and ungovernable waves of the sea before him, and think to control them with the rod of Moses, or the words of Christ, 'Peace, be still.'" "In his earliest years he had many pure, tender feelings, and stirrings of his heart concerning God, and the texts inscribed on the church walls of his native town, from the Epistle to the Romans, concerning death, sin, righteousness, and the crucifixion, produced in him, as a mere child, emotions of great joy and peace, and left upon him very profitable and lasting impressions." "How may I know that I am become an heir of heaven? How may I know that God is in me of a truth? When I have the earnest of the inheritance, that is, when I am habitually led by the Spirit of God, so as to walk in love, with my heart crying to him, Abba, Father! and listening to every whisper of his Holy Spirit."[5] WITNESSES.