It is possible, too, that your conversion made a greater perceptible change in your soul and life than did your sanctification. This matter of change depends largely on circumstances. If you were very deeply convicted of sin and were very happily converted, your conversion may have been greater apparently than your sanctification. But these appearances are not essential considerations. Still another point you must bear in mind, and that is that sanctification, while a separate and distinct thing of itself, is only the second step in a work already begun. Justification is essential to sanctification and is the beginning of those things that work full salvation. During a camp-meeting one time a minister related a glowing experience he had when he was sanctified. He spoke particularly of boldness. He was made very bold. When the altar-call was made, an old mother in Israel came to the altar. A minister asked her what she was seeking. She replied, with tears in her eyes, "I thought I was sanctified; but since Brother A---- testified to the boldness he received, I doubt whether I ever was sanctified. I did not feel that way." The instructor carefully led her away from any comparison between her experience and others, and asked her if she were consecrated now. "Oh, yes, just as consecrated as I know how to be!" she replied, weeping. "Well, if you are all consecrated, what does the Lord do for those who are all given up?" "He sanctifies them wholly," she had to say. "And if you do not have as much boldness as Brother A---- said he has, probably you do not need as much. Or, if you really need more, would it not be better to ask God for more rather than to give up your experience of sanctification in a vain effort to feel as some one else feels?" She saw the point, and her tears disappeared beneath happy smiles of joy. There is yet another item you should consider. Many times those who testify so beautifully and graphically in describing their sanctification are under an inspiration, and the blessing is set forth in glowing colors. For the time being their trials and discouragements are forgotten, their struggles to keep the victory are out of mind, and they speak in the highest praise of the work God has done. In the exhilaration of the moment they magnify the work. We do not say they overdraw their experience; for really no tongue can tell it; but while they are all aflame with ardor and praise, you may be going through a trial. So, of course, their experience seems to outshine yours so far that yours suffers. But remember this--the time may come when you will be testifying as they now are, and they may be the ones going through a trial; then they may compare their experience with yours, and they may feel that they are the ones, who are behind. So compare no more. Be all for Jesus. If He gives some one seemingly a better experience, let Him have His way. What is that to you? Follow Jesus. CHAPTER SEVEN IN THE HANDS OF GIANT ACCUSER