Experience obtained without much waiting on God is not worthy the name: "Patience worketh Experience" (Rom. 5:4). Our past Experience should be well pondered before God. The record of the pilgrimage of every one of us will be found in the great book of God's government, by-and-by to be opened. God requires steadfastness of faith from those who have had especial proofs of His love. The spring of instability of purpose is some hankering within us after praise of man. The more we walk with God, the more we shall sorrow for our sins and those of others. This sorrow well consists with joy in the Holy Ghost. We never hinder another's service or grace without hindering our own: "Quench not the Spirit." Let us always be aiming at perfection: thus we shall grow in the knowledge of our imperfection. "Tribulation worketh Patience;" but if tribulation pass by without working patience, we cannot have "Experience" (Rom. 5:3). A Sound Mind One special mark of a sound mind is a readiness to take counsel of God, and a bringing into subjection all notions of our own or of others to His revealed will. It is not by change of circumstances that we can be made happy, but by submission to the will of God. This submission is manifested by our steadfast purpose to mortify the will of the flesh, and by our contending against everything that offends God. Without confidence in the love of God we cannot cheerfully submit to His discipline. Let not the morrow be as a thief to rob you of this day's blessing. We are apt to judge of things by present appearances; but the Lord sees them in all their consequences. Murmurers always extol times past as better than the present. The people of Israel in Egypt groaned by reason of hard bondage. Having passed the Red Sea they sang the song of redemption: but how ready were they to say one to another, "Let us make a captain, and let us return into Egypt" (Num. 14:4). Had Moses desired to shame them, he might have asked: "What said you under Pharaoh's yoke?" Dangers and Temptations If we would keep the creature in its place, we must take God as our portion. Being an heir of glory I would, by God's grace, rather break stones on the road for Him than be put to the drudgery of ruling an empire. Spiritual prosperity is always attended with strong temptation to the _high thought_, the _lofty imagination_. The worst temptations are those which so pamper and please the flesh that they do not vex us at all: they are perilous by their deceitfulness. The outward falls of the children of God always bespeak the foregoing state of the heart. The wearing of apparel is a special mark of our fall and shame. How unseemly then is pride of dress! Does the convict glory in the convict's coat? The Christian's Walk