Take my will and make it Thine; It shall be no longer mine. Take my heart; it _is_ Thine own; It shall be Thy royal throne. Take my love; my Lord, I pour At Thy feet its treasure-store. Take myself, and I will be Ever, _only_, ALL for Thee. CHAPTER I. Our Lives kept for Jesus. _'Keep my life, that it may be_ _Consecrated, Lord, to Thee.'_ Many a heart has echoed the little song: 'Take my life, and let it be Consecrated, Lord, to Thee!' And yet those echoes have not been, in every case and at all times, so clear, and full, and firm, so continuously glad as we would wish, and perhaps expected. Some of us have said: 'I launch me forth upon a sea Of boundless love and tenderness;' and after a little we have found, or fancied, that there is a hidden leak in our barque, and though we are doubtless still afloat, yet we are not sailing with the same free, exultant confidence as at first. What is it that has dulled and weakened the echo of our consecration song? what is the little leak that hinders the swift and buoyant course of our consecrated life? Holy Father, let Thy loving spirit guide the hand that writes, and strengthen the heart of every one who reads what shall be written, for Jesus' sake. While many a sorrowfully varied answer to these questions may, and probably will, arise from touched and sensitive consciences, each being shown by God's faithful Spirit the special sin, the special yielding to temptation which has hindered and spoiled the blessed life which they sought to enter and enjoy, it seems to me that one or other of two things has lain at the outset of the failure and disappointment. First, it may have arisen from want of the simplest belief in the simplest fact, as well as want of trust in one of the simplest and plainest words our gracious Master ever uttered! The unbelieved fact being simply that He hears us; the untrusted word being one of those plain, broad foundation-stones on which we rested our whole weight, it may be many years ago, and which we had no idea we ever doubted, or were in any danger of doubting now,--'Him that cometh to Me I will in no wise cast out.'