Year after year passes away, and we realise no more, and feel no more what GOD is, what we are, what we have to do, and why, and what awaits us. Chapter after chapter of the Bible is read, or heard again and again, and what we did not understand at first, we still do not understand; what we did not feel at first, we still do not feel. Sermon after sermon is preached, and our stock of knowledge after all is just as much (is it always this?) as was forced upon us at school, or in preparation for confirmation and first communion. Restless and ever on the move in all other respects, we are content to stand still here; ay, and if the preacher strives to lead us on, by unfolding some great spiritual truth as far as he can, by exhibiting and explaining some difficult doctrine more fully than usual, too often we withhold the attention which we usually give him, and after he has done, not unfrequently condemn his pains, and exclaim against his learned and abstruse sermon. Is not it so? Are not there many who cannot recollect a time when they had less spiritual perception than they have now, and who therefore are witnesses to themselves that they have not grown in knowledge? Are not there many who are less acquainted with the Bible than with any other book that has come into their hands? Are not there many who, while they may have familiarised themselves with the history, the geography, the anecdotes so to speak of Holy Scripture, and the fanciful, often daring, interpretations of unfulfilled prophecy, yet know comparatively nothing of what GOD is to them, what they are to GOD, what is required of them, and what is promised or threatened?