E-text prepared by Colin Bell, Hazel Batey, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net) Transcriber's note: Text enclosed by equal signs is in bold face (=bold=). PRACTICAL RELIGION Being Plain Papers on the Daily Duties, Experience, Dangers, and Privileges of Professing Christians by JOHN CHARLES RYLE, D.D., Baker Book House, Grand Rapids, Michigan CONTENTS PREFACE v I. SELF-INQUIRY 1 II. SELF-EXERTION 23 III. REALITY 46 IV. PRAYER 63 V. BIBLE-READING 97 VI. GOING TO THE TABLE 140 VII. CHARITY 165 VIII. ZEAL 183 IX. FREEDOM 210 X. HAPPINESS 230 XI. FORMALITY 261 XII. THE WORLD 284 XIII. RICHES AND POVERTY 312 XIV. THE BEST FRIEND 336 XV. SICKNESS 352 XVI. THE FAMILY OF GOD 375 XVII. OUR HOME 392 XVIII. HEIRS OF GOD 403 XIX. THE GREAT GATHERING 429 XX. THE GREAT SEPARATION 442 XXI. ETERNITY 472 PREFACE The volume now in the reader's hands is intended to be a companion to two other volumes which I have already published, entitled "Knots Untied," and "Old Paths." "Knots Untied" consists of a connected series of papers, systematically arranged, about the principal points which form the subject of controversy among Churchmen in the present day. All who take interest in such disputed questions as the nature of the Church, the Ministry, Baptism, Regeneration, the Lord's Supper, the Real Presence, Worship, Confession, and the Sabbath, will find them pretty fully discussed in "Knots Untied." "Old Paths" consists of a similar series of papers about those leading doctrines of the Gospel which are generally considered necessary to salvation. The inspiration of Scripture, sin, justification, forgiveness, repentance, conversion, faith, the work of Christ, and the work of the Holy Spirit, are the principal subjects handled in "Old Paths." The present volume contains a series of papers about "practical religion," and treats of the daily duties, dangers, experience, and privileges of all who profess and call themselves true Christians. Read in conjunction with another work I have previously put out, called "Holiness," I think it will throw some light on what every believer ought to be, to do, and expect. One common feature will be found in all the three volumes. I avow it frankly at the outset, and will not keep it back for a moment. The standpoint I have tried to occupy, from first to last, is that of an Evangelical Churchman.