I wish we did more fully realise and constantly remember that there are to be among Christ's own ones really such as these, weaklings, cripples, tempted, fallen; brethren overtaken by snares, seductions, unbelief, whom we ought to pity, whom we ought to help. Only it is needful to bear in mind that we are not to conclude that every one who gives himself out as such is really a wounded brother, to be sympathised with and aided. For there are many who only imagine themselves distressed, who give themselves out as greatly tried and buffeted, more from a kind of mental hypochondriasis or foolish fondness for being talked of and fussed over. This is especially so in the matter of doubt and religious difficulty. For just as it happens that in the fashionable world it is sometimes proper to have a lisp or limp, in imitation of some dignitary, so, unfortunately, at the present day it has become fashionable to go halt of one foot in faith; and there are persons, thoroughly excellent and orthodox in reality, who are impelled to let all their acquaintances know what dark struggles of soul they pass through, and of how much it costs them to face the unbelieving spectres of their minds. Brethren, when a man has a real skeleton in his closet he does not go round the circle of his friends, flaunting that unpleasant fact in their faces. When a man tells you, with a smile of complacent superiority on his face, of his conflicts with doubt, you need not expend much sympathy or anxiety on him; like all other affectations, this one may be left to die a natural death. No, the man to whom doubt is a real spectre, a veritable agony, does not blazon his pain abroad; like Jacob's wrestle with his dread midnight foe, the real soul-struggles are fought out in darkness and alone. It is these who are truly stricken, wounded, well-nigh carried away—these, and these alone, whom you are asked to pity and to help.