In the beginning of my Christian experience I had but to see a truth to feel within a strong drawing to obedience. But now all was different. The cold facts of my condition were plain to me, but there was no inward force compelling me to act according to the knowledge I had gained. I was tossed about and wished more than I can tell for some inward urging of the Spirit of God toward the performance of my duty. I did not know the truth that God accepts the decision of the will as the purpose of the heart. I supposed that no act could be acceptable to God unless it came from a warm feeling of love. The deadness and the apathy of my heart were sickening. I saw clearly the wretchedness of my condition, but there was no breaking up, no feeling of sorrow, no conviction (as I thought), no love for God. If I could only have shed some tears; if my soul had only been exercised for its own deliverance! But all within was as still as a stone; only my mind seemed active. At last, however, I saw that this apparent lack of sorrow was only another step toward the utter repudiation of self. In the past, self had hidden behind my tears, and I had unconsciously trusted in my sorrow instead of in the Lord, thinking that surely because I felt so sorry, I should not repeat the offense. But a feeling of sorrow can not save, as I proved again and again by repeated failures, and so God, wishing to strip me of anything in which to trust except himself, allowed me not even the satisfaction of tears or a breaking up of heart. He wished to teach me that real repentance is an act of the will and not of the emotions. For a tender heart, one should be grateful, but to trust in that for victory over sin or faults can only lead to repeated failure. So at last I was willing to submit this point to him who doeth all things well and was willing to cast myself, unworthy, undone, without a vestige of hope in myself, nor a place to set my feet, wholly upon him and to believe that he took me AS I WAS, whether I was able to do or be anything or not, and would begin to work in me his divine will. LEARNING MY MISTAKES The same trouble arose about my lack of feeling any love for God. How could I, who had been the recipient of so many favors from the hand of God, be so hard-hearted as not to love him! Could I dare come to him or ask anything from him when I did not love him, when I had given so much place to self-love and had been so indifferent concerning the pleasure of my King? How difficult it is to come to God empty-handed! If only I might have brought at least a little love in my hand to offer him! But no, there seemed to be none; and at last my poor soul came to see and confess that, after all, it was not because of my love to him that he loved me and saved me, but because of his great mercy and love for me. At length my soul, falling down before him, could cry out in truth, "Nothing in my hand I bring; Simply to thy cross I cling."