1. Remember that the commencement of the Christian life is to be like the “dawning light, which increaseth more and more to the perfect day.” Therefore when the hope of peace and pardon dawns in the heart, do not consider the great business of life as _accomplished_, but only as _begun_. 2. Keep up as great a strife and earnestness in religion, as if you knew yourself to be in a state of nature. When persons are under conviction of sin, they are advised to be earnest and violent for the kingdom of heaven. You ought not to be less in earnest now, if you wish not to lose a sweet and lively sense of spiritual things. 3. Do not cease to strive and pray for the very same things which you sought before you had reason to hope you were converted. Those who have most light and most grace, have, nevertheless, need of more. There are very few requests that are proper for an impenitent sinner, that are not proper for one who professes godliness. At any rate, the mistake will do you no harm. 4. Evidence of piety is not so much to be sought in _high emotions_ of any kind, as in real humility—self-distrust—hungering and thirsting after righteousness, sorrow for sin, and a _continual effort_, in every day life, to regulate our thoughts, feelings, and conduct by the word of God. It is the _nature_ and not the _degree_ of our affections, which is to be regarded in the examination of our evidences. The best way to know our feelings is, to see how they influence the _conduct_. “By their fruit ye shall know them.” Always look upon those as the best _comforts_, which have most of these two effects—those that make you least and lowest and most like a child, and those that most determine you to deny yourself, and to spend and be spent in the service of your Master. 5. Do not expect to find in your own case, every thing you have heard or read of in the experience of others. For it may be that many things we hear and read of, are not correct feelings, and do not afford just grounds of confidence to any one; and if they are _correct_ experience, it may be the experience of a _mature_ Christian, and not to be expected in the beginning of a religious life. It must be remembered, that as no two countenances are formed alike, so no two hearts are fashioned alike, or placed in exactly the same circumstances; and it would be as vain to seek all the varieties of Christian experience in one person, as to seek all varieties of human features in one face. 6. Do not expect that the evidence desired will all come immediately and at once. It will be most likely to come _progressively_, as the result of continued effort in obedience to the will of God.