Help for the Penitent

The sight of a penitent on his knees is a spectacle which moves heaven; and the compassionate Redeemer, who, when He beheld Saul in that situation, exclaimed, "Behold, ho prayoth," will not be slow or reluctant to strengthen you by His might, and console you by His Spirit. When "a new and living way" is opened "into the holiest of all " by the blood of Jesus, not to avail ourselves of it, not to arise and go to our Father, but to prefer remaining at a guilty distance, encompassed with famine, to the rich and everlasting provisions of His house, will be a source of insupportable anguish when we shall see Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob enter into the kingdom of God, and ourselves shut out. It is impossible too often to inculcate the momentous truth that the character is not formed by passive impressions, but by voluntary actions, and that we shall be judged hereafter, not by what we have felt, but by what we have done.—Robert Hall