1. Faith is present dependence upon a present God; it cannot live out of His presence.
2. When is faith most wanted to sustain the soul? When all visible evidence of power is removed.
3. The real amount of our faith is proved when there is nothing visible to cling to.
4. We are never so near failure as when we have acted faithfully. We can hardly trust God in two consecutive instances.
5. The great secret of all power and permanency now is faith in God-nothing visible, nothing tangible. The soul finds strength and encouragement as it reaches unto God.
6. You may be comforted by fellowship, and have your heart refreshed; but you must work by your own individual faith and energy, without leaning on any one whatever; for if you do, you cannot be a faithful servant.
7. Service must ever be measured by faith and one's own communion with God. Saul even may be a prophet when he gets amongst the prophets; but David was always the same, in the cave or anywhere.
8. When there are great arrangements for carrying on work, there is not the recognition of that inherent blessing " which tarrieth not for the sons of men." I do not tarry for man if I have faith in God.
9. The whole course of a Christian should be truthful. If we sin, the truthful place is confession.
10. We do not undo wrong by doing what appears to us to be right, but by justifying God in confession, and taking the place He assigns to us. He is ever able to come in when we are humble, and work for His own name's sake.
11. The love of the world will ever keep the conscience restless, and cast it into the bonds of the law, and turn it aside from the cross of Christ, which is the only power of God to purge the conscience. For in it there shines such a bright, self-sacrificing love, that the love of the world cannot stand before it. God's counsel by the cross is both to purge the conscience and to give victory over the world to the sinner that clings to it.
12. Real christian progress is characterized by our estimate of great essential truths-truths connected with, and flowing from, the person of Christ, " that I may know him."
13. The communion of saints did not spring from their agreement with one another, but from their union of heart about God.
14. Human amiability is often enmity with God.
15. We must learn that after all our progress, we are nothing better than sinners saved by grace.
16. Light does not guide until it has overcome darkness.
17. To be a servant you must purge yourself. If you cannot purge yourself you cannot rise to the surface.
18. The door open for self is open for Satan too.
19. The sin-sanctioning saint's portion is a wounded conscience-for the grieved Spirit is a griever.
20. To honor God and retain an unspotted conscience are of more worth than intercourse with good men; communion of saints I will not say, for that can never be found apart from His honor and a pure conscience.