“What need there is in these last and perilous times, that we should find in a closer walk with Christ, the secret of unspottedness from the spirit of this age, in all its boasted progress. You will recall the parable of the house that was ‘swept and garnished,’ in Luke 11. The conviction as to the last state, which this scripture fastened on my mind, led me to throw down my broom many years ago, and to refuse even a jot of garnishing up to this present day, for I do not like the incoming tenant! ‘And all the world wondered after the beast, saying, Who is like unto the beast?’ May the Lord give us, and thousands more, true heartedness to Himself, that may keep us in the true confession of His rights and titles, and of His coming, to make them all good in sovereign power, against ‘the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience.’ If the person of Christ were a reality to us, if in fact He were the only living and abiding reality to our souls, how we should make Him the governing and guiding object and motive of our daily life, ‘that Christ may be magnified in me, whether by life or by death.’ May the Lord lead to this devotedness and devotement, by drawing us to His own bosom, that our hearts may beat in true loyalty and attachment to Himself.”