"Salvation is of the LORD." -Jonah 2:9

"And I will bring the blind by a way that they knew not; I will lead them in paths that they have not known: I will make darkness light before them, and crooked things straight. These things will I do unto them, and not forsake them." -Isaiah 42:16 [KJV] Never, surely, was there a promise of a covenant God in Christ more strikingly fulfilled as to what is said in the former part of this verse, than in thine instance, my soul. By nature and by practice, thou wert so totally blind to any apprehension of divine things, that not a right thought hadst thou ever conceived of God and Christ, when the Lord first manifested His grace to thy heart! No being in the universe was so near to me as God, but none so little known or understood. No heart was nearer to me than my own, but to all its errors and deceitfulness I remained the most perfect stranger! In the works of providence, as well as of grace, I had no consciousness whatever of any guide, nor even of needing a guide. Self-wille

"For whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world: and this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith."   -I John 5:4 [KJV] If we are to be saved our faith must gain the day; we must have a faith that shall triumph over death and hell and gain a glorious conquest over every internal and external and infernal foe. This is just the state, then, in which the matter stands: we must either conquer or be conquered; we must either gain the day and be crowned with an immortal crown of glory, or else sink in the strife, defeated by sin and Satan. But none of God's people will be defeated in the fight; and yet they often seem, as it were, to escape defeat by the very skin of their teeth; yet faith will sooner or later gain the day, for Jesus is its Finisher as well as its Author. He will crown the faith of His own gift with eternal glory. He will never suffer His dear family to be overcome in the good fight of faith, for He will give strength to every weak arm and