| In His Steps |
Chapter 4 |
Page 5 |
Hence there should be in every young Christian the most conscientious watchfulness over the early growths of spirituality in his own heart. These growths are tender and easily destroyed, like the young plants which the gardener keeps in his conservatory through the winter and cool spring days.
The whole matter of heart culture requires the utmost diligence. All life, business and social as well as religious, must be made to contribute to it. We should form our friendships and choose our amusements with reference to their effect on our heart life. Someone has given this true test, whose application should be wide as life itself: “Whatever weakens your reason, impairs the tenderness of your conscience, obscures your view of God or takes off the relish of spiritual things – in short, whatever increases the authority of your body over your mind – that is sin to you, however innocent it may be in itself.”
A life so regulated, so watched, so ruled by conscience and by the word and Spirit of God, will grow into a living power of real holiness the value of whose ministry will be incalculable in its silent pervasive influence.
“Birds, by being glad, their Maker bless;
By simply, shining, sun and star;
And we, whose law is love, serve less
By what we do than what we are.”
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