PERSONAL DEVOTION

No Christian can be comfortable or prosperous without retirement. Popular ministers may preach, converse, or pray in public, to the edifying of others, and yet decline in their own souls for want of examination, humiliation, and secret prayer, suited immediately to their own case. Nay, the most able ministers will generally cease to be very useful if their personal religion is neglected, or hurried even in a formal manner. This the fervent Christian knows. He will, therefore, redeem time for retirement at the expense of many inconveniences; and the friends of popular ministers should consider this, and not too much intrude upon the regular needful hours for retirement of those persons in whose company they most delight. In prosecuting the word of God, our own inclinations must be thwarted; we must not “spend our time” with them when duty calls us another way, or when a prospect is before us of doing essential good.

Scott.