332 THE HIDDEN LIFE. 



TO D. CROLE ESQ. 



"Woodville, July 26, 1852. 

 " My deak Sik, — Our Communion Sabbath proceedings, 

 notwithstanding your lamented absence, went on with all 

 comfort and propriety, so far as external forms were con- 

 cerned, and I trust with spiritual advantages to not a few. 

 The Lord of the vineyard who discerneth the heart, alone 

 knows what good fruit may be borne through these solemn 

 observances. One's own experience too truly tells him 

 how transitory the deeper and more holy affections are 

 apt to be ; but this renders it just the more necessary that, 

 in all abasement, we should seek again and again to draw 

 from the well of living waters. ' And Jesus said unto 

 them, I am the bread of life ; he that cometh unto me 

 shall never more hunger — he that believeth on me shall 

 never thirst.' What a complexity of toil and trouble 

 would be saved to us by a sincere, simple, unbroken 

 belief in any one of many brief statements in the Holy 

 Scriptures — to have it so engraven upon our hearts by the 

 Holy Spirit (vouchsafed to them that ask it), as to be felt 

 like an existing presence with every breath we draw! ' If 

 thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt 

 believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from tha 

 dead, thou shalt be saved.' How strange that there should 

 be cither doubt or difficulty in the matter, yet how certain 



