Means of Self-Culture

Communication with God, who is the

source of all strength, is kept up by the

means of grace. These are channels of in- 7#

78 THE YOU^^G COMMUNICANT.

fluence, from heaven to the soul. Your proficiency will be in proportion to the faithful use of the exercises of private piety. Become cold and negligent in these, and your halting course can be easily predicted. You cannot live the life of God, without communion with God in these acts. As faith is the spring of other graces, so truth, of which faith is the recipient, must be constantly poured in, as the nourishment of the soul. The depository of all saving truth is the Holy Scriptures. Go to this blessed volume daily, devoutly, and with delight. Be jealous of every book which lessens your taste for the Bible. Begin from this hour, to have a stated time for the devotional reading of the Word, and another stated hour for the diligent study of its contents, in regular course. Write it upon your heart, as a Bacred resolution, that all your life long you will mamtain a loving familiarity with the oracles of God. And let your cry be, “. Open thou my eyes that I may behold wondrous things out of thy law I”*