We must believe that He is and what He is. We must have to do with God in the secret of our own souls, apart from and independent of all beside. Our individual connection with God must be a grand reality, a living fact, a real and unmistakable experience, lying at the very root of our existence and forming the stay and prop of our souls at all times and under all circumstances. Mere opinions will not do; dogmas and creeds will not avail. It will not be sufficient to say, “I believe in God the Father Almighty.” Neither this nor any other form of mere words will do. It must be a heart question, a matter between the soul and God Himself. Nothing short of this can sustain the soul at any time, but more particularly in a day like the present in which we find ourselves surrounded by so much that is hollow and superficial.

Few things tend more to sap the foundations of the soul’s confidence than a large amount of unreal profession. One may gather this in some measure from the fact that the finger of the unbeliever is continually pointed at the gross inconsistencies exhibited in the lives of the professors of religion. And although it be true that such inconsistencies, even were they multiplied ten thousand fold, will never shelter the unbeliever from the just consequences of his unbelief inasmuch as each one must give account of himself, yet it is a fact that unreal profession tends to shake confidence. Hence the urgent need of simple, earnest, personal faith in God, of unquestioning childlike confidence in His Word, of constant dependence upon His wisdom, goodness, power, and faithfulness. This is the anchor of the soul without which it will be impossible to ride securely in the midst of Christendom’s troubled waters.