Do you know of that solemnity that accompanies any great depth of emotion? That deep, inward reveling of the creature that follows meditation upon ineffably wonderful truths?

Mid-terms have been upon me, and the tyranny of the urgent has all but ravaged me in this time. It seemed that every nerve that could be tweaked, was indeed fried, and frazzledly I found my knees.

Prayer is a strange thing, for at times it is strenuously exacted, where at others its flow is unending and life seems impossibly lived one moment without it. I felt corked Wednesday, and every attempt at words was futile. I tried to read. Fury. Meditation, sin. The Spirit elapsed time, and as rain first falls hard on dry ground, softness follows those pelting penetrations.

Confession came in a deluge, and as one thought was uncovered, multitudes came tripping on its heels. I opened the Valley of Vision's "Need of Grace" to: "Thou makest me possess the sins of my youth, and the dreadful sin of my nature, so that I feel all sin, I cannot think or act but every motion is sin." Surely a man cannot stay here, but to be graced with sight into the horrifying caverns of his depravity is but a gift. Linger long in confession, for the flesh will tempt you to say "this is enough," but with each uncovering you will soon find that each good circumstance is couched and coveted by that vessel in your bosom, and it must certainly be exposed and changed.

The following line in "Need of Grace" is "return again with showers of converting grace to a poor gospel-abusing sinner. Help my soul to breathe after holiness, after a constant devotedness to Thee, after growth in grace more abundantly every day." The gospel is not so sweet to the man whose righteousness exceeds his own understanding of his crooked heart, but the grace of our Lord is ineffably wonderful to the sinner who has both seen his heart, and known His grace.