Proverbs 4:23. The Great Reservoir

A sermon (Number 179) delivered on Sabbath morning, February 21, 1858 At The Music Hall, Royal Surrey Gardens, by C. H. Spurgeon.

*“Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life.”*—Proverbs 4:23.

If I should vainly attempt to fashion my discourse after lofty models, I should this morning compare the human heart to the ancient city of Thebes, out of whose hundred gates multitudes of warriors were wont to march. As was the city, such were her armies, as was her inward strength, such were they who came forth of her. I might then urge the necessity of keeping the heart because it is the metropolis of our manhood, the citadel and armory of our humanity. Let the chief fortress surrender to the enemy, and the occupation of the rest must be an easy task. Let the principal stronghold be possessed by evil, the whole land must be overrun thereby. Instead however of doing this, I shall attempt what possibly I may be able to perform by a humble metaphor and a simple figure, which will be easily understood; I shall endeavor to set forth the wise man's doctrine that our life issues from the heart, and thus I shall labor to show the absolute necessity of keeping the heart with all diligence.

You have seen the great reservoirs provided by our water companies, in which the water that is to supply hundreds of streets and thousands of houses is kept. Now the heart is just the reservoir of man, and our life is allowed to flow in its proper season. That life may flow through different pipes—the mouth, the hand, the eye; but still all the issues of hand, of eye, of lip, derive their source from the great fountain and central reservoir, the heart; and hence there is no difficulty in showing the great necessity that exists for keeping this reservoir, the heart, in a proper state and condition, since otherwise that which flows through the pipes must be tainted and corrupt. May the Holy Spirit now direct our meditations.

Mere moralists very often forget the heart, and deal exclusively with the lesser powers. Some of them say, “If a man's life be wrong, it is better to alter the *principles* upon which his conduct is modeled: we had better adopt another scheme of living; society must be re-modeled so that man may have an opportunity for the display of virtues, and less temptation to indulge in vice.” It is as if, when the reservoir was filled with poisonous or polluted fluid, some sage counselor should propose that all the piping had better be taken up and fresh pipes laid down so that the water might run through fresh channels; but who does not perceive that it would be all in vain if the fountain-head were polluted, however good the channels. So in vain the rules by which men hope to fashion their lives; in vain the regimen by which we seek to constrain ourselves to the semblance of goodness, unless the heart be right, the very best scheme of life shall fall to the ground and fail to effect its design. Others say, “Well, if the life be wrong, it would be better to set the understanding right: you must inform man's judgment, educate him, teach him better, and when his head is well informed then his life will be improved. Now *understanding* is, if I may use such a figure, the stopcock which controls the emotions, lets them flow on or stops them; and it is as if some very wise man, when a reservoir had been poisoned, proposed that there should be a new person employed to turn the water off or on in hope that the whole difficulty would thus be obviated. If we followed his advice, if we found the wisest man in the world to have control of the fountain, Mister Understanding would still be incapable of supplying us with healthy streams until we had first of all purged the cistern whence they flowed. The Arminian divine too, sometimes suggests another way of improving man's life. He deals with the *will*. He says, the will must first of all be conquered, and if the will be right then everything will be in order. Now *will* is like the great engine which forces the water out of the fountain-head along the pipes, so that it is made to flow into our dwellings. The learned counselor proposes that there should be a new steam-engine employed to force the water along the pipes. “If” says he “we had the proper machinery for forcing the fluid, then all would be well.” No, sir; if the stream be poisonous you may have axles to turn on diamonds, and you may have a machine that is made of gold, and a force as potent as Omnipotence, but even then you have not accomplished your purpose until you have cleansed the polluted fountain, and purged the issues of life which flow therefrom. The wise man in our text seems to say ‒Beware of misapplying your energies, be careful to begin in the right place.” It is very necessary the understanding should be right; it is quite needful the will should have its proper predominance; it is very necessary that you should keep every part of man in a healthy condition; “but” says he, “if you want to promote true holiness you must begin with the heart, for out of it are the issues of life; and when you have purged it, when you have made its waters pure and limpid then shall the current flow and bless the inhabitants with clear water; but not till then.” Here let us pause and ask the solemn and vital question, “Is my heart right in the sight of God?” For unless the inner man has been renewed by the grace of God through the Holy Spirit, our heart is full of rottenness, filth, and abominations. And if so, here must all our cleansing begin, if it be real and satisfactory. Unrenewed men, I beseech you, ponder the words of an ancient Christian which I here repeat in your ear:—“It is no matter what is the sign, though an angel, that hangs without, if the devil and sin dwell therein. New trimmings upon an old garment will not make it new, but only give it a new appearance; and truly it is no good husbandry to bestow a great deal of cost in mending up an old suit that will soon drop to tatters and rags, when a little more might purchase a new one that is lasting. And is it not better to labor to get a new heart that all you do may be accepted, and you saved, than to lose all the pains you take in religion, and yourself also for want of it?”

Now, you who love the Lord, let me take you to the reservoir of your heart, and let me urge upon you the great necessity of keeping the heart right if you would have the stream of your life happy for yourselves and beneficial to others.

1. First, keep the heart *full.* However pure the water may be in the central reservoir, it will not be possible for the company to provide us with an abundant supply of water unless the reservoir itself be full. An empty fountain will most assuredly beget empty pipes; and let the machinery be never so accurate, let everything else be well ordered, yet if that reservoir be dry we may wait in vain for any of the water that we require. Now, you know many people—(you are sure to meet with them in your own society and your own circle; for I know of no one so happy as to be without such acquaintances)—whose lives are just dry, good-for-nothing emptiness. They never accomplish anything; they have no mental force; they have no moral power; what they say nobody thinks of noticing; what they do is scarcely ever imitated. We have known fathers whose moral force has been so despicable that even their children have scarcely been able to imitate them. Though imitation was strong enough in them, yet have they unconsciously felt even in their childhood that their father was after all but a child like themselves, and had not grown to be a man. Do you not know many people, who, if they were to espouse a cause and it were entrusted to them, would most certainly pilot it to shipwreck. Failure would be the total result. You could not use them as clerks in your office without feeling certain that your business would be nearly murdered. If you were to employ them to manage a concern for you, you would be sure they would manage to spend all the money, but could never produce a bit. If they were placed in comfortable circumstances for a few months they would go on carelessly till all was gone. They are just the flats, preyed on by the sharpers in the world; they have no manly strength, no power at all. See these people in religion: it does not matter much what are their doctrinal sentiments, it is quite certain they will never affect the minds of others. Put them in the pulpit: they are the slaves of the deacons, or else they are over-ridden by the church; they never have an opinion of their own, cannot come out with a thing; they have not the heart to say, “Such a thing is, and I know it is.” These men just live on, but as far as any utility to the world is concerned they might almost as well never have been created, except it were to be fed upon by other people. Now some say that this is the fault of men's heads: “Such a one” they say, ‒could not get on; he had a small head; it was clean impossible for him to prosper, his head was small, he could not do anything; he had not enough force.” Now that may be true, but I know what was truer still—he had got a small heart and that heart was empty. For mark you, a man's force in the world, other things being equal, is just in the ratio of the force and strength of his heart. A full-hearted man is always a powerful man: if he be erroneous then he is powerful for error; if the thing is in his heart he is sure to make it notorious, even though it may be a downright falsehood. Let a man be never so ignorant, still if his heart be full of love to a cause he becomes a powerful man for that object because he has got heart-power, heart-force. A man may be deficient in many of the advantages of education, in many of those niceties which are so much looked upon in society; but once give him a good strong heart that beats hard, and there is no mistake about his power. Let him have a heart that is right full up to the brim with an object and that man will do the thing, or else he will die gloriously defeated, and will glory in his defeat. *Heart is power*. It is the emptiness of men's hearts that makes them so feeble. Men do not feel what they are at. Now the man in business that goes heart and soul into his business is more likely to prosper than anybody else. That is the preacher we want, the man that has a full soul. Let him have a head—the more he knows the better; but after all give him a big heart; and when his heart beats, if his heart be full, it will under God either make the hearts of his congregation beat after him or else make them conscious that he is laboring hard to compel them to follow. Oh! if we had more heart in our Master's service, how much more labor we could endure. You are a Sunday-school teacher young man, and you are complaining that you cannot get on in the Sunday-school. Sir, the service-pipe would give out plenty of water if the heart were full. Perhaps you do not love your work. Oh, strive to love your work more and then when your heart is full you will go on well enough. ‘Oh,’ says the preacher, ‘I am weary of my work in preaching; I have little success; I find it a hard toil.’ The answer to that question is, “Your heart is not full of it, for if you loved preaching you would breathe preaching, feed upon preaching, and find a compulsion upon you to follow preaching; and your heart being full of the thing, you would be happy in the employment. Oh for a heart that is full, and deep, and broad! Find the man that has such a soul as that, and that is the man from whom the living waters shall flow to make the world glad with their refreshing streams.

Learn then the necessity of keeping the heart full; and let the necessity make you ask this question—“But how can I keep my heart full? How can my emotions be strong? How can I keep my desires burning and my zeal inflamed?” Christian! there is one text which will explain all this. “All my springs are in thee,” said David. If you have all your springs in God your heart will be full enough. If you do go to the foot of Calvary, there will your heart be bathed in love and gratitude. If you do frequent the valley of retirement and there talk with your God, it is there that your heart shall be full of calm resolve. If you go out with your Master to the hill of Olivet, and do with him look down upon a wicked Jerusalem and weep over it with him, then will your heart be full of love for never-dying souls. If you do continually draw your impulse, your life, the whole of your being from the Holy Spirit, without whom you can do nothing; and if you do live in close communion with Christ, there will be no fear of your having a dry heart. He who lives without prayer—he who lives with little prayer—he who seldom reads the Word—he who seldom looks up to heaven for a fresh influence from on high—he will be the man whose heart will become dry and barren; but he who calls in secret on his God—who spends much time in holy retirement—who delights to meditate on the words of the Most High—whose soul is given up to Christ—who delights in his fullness, rejoices in his all-sufficiency, prays for his second coming, and delights in the thought of his glorious advent—such a man, I say, must have an overflowing heart; and as his heart is, such will his life be. It will be a full life; it will be a life that will speak from the sepulcher, and wake the echoes of the future. “Keep your heart with all diligence,” and entreat the Holy Spirit to keep it full; for otherwise the issues of your life will be feeble, shallow, and superficial; and you may as well not have lived at all.

2. Secondly it would be of little use for our water companies to keep their reservoirs full if they did not also keep them *pure.* I remember to have read a complaint in the newspaper of a certain provincial town, that a tradesman had been frequently supplied with fish from the water company, large eels having crept down the pipe, and sometimes creatures a little more loathsome. We have known such a thing as water companies supplying us with solids when they ought to have given us nothing but pure crystal. Now no one likes that. The reservoir should be kept pure and clean; and unless the water comes from a pure spring and is not impregnated with deleterious substances, however full the reservoir may be, the company will fail of satisfying or of benefiting its customers. Now it is essential for us to do with our hearts as the company must do with its reservoir. We must keep our hearts pure; for if the heart be not pure the life cannot be pure. It is quite impossible that it should be so. You see a man whose whole conversation is impure and unholy; when he speaks he lards his language with oaths; his mind is low and groveling; none but the things of unrighteousness are sweet to him, for he has no soul above the kennel and the dunghill. You meet with another man who understands enough to avoid violating the decencies of life; but still at the same time he likes filthiness; any low joke, anything that will in some way stir unholy thoughts is just the thing that he desires. For the ways of God he has no relish; in God's house he finds no pleasure, in his Word no delight. What is the cause of this? Say some it is because of his family connections—because of the situation in which he stands—because of his early education, and all that. No, no; the simple answer to that is the answer we gave to the other inquiry; the heart is not right; for if the heart were pure the life would be pure too. The unclean stream betrays the fountain. A valuable book of German parables by old Christian Scriver contains the following homely metaphor:—‐A drink was brought to Gotthold which tasted of the vessel in which it had been contained, and this led him to observe: we have here an emblem of our thoughts, words, and works. Our heart is defiled by sin and hence a taint of sinfulness cleaves unfortunately to everything we take in hand; and although from the force of habit this may be imperceptible to us, it does not escape the eye of the omniscient, holy, and righteous God.” Whence come our carnality, covetousness, pride, sloth and unbelief? Are they not all to be traced to the corruption of our hearts? When the hands of a clock move in an irregular manner, and when the bell strikes the wrong hour, be assured there is something wrong within. O how needful that the mainspring of our motives be in proper order and the wheels in a right condition.

Ah! Christian keep your heart pure. You say, ‐How can I do this?” Well, there was of old a stream of Marah to which the thirsty pilgrims in the desert came to drink; and when they came to taste of it, it was so brackish that though their tongues were like torches and the roofs of their mouths were parched with heat, yet they could not drink of that bitter water. Do you remember the remedy which Moses prescribed? It is the remedy which we prescribe to you this morning. He took a certain tree and he cast it into the waters, and they became sweet and clear. Your heart is by nature like Marah's water, bitter and impure. There is a certain tree, you know its name, that tree on which the Savior hung, *the cross.* Take that tree, put it into your heart, and though it were even more impure than it is, that sweet cross, applied by the Holy Spirit, would soon transform it into its own nature and make it pure. Christ Jesus in the heart is the sweet purification. He is made unto us *sanctification.* Elijah cast salt into the waters; but we must cast the blood of Jesus there. Once let us know and love Jesus, once let his cross become the object of our adoration and the theme of our delight, the heart will beam its cleansing, and the life will become pure also. Oh! that we all did learn the sacred lesson of fixing the cross in the heart! Christian man! love your Savior more; cry to the Holy Spirit that you may have more affection for Jesus; and then, however gainful may be your sin, you will say with the poet,

“Now for the love I bear his name, what was my gain I count my loss; My former pride I call my shame, and nail my glory to his cross.“

The cross in the heart is the purifier of the soul; it purges and it cleanses the chambers of the mind. Christian! keep your heart pure, “for out of it are the issues of life.“

3. In the third place there is one thing to which our water companies need never pay much attention; that is to say, if their water be pure and the reservoir be full, they need not care to keep it *peaceable* and quiet, for let it be stirred to a storm, we should receive our water in the same condition as usual. It is not so however, with the heart. Unless the heart be kept peaceable, the life will not be happy. If calm does not reign over that inner lake within the soul which feeds the rivers of our life, the rivers themselves will always be in storm. Our outward acts will always tell that they were born in tempests by rolling in tempests themselves. Let us just understand this *first,* with regard to ourselves. We all desire to lead a joyous life; the bright eye and the elastic foot are things which we each of us desire; to carry about a contented mind is that to which most men are continually aspiring. Let us all remember that the only way to keep our life peaceful and happy is to keep the heart at rest; for come poverty, come wealth, come honor, come shame, come plenty, or come scarcity, if the heart be quiet there will be happiness anywhere. But whatever the sunshine and the brightness, if the heart be troubled the whole life must be troubled too. There is a sweet story told in one of the German martyrologies well worth both my telling and your remembering. A holy martyr who had been kept for a long time in prison, and had there exhibited to the wonderment of all who saw him, the strongest constancy and patience, was at last, upon the day of execution, brought out and tied to the stake preparatory to the lighting of the fire. While in this position he craved permission to speak once more to the Judge, who according to the Swiss custom was required to be also present at the execution. After repeatedly refusing, the judge at last came forward when the peasant addressed him thus: You have this day condemned me to death. Now I freely admit that I am a poor sinner, but positively deny that I am a heretic, because from my heart I believe and confess all that is contained in the Apostles' Creed (which he thereupon repeated from beginning to end). Now then sir, he proceeded to say, I have but one last request to make, which is that you will approach and place your hand first upon my breast and then upon your own, and afterwards frankly and truthfully declare before this assembled multitude which of the two, mine or yours, is beating most violently with fear and anxiety. For my part I quit the world with alacrity and joy, to go and be with Christ in whom I have always believed; what your feelings are at this moment is best known to yourself. The judge could make no answer, and commanded them instantly to light the pile. It was evident however from his looks that he was more afraid than the martyr.

Now, keep your heart right. Do not let it smite you. The Holy Spirit says of David, ‐David's heart smote him.” The smiting of the heart is more painful to a good man than the rough blows of the fist. It is a blow that can be felt; it is iron that enters into the soul. Keep your heart in good temper. Do not let that get fighting with you. Seek that the peace of God which passes all understanding may keep your heart and mind through Christ Jesus. Bend your knee at night, and with a full confession of sin express your faith in Christ, then you may ‐dread the grave as little as your bed.” Rise in the morning and give your heart to God, and put the sweet angels of perfect love and holy faith therein, and you may go into the world, and were it full of lions and of tigers you would no more need to dread it than Daniel when he was cast into the lion's den. Keep the heart peaceable and your life will be happy.

Remember in the *second* place that it is just the same with regard to other men. I should hope we all wish to lead quiet lives, and as much as lies in us to live peaceably with all men. There is a particular breed of men—I do not know where they come from, but they are mixed up now with the English race and to be met with here and there—men who seem to be born for no other reason whatever but to fight—always quarreling, and never pleased. They say that all Englishmen are a little that way—that we are never happy unless we have something to grumble at, and that the worst thing that ever could be done with us would be to give us some entertainment at which we could not grumble, because we should be mortally offended, because we had not the opportunity of displaying our English propensities. I do not know whether that is true of all of us, but it is of some. You cannot sit with them in a room but they introduce a topic upon which you are quite certain to disagree with them. You could not walk with them half a mile along the public streets but they would be sure to make an observation against everybody and everything they saw. They talk about ministers: one man's doctrine is too high, another's is too low; one man they think is a great deal too effeminate and precise, another they say is so vulgar they would not hear him at all. They say of another man that they do not think he attends to visiting his people; of another, that he visits so much that he never prepares for the pulpit. No one can be right for them.

Why is this? Whence arises this continual snarling? The heart must again supply the answer, they are morose and sullen in the inward parts, and hence their speech betrays them. They have not had their hearts brought to feel that God has made of one blood all nations that dwell upon the face of the earth, or if they have felt that they have never been brought to spell in their hearts—“By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye love one another.” Whichever may have been put there of the other ten, the eleventh commandment was never written there. “A new commandment give I unto you, that ye love one another.” That they forgot. Oh! dear Christian people, seek to have your hearts full of love, and if you have had little hearts till now that could not hold love enough for more than your own denomination, get your hearts enlarged so that you may have enough to send out service-pipes to all God's people throughout the habitable globe; so that whenever you meet a man who is a true-born heir of heaven, he has nothing to do but to turn to the tap and out of your loving heart will begin to flow issues of true, fervent, unconstrained, willing, living love. Keep your heart peaceable that your life may be so; for out of the heart are the issues of life.

How is this to be done? We reply again, we must ask the Holy Spirit to pacify the heart. No voice but that which on Galilee lake said to the storm “Be still,” can ever lay the troubled waters of a stormy heart. No strength but Omnipotence can still the tempest of human nature. Cry out mightily to him. He still sleeps in the vessel with his church. Ask him to awake lest your piety should perish in the waters of contention. Cry to him that he may give your heart peace and happiness. Then shall your life be peaceful; spend it where you may, in trouble or in joy.

4. A little further. When the waterworks company have gathered an abundance of water in the reservoir there is one thing they must always attend to, and that is they must take care they do not attempt too much, or otherwise they will fail. Suppose they lay on a great main pipe in one place to serve one city, and another main pipe to serve another, and the supply which was intended to fill one channel is diverted into a score of streams, what would be the result? Why nothing would be done well, but everyone would have cause to complain. Now man's heart is after all so little that there is only one great direction in which its living water can ever flow; and my fourth piece of advice to you from this text is, keep your heart *undivided.* Suppose you see a lake and there are twenty or thirty streamlets running from it: why, there will not be one strong river in the whole country; there will be a number of little brooks which will be dried up in the summer, and will be temporary torrents in the winter. They will every one of them be useless for any great purposes because there is not water enough in the lake to feed more than one great stream. Now a man's heart has only enough life in it to pursue one object fully. You must not give half your love to Christ and the other half to the world. No man can serve God and mammon because there is not enough life in the heart to serve the two. Alas! many people try this, and they fail both ways. I have known a man who has tried to let some of his heart run into the world, and another part he allowed to drip into the church, and the effect has been this: when he came into the church he was suspected of hypocrisy. “Why,” they said, “if he were truly with us, could he have done yesterday what he did and then come and profess so much today?” The church looks upon him as a suspicious one: or if he deceive them they feel he is not of much use to them, because they have not got all his heart. What is the effect of his conduct in the world? Why, his religion is a fetter to him there. The world will not have him, and the church will not have him; he wants to go between the two, and both despise him. I never saw anybody try to walk on both sides of the street but a drunken man: *he* tried it and it was very awkward work indeed; but I have seen many people in a moral point of view try to walk on both sides of the street, and I thought there was some kind of intoxication in them, or else they would have given it up as a very foolish thing. Now if I thought this world and the pleasures thereof worth my seeking, I would just seek them and go after them and I would not pretend to be religious; but if Christ be Christ and if God be God, let us give our whole hearts to him and not go shares with the world. Many a church member manages to walk on both sides of the street in the following manner: His sun is very low indeed—it has not much light, not much heat, and is come almost to its setting. Now, sinking suns cast long shadows, and this man stands on the world's side of the street, and casts a long shadow right across the road to the opposite side of the wall just across the pavement. Ay, it is all we get with many of you. You come and you take the sacramental bread and wine; you are baptized; you join the church; and what we get is just your shadow; there is your substance on the other side of the street, after all. What is the good of the empty chrysalis of a man? And yet many of our church members are little better. They just do as the snake does that leaves its slough behind. They give us their slough, their skin, the chrysalis case in which life once was, and then they go themselves hither and thither after their own wanton wills; they give us the outward, and then give the world the inward. Oh how foolish this, Christian! Your master gave himself wholly for you; give yourself unreservedly to him. Keep not back part of the price. Make a full surrender of every motion of your heart; labor to have but one object and one aim. And for this purpose give God the keeping of your heart. Cry out for more of the divine influences of the Holy Spirit, that so when your soul is preserved and protected by him it may be directed into one channel, and one only, that your life may run deep and pure and clear and peaceful; its only banks being God's will, its only channel the love of Christ and a desire to please him. Thus wrote Spencer in days long gone by: “Indeed, by nature man's heart is a very divided, broken thing, scattered and parceled out, a piece to this creature and a piece to that lust. One while this vanity hires him (as Leah did Jacob of Rachel), anon when he has done some drudgery for that he lets out himself to another: thus divided is man and his affections. Now the elect, whom God has decreed to be vessels of honor, consecrated for his holy use and service, he throws into the fire of his word, that being there softened and melted he may by his transforming Spirit cast them anew, as it were, into a holy oneness; so that he who before was divided from God and lost among the creatures and his lusts, that shared him among them, now his heart is gathered into God from them all; it looks with a single eye on God, and acts for him in all that he does: if therefore you would know whether your heart be sincere, inquire whether it be thus made anew.”

5. Now my last point is rather a strange one perhaps. Once upon a time, when one of our kings came back from a captivity, old historians tell us that there were fountains in Cheapside that did run with wine. So bounteous was the king, and so glad the people, that instead of water they made wine flow free to everybody. There is a way of making our life so rich, so full, so blessed to our fellow men, that the metaphor may be applicable to us, and men may say that our life flows with wine when other men's lives flow with water. You have known some such men. There was a Howard. John Howard's life was not like our poor common lives; he was so benevolent, his sympathy with the race so self-denying, that the streams of his life were like generous wine. You have known another, an eminent saint, one who lived very near to Jesus: when you talked yourself you felt your conversation was poor watery stuff; but when he talked to you there was an unction and a savor about his words, a solidity, and a strength about his utterances which you could appreciate, though you could not attain to it. You have sometimes said “I wish my words were as full, as sweet, as mellow, and as unctuous as the words of such a one! Oh! I wish my actions were just as rich, had as deep a color, and as pure a taste as the acts of so-and-so. All I can do seems but little and empty when compared with his high attainments. Oh, that I could do more! Oh, that I could send streams of pure gold into every house instead of my poor dross.” Well Christian, this should teach you to keep your heart full of rich things. Never, never neglect the Word of God; that will make your heart rich with precept, rich with understanding; and then your conversation, when it flows from your mouth, will be like your heart; rich, unctuous, and savory. Make your heart full of rich, generous love, and then the stream that flows from your hand will be just as rich and generous as your heart. Above all, get Jesus to live in your heart, and then out of your belly shall flow rivers of living water, more rich, more satisfying than the water of the well of Sychar of which Jacob drank. Oh! go Christians, to the great mine of riches and cry to the Holy Spirit to make your heart rich to salvation. So shall your life and conversation be a boon to your fellows; and when they see you your face shall be as the angel of God. You shall wash your feet in butter and your steps in oil; they that sit in the gate shall rise up when they see you, and men shall do you reverence.

But one single sentence, and we have done. Some of your hearts are not worth keeping. The sooner you get rid of them the better. They are hearts of stone. Do you feel today that you have a stony heart? Go home, and I pray the Lord hear my desire that your polluted heart may be removed. Cry to God and say “Take away my heart of stone, and give me a heart of flesh;” for a stony heart is an impure heart, a divided heart, an unpeaceful heart. It is a heart that is poor and poverty-stricken, a heart that is void of all goodness, and you can neither bless yourself nor others if your heart is such. O Lord Jesus! wilt thou be pleased this day to renew many hearts? Wilt thou break the rock in pieces, and put flesh instead of stone, and thou shalt have the glory, world without end!

*Letter From Mister Spurgeon*.

Beloved friends,

We are in our measure partaking in the change of weather which plunged England from an almost summer heat into cold and fog, for we have a cold wind blowing with a force which overpowers the warm sun. This has a depressing influence upon many invalids, but does not affect me. Each day I make a little progress. I could not yet stand through a discourse, much less walk a mile; but I can walk further than I could a week ago, and I am conscious of renewed vigor. I thank God that the swelling of the feet is also decreasing, and so I may look for complete restoration, and then for a speedy return to my happy work. I hope and pray that this week's sermon may prove useful. Purposely I have made it striking and plain, with the design that it should be suitable for wide distribution. It contains the gospel in its simplicity, stated in a pleasant manner.

I have prepared three sermons, as a double number, to close the year with, and I hope they will be a fit top-stone to the thirty-fourth volume, which I am glad to have completed.

Receive my sincere love in Christ Jesus. May all grace abound towards you.

Yours till death, C. H. Spurgeon. Mentone, December thirteenth, 1888.

A sermon (Number 179) delivered on Sabbath morning, February 21, 1858, at The Music Hall, Royal Surrey Gardens, by C. H. Spurgeon.

"Keep your heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life." — Proverbs 4:23.

If I were trying to model this sermon after grand literary examples, I might compare the human heart to the ancient city of Thebes, out of whose hundred gates multitudes of warriors would march. As the city was, so were her armies — as strong as the city's inner core, so were those who poured out from her gates. I might then argue the necessity of keeping the heart because it is the center of our humanity, the fortress and storehouse of everything we are. Let the chief fortress fall to the enemy, and conquering the rest becomes easy. Let the principal stronghold fall to evil, and the whole land will be overrun. Instead of pursuing that comparison, I will use a humbler and simpler image that is easier to grasp — I will set forth the wise man's teaching that our life flows from the heart, and I will labor to show the absolute necessity of keeping the heart with all diligence.

You have seen the great reservoirs built by our water companies, where the water that will supply hundreds of streets and thousands of homes is stored. The heart is just such a reservoir for a person, and life is allowed to flow from it in its proper course. That life may flow through different channels — the mouth, the hand, the eye — but all the activity of hand, eye, and lip draws its source from the great central reservoir, the heart. There is no difficulty, then, in showing why this reservoir must be kept in a proper condition, since whatever flows through the pipes will be tainted and corrupt if the source is polluted. May the Holy Spirit now direct our thoughts.

Mere moralists very often forget the heart and deal only with the lesser aspects of human life. Some say, "If a man's life is wrong, it is better to change the principles on which his conduct is based — we should adopt a new approach to living; society must be restructured so that people have more opportunity to display virtue and less temptation to indulge in vice." This is like saying, when the reservoir is filled with poisoned water, that all the pipes should be dug up and replaced with fresh ones so the water can run through new channels — but anyone can see it would all be useless if the source itself is polluted, no matter how good the pipes. In the same way, the rules by which people hope to shape their lives are useless; the regimens by which we try to force ourselves into the appearance of goodness will fail unless the heart is right. Others say, "If the life is wrong, it would be better to fix the understanding — educate the person, teach him better, and when his judgment is well informed his life will improve." Now understanding is, to use such a figure, the valve that controls the flow of the emotions, letting them run or shutting them off — and this approach is like proposing, when a reservoir has been poisoned, that a new operator be hired to turn the water on and off, hoping that the whole problem would be solved that way. If we followed that advice and found the wisest person in the world to manage the fountain, that wise operator would still be unable to supply us with healthy water until the contaminated cistern itself was cleaned. The Arminian teacher sometimes suggests another way of improving a person's life. He focuses on the will. He says the will must first be conquered, and if the will is right then everything else will fall into order. Now the will is like the great engine that forces water from the reservoir along the pipes so it reaches our homes. This learned teacher proposes that a new engine be installed to force the water through the pipes. "If," he says, "we had the right machinery for forcing the water, all would be well." No — if the water is poisonous, you could have axles turning on diamonds and a machine made of gold and a force as powerful as God Himself, and still you would not have accomplished your goal until you had cleaned the polluted source and purified the streams that flow from it. The wise man in our text seems to say — beware of misapplying your energy; be careful to start in the right place. It is very necessary that the understanding be right; it is quite needful that the will have its proper strength; it is important to keep every part of a person in a healthy condition — "but," he says, "if you want to promote true holiness you must begin with the heart, for out of it are the issues of life. When you have cleansed it, when you have made its waters pure and clear, then the stream will flow and bless everyone with clean water — but not before." Here let us pause and ask the serious and vital question: "Is my heart right in the sight of God?" Unless the inner person has been renewed by the grace of God through the Holy Spirit, our heart is full of corruption, filth, and spiritual ruin. If that is the case, all genuine cleansing must begin there. Unrenewed people, I urge you to consider the words of an ancient Christian, which I repeat in your hearing: "It does not matter what sign hangs outside, even an angel, if the devil and sin dwell within. New trim on an old garment does not make it new — it only gives it a new appearance; and it is poor stewardship to spend a great deal mending an old suit that will soon fall apart, when a little more could purchase a new one that will last. Is it not better to seek a new heart, so that all you do may be accepted and you yourself may be saved, than to lose all the effort you put into religion — and your own soul as well — for the want of it?"

Now, you who love the Lord, let me take you to the reservoir of your heart and urge upon you the great necessity of keeping the heart right — for your own happiness and for the good you can do for others.

First, keep the heart full. However pure the water in the central reservoir may be, the water company cannot provide an abundant supply unless the reservoir itself is full. An empty source will certainly produce empty pipes. No matter how accurate the machinery or how well-ordered everything else may be, if that reservoir is dry, you will wait in vain for the water you need. You know many people — you are sure to meet them in your own social circle, for I know of no one fortunate enough to have none among their acquaintances — whose lives are just dry, useless emptiness. They never accomplish anything. They have no mental drive, no moral strength. Nobody pays attention to what they say, and what they do is rarely worth following. We have seen fathers whose moral character was so weak that even their own children could barely look up to them. Though children naturally imitate their parents, these children sensed even in their youth that their father was after all just a child himself — a man who had never really grown up. Do you not know people who, if given charge of a cause, would almost certainly steer it to ruin? Failure would be the only result. You could not employ them in your office without feeling certain they would nearly destroy your business. If you put them in charge of managing an enterprise, you could be sure they would find a way to spend all the money without producing anything. Place them in comfortable circumstances for a few months and they would drift along carelessly until everything was gone. These are the easy targets that sharper people in the world prey upon. They have no strength, no real power. Consider these same people in religion: whatever their beliefs, it is certain they will never influence the minds of others. Put them in the pulpit and they become slaves to their deacons, or they are dominated by the congregation. They have no opinion of their own and cannot come out with a clear conviction. They lack the heart to say, "This is true, and I know it." These people simply drift through life, and as far as any real usefulness to the world is concerned, they might almost as well never have existed — except to be taken advantage of by others. Some say this is a fault of intellect: "That person could not get on — he had a small mind; it was simply impossible for him to succeed; he had not enough mental force." That may be true, but I know what was even more true — he had a small heart, and that heart was empty. For note this: a person's force in the world, all other things being equal, is directly proportional to the force and strength of his heart. A full-hearted person is always a powerful person. If he holds error, he is powerful for error. Whatever is in his heart, he will make known — even if it is a complete falsehood. No matter how little education a person has, if his heart is full of love for a cause he becomes a powerful champion for it, because he has heart-power and heart-force. A person may lack many educational advantages and many of the refinements that society prizes — but give him a strong heart that beats hard, and there is no question about his power. Give him a heart filled to the brim with a purpose, and that person will accomplish the thing — or else he will be gloriously defeated and count even defeat an honor. Heart is power. It is the emptiness of people's hearts that makes them so feeble. People do not truly feel what they are doing. The person in business who throws himself heart and soul into his work is more likely to succeed than anyone else. That is the preacher we need — the one with a full soul. Let him be well-educated — the more he knows the better — but above all, give him a great heart. When his heart beats fully, it will under God either move the hearts of his congregation along with him, or at least make them aware that he is laboring hard to reach them. If we had more heart in our Master's service, how much more labor we could endure. You are a Sunday school teacher, young person, and you are frustrated that you cannot make progress. The service pipe would give out plenty of water if the heart were full. Perhaps you do not truly love your work. Strive to love your work more, and when your heart is full you will get along well enough. "I am weary of preaching," says the preacher. "I have little success; it is hard labor." The answer is this: your heart is not full of it. If you truly loved preaching you would breathe it, feed on it, and feel compelled to pursue it. With a heart full of the work, you would find joy in it. How we need a heart that is full, and deep, and broad! Find the person with such a soul, and that is the one from whom living waters will flow to refresh and gladden the world.

Learn, then, the necessity of keeping the heart full — and let that necessity lead you to ask: "But how can I keep my heart full? How can my emotions remain strong? How can I keep my desires burning and my zeal alive?" Christian, there is one verse of Scripture that answers all of this. "All my springs are in You," said David. If all your springs are in God, your heart will be full enough. If you go to the foot of Calvary, your heart will be bathed in love and gratitude. If you regularly withdraw to quiet places and speak with your God, your heart will be filled with calm resolve. If you go with your Master to the hill of Olivet and look down with Him upon a sinful city and weep with Him over it, your heart will be filled with love for souls that will never die. If you continually draw your impulse, your life, your very being from the Holy Spirit — without whom you can do nothing — and if you live in close communion with Christ, there is no danger of your heart becoming dry. The person who lives without prayer, who prays very little, who rarely reads the Word, who seldom looks to heaven for fresh strength from above — that person's heart will grow dry and barren. But the one who calls on God in secret, who spends much time in holy solitude, who delights to meditate on the words of the Most High, whose soul is given over to Christ, who delights in His fullness, rejoices in His all-sufficiency, prays for His second coming, and finds joy in the thought of His glorious return — that person must have an overflowing heart. And as the heart is, so will the life be. It will be a full life — a life that will speak even from the grave and awaken echoes in generations to come. "Keep your heart with all diligence," and ask the Holy Spirit to keep it full. Otherwise, the life that flows from you will be feeble, shallow, and superficial — and it will be as though you had never lived at all.

Second, it would do little good for our water companies to keep their reservoirs full if they did not also keep them pure. I once read a complaint in a newspaper from a certain town, where a tradesman had repeatedly received fish from his water supply — large eels had crept down the pipe, and sometimes creatures even more unpleasant. We have known water companies to supply us with solid matter when they should have given us nothing but clear, clean water. No one wants that. The reservoir must be kept pure and clean. Unless the water comes from a pure spring and is free of harmful substances, however full the reservoir may be, the company will fail to satisfy or benefit its customers. We must treat our hearts the same way. We must keep our hearts pure, because if the heart is not pure, the life cannot be pure. That is simply impossible. Consider a person whose entire conversation is impure and ungodly — his speech is peppered with oaths, his mind is low and grasping, and he finds nothing sweet except what is unrighteous, having no interest in anything above the gutter and the dunghill. Consider another person who knows enough to avoid openly offending against public decency, yet still craves filthiness. Any crude joke, anything that stirs unholy thoughts, is exactly what he wants. He has no taste for the ways of God; in God's house he finds no pleasure, in His Word no delight. What causes this? Some say it is because of his family background, his circumstances, his early upbringing, and so on. No — the simple answer to that is the same answer we gave before: the heart is not right. If the heart were pure, the life would be pure as well. An unclean stream exposes its source. A valuable book of German parables by the old writer Christian Scriver contains this plain illustration: a drink was brought to Gotthold that tasted of the vessel in which it had been stored, and this led him to observe that it is a picture of our thoughts, words, and works. Our heart is corrupted by sin, and so a taint of sinfulness unfortunately clings to everything we do. Though habit may make this imperceptible to us, it does not escape the eye of God, who is all-knowing, holy, and righteous. Where do our worldly desires, greed, pride, laziness, and unbelief come from? Are they not all traceable to the corruption of our hearts? When the hands of a clock move irregularly and the bell strikes the wrong hour, you can be sure something is wrong inside. How necessary it is that the mainspring of our motives be in proper order and all the inner workings in good condition.

Christian, keep your heart pure. "But how can I do this?" you ask. Long ago, the thirsty pilgrims in the desert came to the waters of Marah to drink — but when they tasted it, it was so bitter that though their tongues burned and the roofs of their mouths were parched with heat, they could not drink it. Do you remember the remedy Moses prescribed? It is the remedy we offer you this morning. He took a certain tree and cast it into the waters, and they became sweet and clear. Your heart by nature is like Marah's water — bitter and impure. There is a certain tree you know by name: the tree on which the Savior hung — the cross. Take that tree and place it in your heart, and though your heart were even more impure than it is, that precious cross, applied by the Holy Spirit, would soon transform it and make it pure. Christ Jesus in the heart is the true purification. He is made for us sanctification. Elijah cast salt into the waters; but we must cast the blood of Jesus there. Once we truly know and love Jesus, once His cross becomes the object of our worship and the theme of our joy, the heart will be cleansed, and the life will become pure as well. May we all learn the sacred lesson of planting the cross in the heart. Christian, love your Savior more. Cry out to the Holy Spirit for deeper affection for Jesus, and then, however powerful the pull of sin may be, you will say with the poet:

"Now for the love I bear His name, what was my gain I count my loss; My former pride I call my shame, and nail my glory to His cross."

The cross planted in the heart purifies the soul; it cleanses the chambers of the mind. Christian, keep your heart pure, "for out of it are the issues of life."

Third, there is one thing our water companies rarely need to worry about: if their water is pure and the reservoir is full, they do not need to concern themselves with keeping the water still and undisturbed, because even if it were stirred into a storm, we would still receive our water in the same condition as usual. It is not so with the heart, however. Unless the heart is kept peaceful, life will not be happy. If calm does not reign over that inner lake within the soul that feeds the rivers of our life, the rivers themselves will always run in turmoil. Our outward actions will always reveal that they were born in storms by the way they roll along in storms themselves. Let us understand this first with regard to ourselves. We all desire to live a joyful life — the bright eye and the light step are things each of us desires. Nearly everyone is constantly aiming at a contented mind. Let us remember that the only way to keep our life peaceful and happy is to keep the heart at rest. Whether poverty or wealth comes, whether honor or shame, whether plenty or scarcity — if the heart is quiet, there will be happiness anywhere. But whatever the outward sunshine and brightness, if the heart is troubled the whole life will be troubled too. There is a moving story told in one of the German martyrologies that is worth both telling and remembering. A holy martyr who had been kept in prison for a long time, and had displayed remarkable steadiness and patience before all who witnessed him, was finally brought out on the day of his execution and tied to the stake in preparation for the lighting of the fire. While in this position he asked permission to speak once more to the judge, who, according to Swiss custom, was required to be present at the execution. After repeatedly refusing, the judge finally came forward, and the condemned man addressed him this way: "You have this day condemned me to death. I freely admit that I am a sinner, but I firmly deny that I am a heretic, because from my heart I believe and confess all that is contained in the Apostles' Creed" — which he then recited from beginning to end. "Now, sir," he continued, "I have one last request: come forward and place your hand first upon my chest and then upon your own, and then honestly declare before this assembled crowd which of the two hearts — mine or yours — is beating harder with fear and anxiety. For my part, I leave this world gladly and with joy, to go and be with Christ in whom I have always believed. What your feelings are at this moment, you know best yourself." The judge could make no answer and immediately ordered them to light the fire. It was clear from his face, however, that he was more afraid than the martyr.

Keep your heart right. Do not let it condemn you. The Holy Spirit says of David, "David's heart struck him." The striking of the conscience is more painful to a good person than any physical blow. It is a blow that cuts deep; it is iron that enters the soul. Keep your heart in a good state. Do not let it war against you. Seek the peace of God that surpasses all understanding to guard your heart and mind through Christ Jesus. Kneel at night, confess your sins fully, and express your faith in Christ — then you may face the grave with no more dread than you face your bed. Rise in the morning and give your heart to God. Fill it with perfect love and holy faith, and you can go out into the world — even if it were full of lions and tigers — with no more fear than Daniel had when he was thrown into the lion's den. Keep the heart peaceful and your life will be happy.

Remember also that the same principle applies to our relationships with others. I hope we all wish to live quietly, and as much as it depends on us, to live peaceably with everyone. There is a particular type of person — I do not know where they come from, but they are mixed in among us and can be found here and there — people who seem born for no other purpose but to quarrel, always arguing and never satisfied. Some say that all English people are somewhat like this — that we are never happy unless we have something to grumble about, and that the worst thing that could happen to us would be to attend some event at which there was nothing to complain of, because we would be deeply offended at having no opportunity to exercise our characteristic grumbling. I do not know whether that is true of all of us, but it is certainly true of some. You cannot sit in a room with them without their introducing a topic on which you are certain to disagree. You could not walk half a mile along the street with them without their making a critical remark about everyone and everything they saw. They comment on ministers: one man's teaching is too high, another's too low; one man they find too formal and precise, another so crude they would never hear him again. About another they say he does not visit his people enough; about yet another, that he visits so much he never prepares for the pulpit. No one can ever be right for them.

Why is this? Where does this constant snarling come from? The heart must again supply the answer: they are sullen and morose inwardly, and their speech exposes them. They have not had their hearts brought to feel that God has made of one blood all the nations that dwell on the face of the earth — or if they have felt it, they have never had written on their hearts the words: "By this all people will know that you are My disciples, if you love one another." Whatever other commandments may have been planted there, the eleventh was never written in their hearts. "A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another." That they forgot. Dear Christian people, seek to have your hearts full of love. If you have had a small heart until now — one that could not hold enough love to reach beyond your own denomination — ask God to enlarge your heart, so that you may have enough to send out streams of love to all of God's people throughout the whole world. Then whenever you meet someone who is a true heir of heaven, all he needs to do is turn to you, and out of your loving heart will flow genuine, warm, free, and willing love. Keep your heart peaceful so that your life may be the same — for out of the heart are the issues of life.

How is this to be done? We must ask the Holy Spirit to bring peace to the heart. No voice but the one that said to the storm on the Sea of Galilee, "Be still," can ever calm the troubled waters of a stormy heart. No strength but God's can quiet the storm of human nature. Cry out to Him mightily. He still rides in the vessel with His church. Ask Him to act before your faith is swallowed up in the waves of strife. Cry to Him for peace and rest in your heart. Then your life will be peaceful — wherever you spend it, in trouble or in joy.

Fourth, let us go a little further. When the waterworks company has gathered an abundance of water in the reservoir, there is one thing they must always watch: they must not try to do too much at once, or they will fail. Suppose they lay a large main pipe to serve one city, and another large pipe to serve a second city, and the supply that was meant to fill one channel is divided into twenty streams — what would happen? Nothing would be done well, and everyone would have reason to complain. Now the human heart is, after all, so limited that there is only one great direction in which its living water can ever truly flow. My fourth piece of advice from this text is this: keep your heart undivided. Imagine a lake with twenty or thirty small streams flowing out of it. There will not be a single strong river in the whole region — only a number of little brooks that dry up in summer and become temporary floods in winter. Every one of them will be useless for any great purpose because there is not enough water in the lake to feed more than one strong stream. A person's heart has only enough life to pursue one object fully. You cannot give half your love to Christ and the other half to the world. No one can serve both God and money, because there is not enough life in the heart to serve both. Many people try this and fail in both directions. I have known people who let part of their heart flow into the world and another part drip into the church — and the result is this: when they come to church they are suspected of hypocrisy. "Why," people say, "if he were truly with us, could he have done yesterday what he did, and then come today and profess so much?" The church views him with suspicion. Or if he manages to deceive them, they find he is not much use to them, because they have not got all his heart. What is the effect of his conduct in the world? His religion is a burden to him there. The world will not fully accept him, and the church will not fully accept him. He tries to walk between the two, and both end up despising him. I have never seen anyone try to walk on both sides of the street except a drunk man — and he found it very awkward going. But I have seen many people try to do exactly this in a moral sense, and I thought there must be some kind of intoxication in them, or they would have given it up as a very foolish thing. Now if I thought this world and its pleasures were worth pursuing, I would simply pursue them and not pretend to be religious. But if Christ is Christ and God is God, let us give our whole hearts to Him and not share them with the world. Many a church member manages to walk on both sides of the street in the following way: his spiritual life is very low — not much light, not much warmth, nearly at its setting. A sinking sun casts long shadows. This person stands on the world's side of the street and casts a long shadow all the way across to the other side. That shadow is all we get from many of you. You come and take the communion bread and wine; you are baptized; you join the church — and what we get is just your shadow. Your substance is on the other side of the street all along. What good is the empty shell of a person? And yet many of our church members are little better. They do what a snake does when it leaves its old skin behind. They give us their cast-off outer shell, the empty case where life once was, and then go off in whatever direction their own desires lead them. They give us the outward form and give the world their inward self. How foolish this is, Christian! Your Master gave Himself fully for you — give yourself unreservedly to Him. Do not hold back part of the price. Make a full surrender of every movement of your heart. Labor to have one object and one aim. For this purpose, give God the keeping of your heart. Cry out for more of the divine work of the Holy Spirit, so that when your soul is preserved and guided by Him, it may be directed into one channel and one only — your life running deep and pure and clear and peaceful, its only banks being God's will, its only course the love of Christ and a desire to please Him. Spencer wrote in days long gone: "Indeed, by nature a person's heart is a very divided, broken thing — scattered and parceled out, a piece to this desire and a piece to that craving. At one moment this empty pursuit hires him away, as Leah hired Jacob from Rachel; then when he has done some drudgery for that one he lets himself out to another. So divided is a person and his affections. Now those whom God has chosen to be vessels of honor, set apart for His holy use and service, He throws into the fire of His Word, so that being softened and melted there He may by His transforming Spirit reshape them, as it were, into a holy wholeness — so that the one who before was divided from God and lost among created things and his own desires, which divided him among themselves, now has his heart gathered into God away from them all. He looks with a single eye toward God and acts for Him in everything he does. If therefore you would know whether your heart is sincere, ask whether it has been made new in this way."

Fifth, my final point is perhaps a striking one. Once, when one of England's kings returned from captivity, old historians tell us that the fountains in Cheapside ran with wine. The king was so generous and the people so glad that instead of water, wine flowed freely for everyone. There is a way of making our life so rich, so full, and so good for those around us that the same picture applies to us — and people may say that our life flows with wine while other people's lives flow only with water. You have known such people. There was a John Howard. John Howard's life was not like our ordinary lives. He was so compassionate and so selflessly dedicated to others that the streams of his life were like generous wine. You have known another such person — an eminent saint who lived very close to Jesus. When you talked with others, your own conversation felt thin and watery by comparison. But when he spoke to you, there was a depth and a richness about his words, a substance and a strength in what he said, that you could recognize even if you could not match it. You have sometimes thought, "I wish my words were as full, as sweet, as rich, and as deep as the words of that person. I wish my actions had as deep a color and as pure a quality as the acts of so-and-so. Everything I do seems small and hollow compared to his high attainments. I wish I could do more. I wish I could send streams of pure gold into every home instead of my poor dross." Well, Christian, this should teach you to keep your heart full of rich things. Never neglect the Word of God. It will make your heart rich with wisdom and instruction, and then the words that flow from your mouth will reflect your heart — rich, nourishing, and full of substance. Fill your heart with generous, deep love, and the deeds that flow from your hands will be just as rich and generous. Above all, get Jesus to live in your heart, and then from within you will flow rivers of living water — richer and more satisfying than the water of Jacob's well at Sychar. Go, Christians, to the great source of all riches, and cry to the Holy Spirit to make your heart rich in salvation. Then your life and your words will be a blessing to those around you. When people see you, your face will be like the face of an angel. You will walk in abundance, and those who encounter you will rise up and honor you.

Just one final word, and we are done. Some of your hearts are not worth keeping. The sooner you get rid of them the better. They are hearts of stone. Do you feel today that you have a stony heart? Go home, and I pray that God will hear my desire — that your corrupted heart may be removed. Cry to God and say, "Take away my heart of stone and give me a heart of flesh" — for a stony heart is an impure heart, a divided heart, an unpeaceful heart. It is a heart that is poor and destitute, empty of all goodness, and you can bless neither yourself nor others while your heart remains like that. Lord Jesus, would You be pleased this day to renew many hearts? Would You break the rock in pieces and put flesh in the place of stone — and You shall have the glory, forever and ever.

Letter From Mr. Spurgeon.

Beloved friends,

We are in our own way experiencing the shift in weather that plunged England from near-summer warmth into cold and fog, for a cold wind is blowing here with a force that overpowers the warm sun. This has a depressing effect on many who are unwell, but it does not affect me. Each day I make a little progress. I cannot yet stand through a full sermon, much less walk a mile — but I can walk farther than I could a week ago, and I am aware of renewed strength. I thank God that the swelling in my feet is also decreasing, so I may look forward to a full recovery and then a speedy return to my happy work. I hope and pray that this week's sermon may prove useful. I have intentionally made it vivid and plain, with the aim that it should be suitable for wide distribution. It contains the Gospel in its simplicity, presented in an accessible way.

I have prepared three sermons as a double issue to close the year with, and I am glad to have completed the thirty-fourth volume.

Please receive my sincere love in Christ Jesus. May all grace abound toward you.

Yours until death, C. H. Spurgeon. Mentone, December 13, 1888.