(733)
See [Appeal, A Living]; [Proof].
DEPENDENCE
There are many, like John Wesley, who fear to trust their Christian faith to guide them, but must lean on the faith and strength of others. But faith thus treated is certain to fail the soul in any great crisis.
Wesley’s first consideration, he declares, is “which way of life will conduce most to my own improvement?” He needs daily converse with his friends, and he knows “no other place under heaven, save Oxford, where I can have always at hand half-a-dozen persons of my own judgment and engaged in the same studies. To have such a number of such friends constantly watching over my soul” is a blessing which, in a word, Wesley can not bring himself to give up. “Half Christians,” he declares, would kill him. “They undermine insensibly all my resolutions and quite steal from me the little fervor I have. I never come from among these ‘saints of the world’ but faint, dissipated, and shorn of all my strength.” Except he can crouch beneath the shelter of a stronger faith than his own, John Wesley protests he must die; so he will not venture from Oxford.—W. H. Fitchett, “Wesley and His Century.”
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DEPENDENCE ON GOD
The will of God is like a rope thrown to us as we struggle among the untamed waves. To remain “independent” is to repulse all succor, all salvation; it is to wander without a compass and without a chart through the fury of the storm. To obey is to seize the rope, to face the blast, to brave the storm, to advance against the confederate waves, to let oneself be irresistibly drawn toward the invisible harbor where our heavenly Father awaits us.—Monroe.
(735)
Depopulation—See [Birth-rate in France].