" Be watchful and strengthen the things which remain, that are ready to die." - Revelation 3:2.

Unhappily, it is when men most need to be watchful, when the flame of heavenly grace is flickering in its socket, that they are least disposed to be watchful. We find that as men advance in holiness, make great attainments, ascend far up above the region in which ordinary believers walk, that they become watchful to an amazing degree. A habit of argus eyed watchfulness is in fact, itself, the evidence of a great victory over the enemy of the soul. When men have declined from grace, and when the adversary has all but riveted his chains again upon them, in the moment when, if ever, they need to be watchful, just then they are least of all disposed to fear, to strive, to watch. Happy for them if they hear in that critical moment the sovereign voice of Christ, saying, " Be watchful and strengthen the things which remain, that are ready to die. Arise, get oil for your lamps, before it be too late."

Imagine a great army, reduced through the heedlessness and effeminacy of their general, to a mere handful of men; their tents are pitched in an exposed place; the enemy in great numbers look down from the cliffs above, and you fully expect that in the next minute these overwhelming forces will burst upon the poor, weak remnant and annihilate it. But just then it discovers its danger, and its leader remembers in that momentous juncture that he has with him a sword of divine temper, a breast-plate that will quench all fiery darts, an invisible legion of angels: he scales the heights, he calls upon his Lord, his heavenly auxiliaries fight for him, and soon he finds himself in a large place. Thenceforward, let him never forget the ominous experience of that hour past; and let him tremble at the thought of every step that would take him down into that valley of confusion, hard by the abyss of perdition.