" Whosoever believeth on him, shall not be ashamed." - Romans 9:33.

After all, there is nothing that men detest so much as a feeling of shame. We hear a great deal of calamities, bereavements, losses, sorrows, troubles, and numerous other synonyms; but all these are not near so odious to a man as a feeling of shame. There is not any calamity that men have not accepted in preference to a momentary feeling of shame. A feeling of shame in the mind of a man would make him insensible to the loss of his father, or of any other very dear friend; to the loss of property; nay, to the loss of a kingdom. Thousands have come up to the door which opens on the path that goes to everlasting life, and have seen that they were in danger of everlasting burnings, and have yet accepted of this danger rather than encounter the brief shame of entering.

So potent a principle has not been implanted in us for nothing. It was designed to be of unspeakable advantage to us. And the Christian should seek that it may be as great an aid as it has been a hindrance to him. True shame creates in us a horror of everything that may bring upon us the reproach of an enlightened conscience, the scorn of the holy, the renunciation of God. The soul has no more blessed guarantee, under the grace of God, than the presence of true shame in the heart. This will never for a moment allow us to blush for what is not morally wrong, not a willful transgression of the will of God. This will suffer us to pay no tribute to the mere conventionalities of life. This will keep us without guile; enable us to walk without any cloak over our conduct; and to regard with perfect equanimity the world's misapprehension of our conduct.

A day is coming when self-condemning shame, shame inextinguishable, intolerable, soul-pervading, will take possession of those who have not believed on the Lord Jesus Christ. And all the shame that they have ever shrunk from in the journey of life, will return multiplied ten thousand times, and establish itself in their souls to go no more out for ever. Think of this, ye proud ones, that daily avoid some path of duty from some feeling of shame. You hold your heads erect among ungodly men, but it is at a fearful cost. What you refuse to experience is now but seed; it will grow to a whirlwind.