This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1867 edition. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER II. "TAKING HOLD," AND "HOLDING FAST." "Hold fast till I come." THINK that everything of importance for time and for eternity is packed tip into these words. A great many different thoughts and forms of expression are contained in them. Faith, believing, conversion, making our calling and election sure, being religious, being Christians--all these are but different forms of the words with which we have started--"Taking hold," and "Holding fast." And I wish to write about them now, because they affect you and me very closely, and because they are used concerning the manner in which we, from our life on heart, touch, and take possession of, a better life let down for us from heaven. Have you ever been deep down into a coal-mine, and visited its underground galleries, its dark and dismal passages, its gloomy chambers, and dangerous labyrinths? Suppose, now, that you had been born in such a mine, that you had never been accustomed to anything else, that you had played about in those dark corridors, had grown up to be a boy or girl in ignorance of what the world outside looked like, and were a stranger to any light but the glimmer coming down to you through shafts from above; and suppose that every day, in a lift let down from the upper world, a visitor were to descend into this place, and were to summon you to him, saying, "You cannot tell how lovely everything is in the green woods and meadows above from which I come. The light, which you only see in faint glimmers here, lights up the hills and the valleys there, which I cannot describe to you, because they are very fair. Instead of dark coal and unhealthy air all round you, there are bright rivers and beautiful trees and flowers, and soft breezes bringing health and enjoyment to...