A change
of air and habits does not at once regenerate the invalid. The
husbandman has to wait long for his crop: and the physician has to wait
long for the recovery of his patient. And the skeptic has to wait long,
till the seed of truth, deposited in his soul, unfolds its germs, and
produces the rich ripe harvest of faith, and holiness, and joy.
'And preachers and teachers must not think it strange, if their hearers
and readers are slow to change. Nor must they despond even though no
signs of improvement appear for months or years. A change for the better
in a student may not be manifest till it has been in progress for years.
It may not be perfected for many years. You cannot force a change of
mind, as you can force the growth of a plant in a hot-house. An attempt
to do so might stop it altogether. Baxter said, two hundred years ago,
'Nothing so much hindereth the reception of the truth, as urging it on
men with too much importunity, and falling too heavily on their errors.'
'Have patience, then. Teach, as your pupil may be prepared to learn, but
respect the laws of the Eternal, which have fixed long intervals for
slow and silent processes, between the seed-time and the harvest-home.'
While I am in doubt as to whether I have put into my book too much on
some subjects, I am thoroughly convinced that I have put into it too
little on others.
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