In this age we all live too much in company — and in a great city like this, we are busy from morning to night, and we do not get the opportunities for quiet reflection which our forefathers were known to take. I am afraid, therefore, that our religion is likely to become very superficial and flimsy for the lack of solitary, earnest thought.

People, nowadays, usually go in flocks— someone leads the way and the rest follow him like sheep that rush through a gap in the hedge! It would be better for us if we deliberated more, if we used our own judgment, if we drew near to God in our own personality and were resolved that whatever others might do, we would seek to be personally guided by the Lord Himself.

I commend solitude to any of you who are seeking salvation… Few people truly know themselves as they really are. Most have seen themselves in a mirror, but there is another mirror which gives true reflections, into which few people look. To study one’s own self in the light of God’s Word and carefully to go over one’s condition, examining both the inward and the outward sins — and using all the tests which are given us in the Scriptures — would be a very healthy exercise. But how very few care to go through it! Yet, beloved Friends, if it is a wise thing to look well to your business, how much more ought you to look to the business which concerns your immortal souls!

Set apart some time every day, or at least some time as often as you can get it, in which the business of your mind shall be to take your longitude and latitude, that you may know exactly where you are. You may be drifting towards the rocks and you may be wrecked before you know your danger. I implore you, do not let your ship go at full steam through a fog, but slacken speed a bit and heave the lead to see whether you are in deep waters or shallow.

I am not asking you to do more than any kind and wise man would advise you to do. Do I ask you more than your own conscience tells you is right? Sit alone a while, that you may carefully consider your case.

Get alone, again, dear Friend — especially dear young Friend — that you may diligently search the Scriptures. I am often astounded at the ignorance there still is of what is written in God’s Word! Many persons who have even been in Sunday schools for years seem to be totally unaware of the most plain Truths of the Gospel of God’s Grace! How can we know what is revealed unless we read and study it for ourselves? …

I beseech you, as sensible and reasonable beings, do not let God speak to you and refuse to hear!

Get alone, that you may commune with your God. After we have once learned the way, we can commune with God anywhere — amidst the roar and turmoil of the crowded city, or on the top of the mast of a ship — but, to begin with, it is best to be alone with the Lord.

Do not ignore [God’s] existence and live as if there were no God! Oh, speak with Him at once! Perhaps five minutes’ earnest speech with Him may be the turning point of your life. “I will arise and go to my father,” was the turning point with the prodigal — and it may be the same with you.

“Oh, but I feel so guilty!” Then get alone and say that to the Lord!

“But I do not feel as I ought.” Then get alone and tell that to God.

“Oh, but I — I am such an unbelieving being!” Get alone and tell out all the truth to the Lord — do not entertain a thought or a feeling which you dare not tell Him.

Do not imagine that you can hide anything from Him, for He reads your inmost heart. Then take that heart and lay it bare before Him and say with the Psalmist, “Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts; and see if there is any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.”

One of our sweetest joys on earth is to speak with Him in prayer and praise, to call Him, Friend, and to be on terms of sweet familiarity with the Most High. I do pray you, then, get alone.