A Warning Against Hardness of Heart

Well do I recollect when I was the subject of excessive tenderness — some people called it "morbid sensibility." How I shuddered and shivered at the very thought of sin which then appeared exceedingly sinful. I would to God I could always feel as I then did. O believer, your new-born character was then white as the lily, and the smallest grain of dust would show upon it. Your life was bright and shining, and the least speck would be discovered, and you yourself were like the sensitive plant, the slightest touch of sin sent a thrill of horror through every fibre of your soul. But it is not so now, at least not to the same admirable degree. It may be you can hear talk to which formerly you would have closed your ears; you can tolerate sins which once you would have shunned as though they were deadly serpents. Your life is somewhat careless now; great sins you avoid right heedfully, but secret sin gives you little or no concern.