Affliction Endears the Promises.
We never prize the precious words of promise, till we are placed in conditions in which their suitability and sweetness are manifested. We all of us value those golden words, "When thou walkest through the fire, thou shalt not be burned, neither shall the flame kindle upon thee," but few, if any, of us, have read them with the delight of the martyr Bilney, to whom this passage was a stay while he was in prison awaiting his execution at the stake. His Bible is still preserved in the library of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, and has the passage marked with a pen, in the margin. Perhaps, if all were known, every promise in the Bible has borne a special message to some one saint, and so the whole volume might be scored in the margin with the mementoes of Christian experience, every one appropriate to the very letter.