“My last word of application shall be an affectionate exhortation to every reader of this paper who has found out the value of his soul, and believed in Jesus Christ. That exhortation shall be short and simple.
I beseech you to cleave to the Lord with all your heart, and to press towards the mark for the prize of your high calling.
I can well conceive that you find your way very narrow. There are few with you and many against you.
Your lot in life may seem hard, and your position may be difficult. But still cleave to the Lord, and He will never forsake you.
Cleave to the Lord in the midst of persecution.
Cleave to the Lord, though men laugh at you and mock you, and try to make you ashamed.
Cleave to the Lord, though the cross be heavy and the fight be hard. He was not ashamed of you upon the Cross of Calvary: then do not be ashamed of Him upon earth, lest He should be ashamed of you before His Father who is in heaven.
Cleave to the Lord, and He will never forsake you. In this world there are plenty of disappointments,—disappointments in properties, and families, and houses, and lands, and situations.
But no man ever yet was disappointed in Christ. No man ever failed to find Christ all that the Bible says He is, and a thousand times better than he had been told before.
Look forward, look onward and forward to the end! Your best things are yet to come. Time is short. The end is drawing near. The latter days of the world are upon us.
Fight the good fight. Labour on. Work on. Strive on. Pray on. Read on.
Labour hard for your own soul’s prosperity. Labour hard for the prosperity of the souls of others.
Strive to bring a few more with you to heaven, and by all means to save some.
Do something, by God’s help, to make heaven more full and hell more empty.
Speak to that young man by your side, and to that old person who lives near to your house.
Speak to that neighbour who never goes to a place of worship.
Speak to that relative who never reads the Bible in private, and makes a jest of serious religion.
Entreat them all to think about their souls. Beg them to go and hear something on Sundays which will be for their good unto everlasting life.
Try to persuade them to live, not like the beasts which perish, but like men who desire to be saved.
Great is your reward in heaven, if you try to do good to souls.”
–J.C. Ryle, “Our Souls,” Old Paths: Being Plain Statements of Some of the Weightier Matters of Christianity (Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth, 1877/2013), 58-59.
