“God finds pleasure in holy men and holy women.  We know what it is to find pleasure in kindred companions.  It is to like to be near them.  To want to live with them, or have them to live with us.  It is to be willing to travel any distance, or put ourselves to any inconvenience to reach them.  According to the Bible, that is just how God feels towards His faithful people.  He finds satisfaction in their doings, and praying, and worship, and song.  But when there is unfaithfulness or sin of any kind this pleasure is sadly marred, if not altogether destroyed.  In such cases the pleasure is turned to pain, the satisfaction to loathing, and the love to hatred.

“Hear what He says of Israel:  ’In all their affliction He was afflicted, and the angel of His presence saved them; in His love and in His pity He bare them, and carried them all the days of old.’  If for no other reason than the pleasure it will give to God, don’t you think every Officer should, with all his might, seek for Holiness of heart and life?

     “Another reason why God wants you to live on that blessed mountain
     is the interest He feels in your welfare.

“He loves you.  He has told you so again and again.  He has proved His love by His deeds.  Love compels the being entertaining the affection to seek the good of its object.  He knows that sin is the enemy of your peace, and must mean misery here and hereafter.  For this reason among others, He wants to deliver you from it.

“You will remember that by the lips of Peter God told the Jews that He had raised up His Son Jesus, and sent Him to bless them by turning every one of them away from his iniquities.  That applies to you, my comrades.  You have heard it before; I tell it you again.  Holiness is the royal road to peace, contentment, and joy for you.  The love God bears you, therefore, makes Him ceaselessly long after your Holiness of heart and life.  Will you not let Him have His way?  Will you not do His Will?

     “God wants every Officer to be holy, in order that through him He
     may be able to pour His Holy Spirit upon the people to whom that
     Officer ministers.

“The men and women around you are in the dark.  Oh, how ignorant they are of God and everlasting things!  They cannot see the vile nature of the evil, and the foul character of the fiends that tempt and rule them.  They do not see the black ruin that lies before them.  So on they go, the blind leading the blind, till over the precipice they fall together.  God wants their eyes to be opened.  The Spirit can do the work, and through you He wants to pour the light.

“The men and women around you are weak.  They cannot stand up against their own perverted appetites, the charms of the world, or the devices of the Devil.  God wants to pour the Spirit of Power upon this helpless crowd.  But He wants holy people through whom He can