How Is It With Your Soul?

A selection from a letter by Augusta Toplady to a friend, inquiring about the state of her soul. The preacher who has brought encouragement to us all with his wonderful hymns also encouraged many with his letters. He once said, “Letters are but conversation committed to paper.” Here he has, as it were, a conversation with a friend about her relationship with the Lord. The letter was written November 20, 1772.

Above all, Madam, how is it with your soul? What are your views of God and Christ and heaven? Lively, I trust, and full of glory. Yet if our views are dim and languid, still He abideth faithful, and cannot deny himself. Not upon our frames, but upon the adorable Giver of them, is all our safety built. If we cannot follow him in the light, God help us to follow him in the dark; and if we cannot follow him so, to fall down at his feet, and sink into nothing, under the feelings of our own vileness. They who are enabled thus to fall, shall be raised in due time. I know not why, but I could not forbear writing to you. May the Spirit of the living God write his consolations on your heart, and cause your triumphs in Christ to abound more and more.

The Works of Augustus Toplady, Bookshelf Publications, reprint from the 1794 edition, pp. 834-35.