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, still preserved in the library of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, 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 mementos of Christian experience, every one appropriate to the very letter. — SPURGEON.