June 10

A.T. Pierson told of Alexander MacLaren using the illustration of a compass “with one foot firmly set in the true center, and the other describing a circle which, while that center was preserved, could not possibly err in width or range of circumference. Our first necessity is to get the truth center and fix there the point of our compass, and then, however wide the circle of our activity, we shall always be right, scriptural, spiritual; and, on the contrary, if we have not the true center and do not keep it, our best enterprises, by whatever name called, will be more or less failures.” Pierson adds, “If we are to sweep a wider circle of power round now unoccupied territory, and have real progress rather than apparent and superficial advance, the compass of all our plans must fix its foot in the firm, pivotal center of believing prayer and the higher holiness that is bound up inseparably with devout and privileged communion with God.” — Forward Movements of the Last Half Century, pp viii-ix