Chapter 3 of Practical Religion, by J. C. Ryle. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Reality Reprobate Silver, Jeremiah, 6, 30 Nothing but leaves, Mark 11, 13. Let us not love in word, neither in tongue, but in deed and in truth, 1 John 3, 18. It has to name that thou livest in art dead. Revelations 3, 1 If we profess to have any religion at all, let us take care that it is real. I say it emphatically, and I repeat the same. Let us mind that our religion is real. What do I mean when I use the word real? I mean that which is genuine, and sincere, and honest, and thorough. I mean that which is not base, and hollow, and formal, and false, and counterfeit, and sham, and nominal. Real religion is not mere show, and pretense, and skin-deep feeling, and temporary profession, and outside work. It is something inward, solid, substantial, intrinsic, living lasting. We know the difference between base, coin, and good money. Between solid gold and tinsel. Between plated metal and silver. Between real stone and plaster imitation. Let us think of these things as we consider the subject of this paper. What is the character of our religion? Is it real? It may be weak and feeble and mingled with many infirmities. That is not the point before us today. Is our religion real? Is it true? The times in which we live demand attention to this subject. A want of reality is a striking feature of a vast amount of religion in the present day. Poets have sometimes told us that the world has passed through four different stages, or conditions. We have had a golden age, and a silver age, a brazen age, and an iron age. How far this is true I do not stop to inquire, but I fear there is little doubt as to the character of the age in which we live. It is universally an age of base, metal, and alloy. If we measure the religion of the age by its apparent quantity, there is much of it. But if we measure it by its quality, there is very little indeed. On every side we want more reality. I ask attention. While I try to bring home to men's consciences the question of this paper. There are two things which I propose to do. 1. In the first place, I will show the importance of reality in religion. 2. In the second place, I will supply some tests by which we may prove whether our own religion is real. Has any reader of this paper the least desire to go to heaven when he dies? Do you wish to have a religion which will comfort you in life, give you good hope in death, and abide the judgment of God at the last day? Then do not turn away from the subject before you. Sit down and consider calmly whether your Christianity is real and true or base and hollow. 1. I have to show the importance of reality in religion. The point is one which, at first sight, may seem to require very few remarks to establish it. All men, I shall be told, are fully convinced of the importance of reality. But is it true? Can it be said indeed that reality is rightly esteemed among Christians? I deny it entirely. The greater part of people who profess to admire reality seem to think that everyone possesses it. They tell us that all have got good hearts at bottom. That all are sincere and true in the main, though they may make mistakes. They call us uncharitable and harsh and sensorious, if we doubt anybody's goodness of heart. In short, they destroy the value of reality by regarding it as a thing which almost everyone has. This widespread delusion is precisely one of the causes why I take up this subject. I want men to understand that reality is a far more rare and uncommon thing than is commonly supposed. I want men to see that unreality is one of the great dangers of which Christians ought to be aware. Let's say at the scripture, this is the only judge that can try the subject. Let us turn our Bibles and examine them fairly, and then deny, if we can, the importance of reality in religion and the danger of not being real. 1. Let us look then for one thing at the parable spoken by our Lord Jesus Christ. Observe how many of them are intended to put in strong contrast the true believer and the mere nominal disciple. The parables of the sower, of the wheat and tares, of the draw net, of the two sons, of the wedding garment, of the ten virgins, of the talents, of the great supper, of the pounds, of the two builders, have all one great point in common. They all bring out in striking colors the difference between reality and unreality in religion. They all show the uselessness and danger of any Christianity which is not real, thorough and true. 2. Let us look for another thing at the language of our Lord Jesus Christ about the scribes and the Pharisees. Eight times over in one chapter we find him denouncing them as hypocrites. In words of almost fearful severity, ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, he says. How can ye escape the damnation of hell? Matthew 23, 33. What may we learn from these tremendously strong expressions? How is it that our gracious and merciful Savior used such cutting words about people who at any rate were more moral and decent than the publicans in harlots? It is meant to teach us the exceeding abominableness of false profession and mere outward religion in God's sight. Open prolificacy and willful obedience to fleshly lusts are no doubt ruinous sins, if not given up. But there seems nothing which is so displeasing to Christ as hypocrisy and unreality. 3. Let us look for another thing at the startling fact that there is hardly a grace in the character of a true Christian of which you will not find a counterfeit described in the Word of God. There is not a feature in a believer's countenance of which there is not an imitation. Give me your attention, and I will show you this in a few particulars. Is there not an unreal repentance? Beyond doubt there is. Saul and Ahab, Herod and Judas Iscariot had many feelings of sorrow about sin, but they never really repented unto salvation. Is there not an unreal faith? Beyond doubt there is. It is written of Simon Magus at Samaria that he believed, and yet his heart was not right in the sight of God. It is even written of the devils that they believe and tremble. Acts 3, 13 and James 2, 19. Is there not an unreal holiness? Beyond doubt there is. Joash, king of Judah, became to all appearance very holy and good, so long as Jihadiah the priest lived, but as soon as he died, the religion of Joash died at the same time. Judas Iscariot's outward life was as correct as that of any of the apostles up to the time that he betrayed his master. There was nothing suspicious about him, yet in reality he was a thief and a traitor. John 12, 6. Is there not an unreal love and charity? Beyond doubt there is. There is a love which consists in words and tender expressions, and a great show of affection, and calling other people, dear brethren, while the heart does not love at all. It is not for nothing that St. John says, let us not love in word, neither in tongue, but indeed and in truth. It was not without cause that St. Paul said, let love be without dissimulation. 1 John 3, 18, Romans 12, 19. Is there not an unreal humility? Beyond doubt there is. There is a pretended lowliness of demeanor, which often covers over a very proud heart. St. Paul warns us against a voluntary humility, and speaks of things which had a show of wisdom in will-worship and humility. Colossians 2, 18, 23. Is there not unreal praying? Beyond doubt there is. Our Lord denounces it as one of the special sins of the Pharisees, that for a pretense they made long prayers. Matthew 23, 14. He does not charge them with not praying, or with praying too shortly. Their sin lay in this, that their prayers were not real. Is there not unreal worship? Beyond doubt there is. Our Lord says of the Jews, this people draw nigh to me with their mouths, and honor me with their lips, but their heart is far from me. Matthew 15, 18. They had plenty of formal services in their temples and their synagogues, but the fatal defect about them was one of reality and want of heart. Is there not unreal talking about religion? Beyond doubt there is. Ezekiel describes some professing Jews who talked and spoke like God's people, while their hearts went after their covetousness. Ezekiel 33, 31. St. Paul tells us that we may speak with tongue of men and angels, and yet be no better than sounding brass in the tinkling symbol. 1 Corinthians 13, 1. What shall we say to these things? To say the least, they ought to set us thinking. To my own mind, they seem to lead to only one conclusion. They show clearly the immense importance which scripture attaches to reality in religion. They show clearly what need we have to take heed lest our Christianity turn out to be merely nominal, formal, unreal, and base. The subject is of deep importance in every age. There has never been a time, since the Church of Christ was founded, when there has not been a vast amount of unreality and mere nominal religion among professing Christians. I am sure it is the case in the present day. Wherever I turn my eyes, I see abundant cause for the warning. Beware of base metal in religion. Be genuine. Be thorough. Be real. Be true. How much religion among some members of the Church of England consists of nothing but churchmanship. They belong to the established Church. They are baptized at her fonts, married at her communion rails, buried in her church yards, preached to on Sundays by her ministers. But the great doctrines laid down in her articles and liturgy have no place in their hearts, and no influence on their lives. They neither think, nor feel, nor care, nor know anything about them. And is the religion of these people real Christianity? It is nothing of the kind. It is mere base metal. It is not the Christianity of Peter, and James, and John, and Paul. It is Churchianity, and no more. How much religion among some dissenters from the Church of England consists of nothing but dissent. They pride themselves on having nothing to do with the establishment. They rejoice in having no liturgy, no forms, no bishops. They glory in the exercise of their private judgment, and the absence of everything like ceremonial in their public worship. But all this time they neither have grace, nor faith, nor repentance, nor holiness, nor spirituality of conduct or conversation. The experimental and practical piety of the old nonconformist is a thing of which they are utterly destitute. Their Christianity is as sapless and fruitless as a dead tree, and as dry and merrilous as an old bone. And is the Christianity of these people real? It is nothing of the kind. It is base metal. It is not the Christianity of Owen, and Manton, and Goodwin, and Baxter, and Trail. It is dissentianity, and nothing more. How much ritualistic religion is utterly unreal? You will sometimes see men boiling over with zeal about vestments, and gestures and postures, and church decorations, and daily service, and frequent communions, while their hearts are manifestly in the world, of the inward work of the Holy Ghost, of living faith in the Lord Jesus, of delight in the Bible and religious conversation, of separation from worldly follies and amusements, of zeal for the conversion of souls to God, of all these things they are profoundly ignorant, and is such Christianity as this real? It is nothing of the kind. It is a mere name. How much evangelical religion is completely unreal? You will sometimes see men professing great affection for the pure Gospel, while they are practically inflicting on it the greatest injury. They will talk loudly of soundness in the faith, and have a keen nose for heresy. They will run eagerly after popular preachers, and applaud Protestant speakers at public meetings to the very echo. They are familiar with all the phrases of evangelical religion, and can converse fluently about its leading doctrines. To see their faces at public meetings or in church, you would think them imminently godly. To hear them talk, you would suppose their lives were bound up in religious societies. The record, or rock newspapers, and Exeter Hall, and yet these people in private will sometimes do things of which even some heathens would be ashamed.  And is such Christianity as this real? It is not. It is a miserable imposture, a base cheat and caricature. How many revivalists' religion, in the present day, is utterly unreal. You will find a crowd of false professors bringing discredit on the work of God wherever the Holy Spirit is poured out. You will see a mixed multitude of Egyptians accompanying the Israel of God, and doing it harm whenever Israel goes out of Egypt. How many nowadays will profess to be suddenly convinced of sin, to find peace in Jesus, to be overwhelmed with joys and ecstasies of soul, while in reality they have no grace at all, like the stoning ground hears they endure but for a season, and the time of temptation they fall away. Luke 8.13. As soon as the first excitement is passed off, they return to their old ways, and resume their former sins. Their religion is like Jonah's gourd, which came up in a night and perished in a night. They have neither root nor vitality. They only injure God's cause and give occasion to God's enemies to blaspheme. And is Christianity like this real? It is nothing of the kind. It is base metal from the devil's ment, and is worthless in God's sight. I write these things with sorrow. I have no desire to bring any section of the Church of Christ into contempt. I have no wish to cast any slur on any movement which begins with the Spirit of God. But the times demand very plain speaking about some points in the prevailing Christianity of our day. In one point, I am quite persuaded that demand's attention is the abounding want of reality which is to be seen on every side. No reader, at any rate, can well deny that the subject of the paper before him is of vast importance. 2. I pass on now to the second thing which I propose to do. I will supply some tests by which we may try the reality of our religion. In approaching this part of my subject, I ask every reader of this paper to dear fairly, honestly, and reasonably, with his soul. Dismiss from your mind the common idea that of course all is right if you go to church or to chapel. Cast away such vain notions forever. You must look further, higher, deeper than this. If you would find out the truth, listen to me, and I will give you a few hints. Believe me, it is no light matter. It is your life. 1. For one thing, if you would know whether your religion is real, try it by the place which it occupies in your inner man. It is not enough that it is in your head. You may know the truth, and assent to the truth, and believe the truth, and yet be wrong in God's sight. It is not enough that it is on your lips. You may repeat the creed daily. You may say amen to public prayer in church, and yet have nothing more than an outward religion. It is not enough that it is in your feelings. You may weep under preaching one day, and be lifted to the third heaven by joyous excitement another day, and yet be dead to God. Your religion, if it is real, and given by the Holy Ghost, must be in your heart. It must occupy the citadel. It must hold the reins. It must sway the affections. It must lead the will. It must direct the tastes. It must influence the choices and decisions. It must fill the deepest, lowest, inmost seat in your soul. Is this your religion? If not, you may well doubt whether it is real and true. Acts 821. Romans 10. 2. In the next place, if you would know whether your religion is real, try it by the feelings towards sin which it produces. The Christianity which is from the Holy Ghost will always have a very deep view of the sinfulness of sin. It will not merely regard sin as a blemish and misfortune which makes men and women objects of pity and compassion. It will see in sin the abominable thing which God hates, the thing which makes man guilty and lost in his maker's sight, the thing which deserves God's wrath and condemnation. It will look on sin as the cause of all sorrow and unhappiness, of strife and wars, of quarrels and contentions, of sickness and death, the blight which has blighted God's fair creation, the cursed thing which makes the whole earth grown in travail and pain. Above all, it will see in sin the thing which will ruin us eternally, except we can find a ransom. Lead us captive, except we can get its chains broken, and destroy our happiness, both here and hereafter, except we fight against it, even unto death. Is this your religion? Are these your feelings about sin? If not, you may well doubt whether your religion is real. For another thing, if you would know whether your religion is real, try it by the feelings towards Christ which it produces. Nominal religion may believe that such a person as Christ existed, and was a great benefactor to mankind. It may show him some external respect, attend his outward ordinances, and bow the head at his name, but it will go no further. Real religion will make a man glory in Christ as the Redeemer, the Deliverer, the Priest, the Friend, without whom he would have no hope at all. It will produce confidence in him, love towards him, delight in him, comfort in him, as the mediator, the food, the light, the life, the peace of the soul. Is this your religion? Do you know anything of feelings like these toward Jesus Christ? If not, you may well doubt whether your religion is real. For another thing, if you would know whether your religion is real, try it by the fruit it bears in your heart and life. The Christianity which is from above will always be known by its fruits. It will produce in the man who has it repentance, faith, hope, charity, humility, spirituality, kind temper, self-denial, unselfishness, forgiveness, temperance, truthfulness, brotherly kindness, patience, forbearance. The degree in which these various graces appear may vary in different believers. The German seeds of them will be found in all who are the children of God. By their fruits they may be known. Is this your religion? If not, you may well doubt whether it is real. Five, in the last place, if you would know whether your religion is real, try it by your feelings and habits about means of grace. Prove it by the Sundays. Is that day a season of weariness and constraint, or a delight in a refreshment, and a sweet foretaste of the rest to come in heaven? Prove it by the public means of grace. What are your feelings about public prayer and public praise, about the public preaching of God's word and the administration of the Lord's Supper? Are they things to which you give a cold ascent and tolerate them as proper and correct? Or are they things in which you take pleasure and without which you could not live happy? Prove it. Finally, by your feelings about private means of grace, do you find it essential to your comfort to read the Bible regularly in private and to speak to God in prayer? Or do you find these practices irksome and either slur them over or neglect them altogether? These questions deserve your attention. If means of grace, whether public or private, are not as necessary to your soul as meat and drink are to your body, you may well doubt whether your religion is real. I press on the attention of all my readers to the five points which I have just named. There is nothing like coming to particulars about these matters. If you would know whether your religion is real, genuine, and true, measure it by the five particulars which I have now named. Measure it fairly, test it honestly. If your heart is right in the sight of God, you have no cause to flinch from examination. If it is wrong, the sooner you find it out, the better. And now I have done what I propose to do. I have shown from Scripture the unspeakable importance of reality and religion, and the danger in which many stand to being lost forever, for want of it. I have given five plain tests by which a man may find out whether his Christianity is real. I will conclude all by a direct application of the whole subject to the souls of all who read this paper. I will draw my bow out of venture, and trust that God will bring an arrow home to the hearts and consciences of many. 1. My first word of application shall be an inquiry. Is your own religion real or unreal, genuine or base? I do not ask what you think about others. Perhaps you may see many hypocrites around you. You may be able to point to many who have no reality at all. This is not the question. You may be right in your opinion about others, but I want to know about yourself. Is your own Christianity real and true or nominal and base? If you love life, do not turn away from the question which is now before you. The time must come when the whole truth will be known. The judgment day will reveal every man's religion of what sort it is. The parable of the wedding garment will receive an awful fulfillment. Surely it is a thousand times better to find out now your condition, and to repent, than to find it out too late in the next world, when there will be no space for repentance. If you have common prudence, sense, and judgment, consider what I say. Sit down quietly this day and examine yourself. Find out the real character of your religion. With the Bible in your hand and honesty in your heart, the thing may be known. Then resolve to find it out too. My second word of application shall be a warning. I address it to all who know in their own consciences that their religion is not real. I ask them to remember the greatness of their danger and their exceeding guilt in the side of God. An unreal Christianity is especially offensive to that great God with whom we have to do. He is continually spoken of in Scripture as the God of truth. Truth is peculiarly one of his attributes. Can you doubt for a moment that he abhors everything that is not genuine and true?  If your religion is of this sort, beware. An unreal Christianity is sure to fail a man at last. It will wear out. It will break down. It will leave its possessor like a wreck on a sandbank, high and dry, and forsaken by the tide. It will supply no comfort in the hour when comfort is most needed. In the time of affliction and on the bed of death, if you want a religion to be of any use to your soul, beware of unreality. If you would not be comfortless in death and hopeless in the judgment day, be genuine, be real, be true. Three. My third word of application shall be advice. I offer it to all who feel pricked in conscience by the subject of this paper. I advise them to cease from all trifling and playing with religion, and to become honest, thoroughgoing, wholehearted followers of the Lord Jesus Christ. Apply without delay to the Lord Jesus, and ask Him to become your Savior, your physician, your priest, and your friend. Let not the thought of your unworthiness keep you away. Let not the recollection of your sins prevent your application. Never, never forget that Christ can cleanse you from any quantity of sins if you only commit your soul to Him. But one thing He does ask of those who come to Him, He asks them to be real, honest, and true. Let reality be one great mark of your approach to Christ, and there is everything to give you hope. Your repentance may be feeble, but let it be real. Your faith may be weak, but let it be real. Your desires after holiness may be mingled with much infirmity, but let them be real. Let there be nothing of reserve, of double dealing, of part-acting of dishonesty, of sham, of counterfeit, in your Christianity. Never be content to wear a cloak of religion. Be all that you profess. Though you may err, be real. Though you may stumble, be true. Keep this principle continually before your eyes, and it will be well with your soul throughout your journey, from grace to glory. 4. My last word of application shall be encouragement. I address it to all who have manfully taken up the cross and are honestly following Christ. I exhort them to persevere and not to be moved by difficulties in opposition. You may often find few with you, and many against you. You may often hear hard things out of you.  He did not. Turn a deaf ear to remarks of this kind. Press on. If there is anything which a man ought to do thoroughly, really, truly, honestly, and with all his heart, it is the business of his soul. If there is any work which he ought never to slur over and do in a slovenly fashion, it is the great work of working out his own salvation. Philippians 2.12. Believer in Christ, remember this. Whatever you do in religion, do it well. Be real. Be thorough. Be honest. Be true. If there is anything in the world of which a man need not be ashamed, it is the service of Jesus Christ, of sin, of worldliness, of levity, of trifling, of time wasting, of pleasure seeking, of bad temper, of pride, of making an idol of money, dress, dancing, hunting, shooting, card playing, novel reading, and the like. Of all this a man may well be ashamed. Living after this fashion he makes the angels sorrow, and the devils rejoice. But of living for his soul, caring for his soul, thinking of his soul, providing for his soul, making his soul salvation the principal and chief thing in his daily life, of all this a man has no cause to be ashamed at all. Believer in Christ, remember this. Remember in your Bible reading and your private praying. Remember it on your Sabbaths, remember it in your worship of God, and all these things never be ashamed of being wholehearted, real, thorough, and true. The years of our life are fast passing away. Who can tell but that he may be called this very year to meet his God? As ever you would be found ready. Be a real and true Christian. Do not be base metal. The time is fast coming when nothing but reality will stand the fire. Real repentance towards God, real faith towards our Lord Jesus Christ, real holiness of heart and life, these, these are the things which will alone pass current at the last day. It is a solemn saying of our Lord Jesus Christ. Many shall say in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name, and in thy name have cast out devils, and in thy name done many wonderful works? And then will I profess to them, I never knew you. Depart from me ye that work iniquity. Matthew 7 22 23 End of Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Of Practical Religion by J. C. Ryle This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Prayer Part 1 Men ought always to pray Luke 18 1 I will that men pray everywhere 1 Timothy 2 8 Prayer is the most important subject in Practical Religion. All other subjects are second to it. Reading the Bible, keeping the Sabbath, hearing sermons, attending public worship, going to the Lord's Table. All these are very weighty matters, but none of them are so important as prayer. I propose in this paper to offer seven plain reasons why I use such strong language about prayer. I invite to these reasons the attention of every thinking man into whose hands this paper may fall. I venture to assert, with confidence, that they deserve serious consideration. 1 In the first place, prayer is absolutely needful to a man's salvation. I say absolutely needful, and I say so advisedly. I am not speaking now of infants and idiots. I am not settling the state of the heathen. I remember that where little is given, there little will be required.  And of such I say no man or woman can expect to be saved who does not pray. I hold salvation by grace as strongly as anyone. I would gladly offer a free and full pardon to the greatest sinner that ever lived. I would not hesitate to stand by his dying bed, and say, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ even now, and you shall be saved. But that a man can have salvation without asking for it, I cannot see in the Bible. That a man will receive pardon of his sins, who will not so much as lift of his heart inwardly, and say, Lord Jesus, give it to me. This I cannot find. I can find that nobody will be saved by his prayers. But I cannot find that without prayer anybody will be saved. It is not absolutely needful to salvation that a man should read the Bible. A man may have no learning, or be blind, or yet have Christ in his heart. It is not absolutely needful that a man should hear the public preaching of the Gospel. He may live where the Gospel is not preached, or he may be bedridden or deaf. But the same thing cannot be said about prayer. It is absolutely needful to salvation that a man should pray. There is no royal road either to health or learning. Princes and kings, poor men and peasants, all alike must attend to the wants of their own bodies and their own minds. No man can eat, drink, or sleep by proxy. No man can get the alphabet learned for him by another. All these are things which everybody must do for himself, or they will not be done at all. Just as it is with the mind and body, so it is with the soul. There are certain things absolutely needful to the soul's health and well-being. Each one must attend to these things for himself. Each must repent for himself. Each must apply to Christ for himself. And for himself, each one must speak to God and pray. You must do it for yourself. For by nobody else can it be done. How can we expect to be saved by an unknowing God? And how can we know God without prayer? We know nothing of men and women in this world, unless we speak with Him. We cannot know God in Christ unless we speak to Him in prayer. If we wish to be with Him in heaven, we must be His friends on earth. If we wish to be His friends on earth, we must pray. There will be many at Christ's right hand in the last day. The saints gathered from north and south and east and west will be a multitude that no man can number. Revelations 7.9. The song of victory that will burst from their mouths, when their redemption is at length complete, will be a glorious song indeed. It will be far above the noise of many waters and of many thunders. But there will be no discord in that song. They that sing will sing with one heart as well as one voice. Their experience will be one and the same. All will have believed, all will have been washed in the blood of Christ, all will have been born again, all will have prayed. Yes, we must pray on earth, or we shall never praise in heaven. We must go through the school of prayer, or we shall never be fit for the holiday of praise. In short, to be prayerless is to be without God, without Christ, without grace, without hope, and without heaven. It is to be in the road to hell. 2. In the second place, a habit of prayer is one of the surest marks of a true Christian. All the children of God on earth are alike in this respect. From the moment there is any life and reality about their religion, they pray. Just as the first sign of life in an infant when born into the world is the act of breathing, so the first act of men and women when they are born again is praying. This is one of the common marks of all the elect of God. They cry unto him day and night, Luke 18.1. The Holy Spirit who makes them new creatures works in them the feeling of adoption, and makes them cry, Abba Father, Romans 8.15.   It is as much a part of their new nature to pray as it is of a child to cry. They see their need of mercy and grace. They feel their emptiness and weakness. They cannot do otherwise than they do. They must pray. I have looked carefully over the lives of God's saints in the Bible. I cannot find one of whose history much has told us, from Genesis to Revelation, who was not a man of prayer. I find it mentioned as a characteristic of the godly, that they call on the Father, that they call on the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. I find it recorded as a characteristic of the wicked, that they call not upon the Lord. I have read the lives of many imminent Christians who have been on earth since the Bible days. Some of them, I see, were rich and some poor. Some were learned and some unlearned. Some of them were Episcopalians. Some Presbyterians. Some Baptists. Some Independents. Some were Calvinists and some Arminians. Some have loved to use a liturgy and some to use none. But one thing I see, they all had in common. They have all been men of prayer. I study the reports of missionary societies in our own times. I see with joy that heathen men and women are receiving the gospel in various parts of the globe. There are conversions in Africa, in New Zealand, in Hindustan, in America. The people converted are naturally unlike one another in every respect. But one striking thing I observe at all the missionary stations, the converted people always pray. I do not deny that a man may pray without a heart and without sincerity. I do not for a moment pretend to say that the mere fact of a person praying proves everything about his soul. As in every other part of religion, so also in this, there is plenty of deception and hypocrisy. But this I do say, that no praying is a clear proof that a man is not yet a true Christian. He cannot really feel his sins. He cannot love God. He cannot feel himself a debtor to Christ. He cannot long after holiness. He cannot desire heaven. He has yet to be born again. He has yet to be made a new creature. He may boast confidently of election, grace, faith, hope, and knowledge, and deceive ignorant people. But you may rest assured it is all vain talk if he does not pray. And I say furthermore, that of all the evidences of real work of the spirit, a habit of hardy private prayer is one of the most satisfactory that can be named. A man may preach from false motives. A man may write books and make fine speeches, and seem diligent in good works, and yet be a Judas Iscariot. But a man seldom goes into his closet and pours out his soul before God in secret, unless he is an earnest. The Lord himself has set his stamp on prayer as the best proof of a true conversion. When he sent Ananias to Saul in Damascus, he gave him no other evidence of his change of heart than this. Behold, he prayeth. Acts 9.11 I know that much may go on in a man's mind before he is brought to pray. He may have many convictions, desires, wishes, feelings, intentions, resolutions, hopes, and fears. But all these things are very uncertain evidences. They are to be found in ungodly people, and often come to nothing. In many a case they are not more lasting than the morning cloud and the dew that goeth away. Hosea 6.4 A real hardy prayer, flowing from a broken and contrite spirit, is worth all these things put together. I know that the elect of God are chosen to salvation from all eternity. I do not forget that the Holy Spirit, who calls them in due time, in many cases leads them by very slow degrees to acquaintance with Christ. But the eye of man can only judge by what it sees. I cannot call anyone justified until he believes. I dare not say that anyone believes until he prays. I cannot understand a dumb faith. The first act of faith will be to speak to God. Faith is to the soul what life is to the body. Prayer is to faith what breath is to life. How a man can live and not breathe is past my comprehension. And how a man can believe and not pray is past my comprehension too. Let no one be surprised if he hears ministers of the gospel dwelling much on the importance of prayer. This is the point we want to bring to you. We want to know that you pray. Your views of doctrine may be correct. Your love of Protestantism may be warm and unmistakable. But still, this may be nothing more than head knowledge and party spirit. The great point is this, whether you can speak to God as well as speak about God. 3. In the third place, there is no duty in religion so neglected as private prayer. We live in days of abounding religious profession. There are more places of public worship now than there ever were before. There are more persons attending them than there ever have been since England was a nation. And yet, in spite of all this public religion, I believe there is a vast neglect of private prayer. I should not have said so a few years ago. I once thought in my ignorance that most people said their prayers, and many people prayed. I have lived to think differently. I have come to the conclusion that the great majority of professing Christians do not pray at all. I know this sounds very shocking and will startle many, but I am satisfied that prayer is just one of those things which is thought a matter of course. And, like many matters of course, is shamefully neglected. It is everybody's business, and, as it often happens in such cases, it is a business carried on by very few. It is one of those private transactions between God and our souls which no eye sees, and therefore one which there is every temptation to pass over and leave undone. I believe that thousands never say a word of prayer at all. They eat, they drink, they sleep, they rise, they go forth to their labor, they return to their homes, they breathe God's air, they see God's sun, they walk on God's earth, they enjoy God's mercies, they have dying bodies, they have judgment and eternity before them, but they never speak to God.  They have not a word to say to him, in whose hand are their life and breath and all things, and from whose mouth they must one day receive their everlasting sentence. How dreadful this seems! But if the secrets of men were only known, how common! I believe there are tens of thousands whose prayers are nothing but a mere form. A set of words repeated by rote, without a thought about their meaning. Some say, over a few hasty sentences, picked up in the nursery when they were children. Some contempt themselves with repeating the belief, forgetting that there is not a request in them. Some add the Lord's prayer, but without the slightest desire that its solemn petitions may be granted. Some among the poor even at this day repeat the old poppish lines. Matthew, Mark, Luke and John bless the bed that I lie on. Many, even of those who use good forms, mutter their prayers over after they have got into bed, or scrambled over them while they wash or dress in the morning. Men may think what they please, but they may depend that in the sight of God this is not praying. Words said without heart are as utterly useless to our souls as the drum beating of the poor heathen before their idols. Where there is no heart there may be lip-work and tongue-work, but there is nothing that God listens to. There is no prayer. Saul, I have no doubt, said many a long prayer before the Lord met him on the way to Damascus. But it was not till his heart was broken that the Lord said, he prayeth. Does this surprise any reader? Listen to me, and I will show you that I am not speaking as I do without reason. Do you think that my assertions are extravagant and unwarrantable? Give me your attention, and I will soon show you that I am only telling you the truth. Have you forgotten that it is not natural to anyone to pray? The carnal mind is enmity against God. The desire of man's heart is to get far away from God and to have nothing to do with him. His feeling toward him is not love, but fear. Why then should a man pray when he has no real sense of sin, no real feeling of spiritual wants, no thorough belief in unseen things, no desire after holiness in heaven? Of all these things the vast majority of men know and feel nothing. The multitude walk in the broad way. I cannot forget this. Therefore I say boldly, I believe that few pray. Have you forgotten that it is not fashionable to pray? It is just one of the things that many would be rather ashamed to own. There are hundreds who would sooner storm a breach or lead a forlorn hope than confess publicly that they make a habit of prayer. There are thousands who, if obliged, may chance to sleep in the same room with a stranger would lie down in bed without a prayer. To ride well, to shoot well, to dress well, to go to balls, and concerts, and theaters, to be thought clever and agreeable. All this is fashionable, but not to pray. I cannot forget this. I cannot think a habit is common which so many seem ashamed to own. I believe that few pray. Have you forgotten the lives that many live? Can we really suppose that people are praying against sin night and day when we see them plunging right into it? Can we suppose they pray against the world when they are entirely absorbed and taken up with its pursuits? Can we think they really ask God for grace to serve him when they do not show the slightest desire to serve him at all? Oh, no. It is plain as daylight that the great majority of men either ask nothing of God or do not mean what they say when they do ask, which is just the same thing. Praying and sinning will never live together in the same heart. Prayer will consume sin, or sin will choke prayer. I cannot forget this. I look at men's lives. I believe that few pray.  How many, when they draw near death, seem entirely strangers to God? Not only are they sadly ignorant of his gospel, but sadly wanting in the power of speaking to him. There is a terrible awkwardness and shyness and newness and rawness in their endeavours to approach him. They seem to be taking up a fresh thing. They appear as if they want an introduction to God, and as if they had never talked with him before. I remember having heard of a lady who was anxious to have a minister to visit her in her last illness. She desired he would pray with her. He asked her what he should pray for. She did not know and could not tell. She was utterly unable to name any one thing which she wished him to ask God for her soul. All she seemed to want was the form of a minister's prayers. I can quite understand this. Deathbeds are great revealers of secrets. I cannot forget what I have seen of second dying people. This also leads me to believe that few pray. 4. In the fourth place, prayer is that act in religion to which there is the greatest encouragement. There is everything on God's part to make prayers easy, if men will only attempt it. All things are ready on his side. Luke 14, 17. Every objection is anticipated. Every difficulty is provided for. The crooked places are made straight, and the rough places are made smooth. There is no excuse left for the prayerless man. There is a way by which any man, however sinful and unworthy, may draw near to God the Father. Jesus Christ has opened that way by the sacrifice he made for us upon the cross. The holiness and justice of God need not frighten sinners and keep them back. Only let them cry to God in the name of Jesus. Only let them plead the atoning blood of Jesus, and they shall find God upon a throne of grace, willing and ready to hear. The name of Jesus is a never-failing passport to our prayers. In that name a man may draw near to God with boldness and ask with confidence. God has engaged to hear him. Think of this. Is not this encouragement? There is an advocate, an intercessor, always waiting to present the prayers of those who will employ him. That advocate is Jesus Christ. He mingles our prayers with the incense of his own almighty intercession.  They are mighty and powerful in the hand of our high priest and elder brother.  A few strokes of a pen confer on it all its value. The prayer of a poor child of Adam is a feeble thing in itself, but once endorsed by the hand of the Lord Jesus it availeth much. There was an officer in the city of Rome who was appointed to have his doors always open in order to receive any Roman citizen who applied to him for help. Just so the ear of the Lord Jesus is ever open to the cry of all who want mercy and grace. It is his office to help them. Their prayer is his delight. Think of this. Is not this encouragement? There is the Holy Spirit, ever ready to help our infirmities in prayer. It is one part of his special office to assist us in our endeavors to speak to God. We need not be cast down and distressed by the fear of not knowing what to say. The Spirit will give us words if we only seek His aid. He will supply us with thoughts that breathe and words that burn. The prayers of the Lord's people are the inspiration of the Lord's Spirit, the work of the Holy Ghost, who dwells within them as the Spirit of grace and supplication. Surely the Lord's people may well hope to be heard. It is not they merely that pray, but the Holy Ghost pleading in them. Romans 8, 26. Think of this. Is not this encouragement? There are exceeding great and precious promises to those who pray. What did the Lord Jesus mean when he spoke such words as these? Ask, and it shall be given you. Seek, and ye shall find. Knock, and it shall be opened unto you. For every one that asketh, receiveth, and he that seeketh, findeth, and to him that knocketh, it shall be opened. Matthew 7, 7, 8. All things whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer believing ye shall receive. Matthew 21, 22. Whatsoever ye shall ask in my name that will I do. That the Father may be glorified in the Son. If ye shall ask anything in my name I will do it. John 14, 13, 14. What did the Lord mean when he spoke the parables of the friend at midnight in the importunate widow? Luke 11, 5, and 18, 1. Think over these passages. If this is not encouragement to pray, words have no meaning at all. There are wonderful examples in Scripture of the power of prayer. Nothing seems to be too great, too hard, or too difficult for prayer to do. It has obtained things that seemed impossible, and out of reach. It has won victories over fire, air, earth, and water. Prayer opened the Red Sea. Prayer brought water from the rock and bread from heaven. Prayer made the sun stand still. Prayer brought fire upon the sky on Elijah's sacrifice. Prayer turned the council of Ahithophel into foolishness. Prayer overthrew the army of Sinatraab. Well might Mary, Queen of Scots, say, I fear John Knox's prayers more than an army of ten thousand men. Prayer has healed the sick. Prayer has raised the dead. Prayer has procured the conversion of souls. The child of many prayers, said an old Christian to Augustine's mother, shall never perish. Prayer, pains, and faith can do anything. Nothing seems impossible when a man has the spirit of adoption. Let me alone, is the remarkable saying of God to Moses. When Moses was about to intercede for the children of Israel, Exodus 32.10, the Chaldee version has it, leave off praying. So long as Abraham asked mercy for Sodom, the Lord went on giving. He never ceased to give, till Abraham ceased to pray. Think of this. Is not this encouragement? What more can a man want to lead him to take any step in religion than the things I have just told him about prayer? What more could be done to make the path to the mercy seat easy, and to remove all occasions and stumbling from the sinner's way? Surely, if the devils in hell had such a door set open before them, they would leap for gladness, and make the very pit ring with joy. But where will the man hide his head at last, who neglects such glorious encouragements? What can be possibly said for the man who after all dies without prayer? God forbid that any reader of this paper should be that man. 5. In the fifth place, diligence in prayer is the secret of imminent holiness. Without controversy there is a vast difference among true Christians. There is an immense interval between the foremost and the hindermost in the army of God. They are all fighting the same good fight, but how much more valiantly some fight than others. They are all doing the Lord's work, but how much more some do than others. They are all light in the Lord, but how much more brightly some shine than others. They are all running the same race, but how much faster some get on than others. They all love the same Lord and Saviour, but how much more some love him than others. I ask any true Christian whether this is not the case. Are not these things so? There are some of the Lord's people who seem never able to get on from the time of their conversion. They are born again, but they remain babies all their lives. They are learners in Christ's school, but they never seem to get beyond A, B, C, and the lowest form. They have God inside the fold, but there they lie down and get no further. Year after year you see in them the same old besetting sins. You hear from them the same old experience. You remark in them the same want of spiritual appetite, the same squeamishness about anything but the milk of the word, and the same dislike to strong meat, the same childishness, the same feebleness, the same littleness of mind, the same narrowness of heart, the same want of interest in anything beyond their own little circle, which you remarked ten years ago. They are pilgrims indeed, but pilgrims like the gibionites of old. Their bread is always dry and moldy, their shoes always old and clouded, and their garments always rent and torn, Joshua 9, 4, and 5. I say this with sorrow and grief, but I ask any real Christian, is it not true? There are others of the Lord's people who seem to be always getting hawn. They grow like the grass after rain. They increase like Israel and Egypt. They press on like Gideon, though sometimes faint yet always pursuing. Judges 8, 4. They are never adding grace to grace, and faith to faith, and strength to strength. Every time you meet them their hearts seem larger, and their spiritual stature bigger, taller, and stronger. Every year they appear to see more and know more, and believe more, and feel more in their religion. They not only have good works to prove the reality of their faith, but they are zealous of them. They not only do well, but they are unwirried in well-doing. Titus 2, 14, Galatians 6, 9. They attempt great things, and they do great things. When they fail they try again, and when they fall they are soon up again. And all this time they think themselves poor, unprofitable servants, and fancy they do nothing at all. These are those who make religion lovely and beautiful in the eyes of all. They rest praise even from the unconverted, and win golden opinions even from the selfish men of the world. These are those whom it does one good to see, to be with, and to hear. When you meet them you could believe that, like Moses, they had just come out from the presence of God. When you part with them you feel warmed by their company as if your soul had been near a fire. I know such people are rare. I only ask, is it not so? No. How can we account for the difference which I have just described? What is the reason that some believers are so much brighter and holier than others? I believe the difference. In nineteen cases out of twenty arises from the different habits about private prayer. I believe that those who are not imminently holy pray little, and those who are imminently holy pray much. I dare say this opinion will startle some readers. I have little doubt that many look on imminent holiness as a kind of special gift, which none but a few must pretend to aim at. They admire it at a distance, in books, they think it beautiful when they see an example near themselves. But as to its being a thing within the reach of any but a very few, such a notion never seems to enter their minds. In short, they consider it a kind of monopoly granted to a few favored believers, but certainly not to all. Now I believe that this is a most dangerous mistake. I believe that spiritual, as well as natural greatness, depends far more on the use of means within everybody's reach than on anything else. Of course, I do not say we have a right to expect a miraculous grant of intellectual gifts, but this I do say that when a man is once converted to God, whether he shall be imminently holy or not depends chiefly on his own diligence in the use of God's appointed means. And I assert confidently that the principle means by which most believers have become great in the Church of Christ is the habit of diligent, private prayer. Look through the lives of the brightest and best of God's servants, whether in the Bible or not. See what is written of Moses and David and Daniel and Paul. Mark what is recorded of Luther and Bradford, the Reformers. Observe what is related of the private devotions of Whitfield and Cecil and then and Bickersteth and McChing. Tell me of one of all the godly fellowship of saints and martyrs who has not had this mark most prominently. He was a man of prayer. Oh, depend upon it. Prayer is power. Prayer obtains fresh and continued outpourings of the Spirit. He alone begins the work of grace in a man's heart. He alone can carry it forward and make it prosper. But the good Spirit loves to be entreated, and those who ask most will always have most of his influence. Prayer is the surest remedy against the devil and besetting sins. That sin will never stand firm which is heartily prayed against. That devil will never long keep dominion over us which we beseech the Lord to cast forth. But then we must spread out all our case before our heavenly physician if he is to give us daily relief. We must drag our indwelling devils to the feet of Christ and cry to him to send them back to the pit. Do we wish to grow in grace and be very holy Christians? Then let us never forget the value of prayer. Six. In the sixth place. Neglect a prayer is one great cause of backsliding. There is such a thing as going back in religion after making a good profession. Men may run well for a season like the Galatians, and then turn aside after false teachers. Men may profess loudly while their feelings are warm, as Peter did, and then in the hour of trial deny their Lord. Men may lose their first love as the Ephesians did. Men may cool down in their zeal to do good, like Mark, the companion of Paul. Men may follow an apostle for a season, and then, like Demas, go back to the world. All these things men may do. It is a miserable thing to be a backslider. Of all unhappy things that can befall a man, I suppose it is the worst. A stranded ship, a broken winged eagle, a garden overrun with weeds, a harp without strings, a church in ruins. All these are sad sights, but a backslider is a sadder sight still. That true grace shall never be extinguished, and true union with Christ never broken off, I feel no doubt. But I do believe that a man may fall away so far that he shall lose sight of his own grace, and despair of his own salvation. And if this is not hell, it is certainly the next thing to it.    Truly that saying of the wise man is solemn and weighty. The backslider in heart shall be filled with his own ways. Proverbs 14 14 Now, what is the cause of most backsliding? I believe, as a general rule, one of the chief causes is neglect of private prayer. Of course, the secret history of falls will not be known to the last day. I can only give my opinion as a minister of Christ, and a student of the heart. That opinion is, I repeat distinctly, that backsliding generally first begins with neglect of private prayer. Bibles read without prayer, sermons heard without prayer, marriages contracted without prayer, journeys undertaken without prayer, residences chosen without prayer, friendships formed without prayer, the daily act of private prayer itself hurried over or gone through without heart. These are the kind of downward steps by which many a Christian descends to a condition of spiritual palsy, or reaches the point where God allows him to have a tremendous fall. This is the process which forms the lingering lots, the unstable Samson's, the wife idolizing Solomon's, the inconsistent Asa's, the pliable Jehoshaphat's, the over-careful Marthas, of whom so many are to be found in the Church of Christ. Often the simple history of such cases is this. They became careless about private prayer. We may be very sure that men fall, in private, long before they fall in public.  Like Peter, they first disregard the Lord's warning to watch and pray, and then, like Peter, their strength is gone, and in the hour of temptation they deny their Lord. The world takes notice of their fall, and scoffs loudly, but the world knows nothing of the real reason. The heathen succeeded in making origin. The old Christian father offered incense to an idol by threatening him with the punishment worse than death. They then triumphed greatly at the sight of his cowardice, an apostasy, but the heathen did not know the fact, which origin himself tells us, that on that very morning he had left his bed-chamber hastily, and, without finishing, his usual prayers. If any reader of this paper is a Christian, indeed, I trust he will never be a backslider, but if you do not wish to be a backsliding Christian, remember the hint I give you. Mind your prayers. End of Part 1


people who are consistent and dependable and answer their phone and do what they say they're gonna do. Those are all traits that people are attracted to so if you can sit down and write a list of all the traits that people are attracted to and then just be those things you know every day and live those live by those traits then you're gonna have your people are going to be attracted to you you're taking it as a personal like insult you know like you're taking it as like a attack on your character and the fact of the matter is is how can they even judge you it's been 2.7 seconds you know what I mean they don't really know you they don't know your intentions they don't know anything all they know is you call them and they're just reacting in a way that they feel like they're supposed to react you know what I mean and it has nothing to do with you that they would cuss out anybody that they called that they didn't know it's not you you know what I mean it's them that's just how they are they just cuss people out for no reason so I mean you just got to understand that they're not judging you and like here's the thing your intentions are to help them right right so in your mind when you stand behind the fact that you're there to help them it shouldn't matter what they think or if they cuss you out or whatever they do because you know you were just there to help them and so when you get into the mind that mindset it turns into a situation of whoa whoa whoa sir you know hold on just a second there before you get too crazy and everything can ask you why you're getting all crazy and stuff all I did was at call and ask you how you're doing today you know I mean like what's up here like I called I was nice and you're being real hateful to me you know can I just you know just out of curiosity ask you what's wrong with you there's people are gonna be nice there's people are gonna be mean that's that's business you know what I mean but the fact is is that if you put five hard years in of calling and making a goal to make five new friends of property owners every day you're gonna have 5,000 people on a list of property owners who you're friends with how big is your business at that point and at that point in five years when you have 5,000 property owners who love you and want to do business with you do you care about the hold on do you care about the you know you know 2,500 people who cussed you out and hung up on you no you don't care in five years because you're selling 50 to 100 properties a year in your sleep standing on your head because you've created an automatic business through your personal brand through the weekly email and you put that work in to build your name up in your local market you don't care about the people that cussed you out because now you have so many people that didn't cuss you out that are now friends with you and want to do business with you whatever happened and now you're at a point where guess what you don't have to make calls anymore people love honest people right what are some other traits people of hard workers and people who are consistent and dependable and answer their phone and do what they say they're gonna do those are all traits that people are attracted to so if you can sit down and write a list of all the traits that people are attracted to and then just be those things you know every day and live those live by those traits then you're gonna have your people are gonna be attracted to you but you're gonna have people cuss you out I don't care how good you are if I made calls right now people would cuss me out right it doesn't matter how great you are I'm not saying I'm great by the way I'm saying it doesn't matter how good you are people are going to you know you're gonna have negative responses and positive responses but you don't focus on the negative you focus on the positive and you build off that you build your little foundation of people you know you build your little tribe your audience your database if somebody cuss you out on the phone are you gonna recognize them in publics are they gonna recognize you you didn't see each other you just talked on the phone so you gotta understand no they're never you are never gonna talk to that person again and whatever they said does not matter what matters is that you're doing everything you've got to do to build your business as large as you can possibly build it up to your full potential to provide the best life for you and your family that's what matters not what's not the person that cussed you out who cares about that we're over here trying to build a business see what I'm saying look intent only 90% of agents fail you know that right yes sir so you got to be in the top 10% just to squeeze by so every so everything that enters your mind you need to be thinking okay what way is the 10% of the industry thinking and what way is the 90% because if I take okay scared to get cussed out and I think okay what are the 10% you know the winners in the industry doing with that scenario and what are the 90% losers of the industry doing right I would think the 10% people don't care about getting cussed out at all it's not even it's not even like on their radar right and then 90% of the 90% of people more than likely they're scared to get cussed out you know what I mean right so every situation you're encounter I want you to be on the 10% side of the of that situation you know what I mean as your career progresses this changes okay as your database grows like you can't call like when if you have you know 10,000 in your database can you call those people no you cannot call those people because here's the difference when you call Pat when you when you're cold calling you could call 10,000 people in a matter of months you know using a dialer but that's cold calling where some of the numbers are bad you've got people them into the average cold call when you talk to someone is like three minutes okay when you're calling your Pat your people in your database number one these are all correct numbers so they're good numbers you're gonna have a lot higher pickup rate some of these people did business with you or know who you are they're gonna see you on the color D they're gonna answer you're gonna have a lot bigger pickup rate because I'm so busy closing deals right helping people and working deals and I got to work and do the Christmas card at all I mean I was just too busy it couldn't do it and like what I realized was the weekly email does the trick I mean the weekly email the week of Christmas is the Christmas card right and I can include a little gift there nowadays you can include you know things digitally you can have digital gifts you can give people Starbucks you can do all kinds of things digitally now gift wise so yeah I mean it just depends on where you are in your career you know in the in the size of your database the house right around the corner that just sold from you just call to see if there's anything in the world I could do for you today you know like you just follow through there and you keep going like it is the right person until they start to act like it's not the right person and then you start doing your whole you know well that's weird here's your name right here well let me ask you looking for a good real estate agent so like commercial guys I've went through this before you know they have like 50 you know you know clients like a residential agent needs to have like 5 to 10,000 you know clients in their database in a weekly email to a commercial guy you know he can have like you know 30 to 50 clients and that's all they need and growing it's a bubble that's growing and growing these sellers want to sell they want to sell bad but they can't sell because they're nothing to buy and they're scared they're gonna leave money on the table so they're just waiting they're waiting for something to shift with the market in terms of inventory they're waiting to see where the top of the market is gonna be so they don't leave any money on the table what's gonna happen is we're gonna go go go go here and then something's gonna happen either interest rates or you know economic you know downfall or something you know who know nobody knows what those what that thing is gonna be that scares everyone I think it's gonna be honestly maybe the feds raise interest rates unexpectedly like if they did if they're like right now they're saying oh they're gonna be low for a couple years if they actually came out and said we're gonna raise it a little here that's gonna scare everybody half the death it's great right now as it is you know but to know that that's right behind it is just gonna be something incredible then I think we'll go to just kind of a normal more balanced market at that point maybe even start leaning towards a buyer's market to a certain extent we'll see you know that's yet to be determined you know but that'll be it will be a great market I'll tell you that after all the death settles gonna be a great market great market to be in incredible market to be in so everything points towards just an incredible next couple years for real estate okay just so you guys know a lot of people are talking about this crazy crash and stuff that could happen and if it does it's going to be a great moment for real estate agents right come on investors right come on investors there's like there's a there's a somebody told me there's like 26 new billionaires a day or a week or a month or something like that there's like tons of like the wealth is there's so many people like with money okay and when this thing goes down everybody learned their lesson from 2008 people are gonna be waiting for the market to come down I'm waiting a lot of people are waiting with cash waiting to you know if and when the market crashes


Hi, everyone, and welcome back to the Google Search News series. I hope life is treating you reasonably well wherever you are. I'm your host today, John Mueller, here from home in Switzerland. With this show, we want to give you a regular summary of what's been happening around Google Search, specifically for webmasters, publishers, and SEOs. If you find these useful, which I hope you do, and if you'd like to stay up to date, make sure to subscribe to the channel. Now that you're here, I've missed you. It's been a while since our last Google Search news. The coronavirus has stirred things up a bit. Everything's a bit more complicated and confusing. Like many of you, we're currently all working from home. On the one hand, this means my commute to my desk is now extremely short. On the other hand, this means our usual recording studio setup is out of reach. So to help keep you informed about Google Search, we decided to start recording from home. We're not sure when things will get better with regards to recording, so in the meantime, we'll do more videos like this, from home. And now, on to the Google Search news. Today, we'll take a look at COVID-19 related updates, new speed metrics, mobile first indexing, and more. So let's check it out. Many things have changed as coronavirus started making its rounds. For Google, this meant adding and modifying some parts of Search, as well as helping webmasters tackle the new challenges in various ways. The details are linked below, and here's a brief overview. With in-person events being canceled, we added support for postponed, canceled, and online events with structured data. Government and official health websites can now show special announcements directly in Search results using structured data and a separate Search Console tool. As businesses temporarily closed, we noticed that some sites were handling the closure badly, so we created guidance for handling closures in a search-friendly way. For other sites, the issues were more with regards to additional server load, so we created some help for dealing with that. And finally, to help official organizations to make their information as accessible as quickly as possible, we set up a separate help forum. We know there will continue to be challenges that arise as the world turns, so I'm sure there will be more to come in this regard. As a side note, the changes in events also affect our events as well. For the meantime, we've put our Webmaster Conference series on hold, and have started sharing some highlights from individual sessions on YouTube in the Webmaster Conference Lightning Talks playlist. Time spent being at home feels like it's passing both extremely quickly and extremely slowly. What is time? What day is it? Well, I don't know even. However, when it comes to the speed of web pages, Chrome recently launched a new set of metrics that we call the Core Web Vitals. It provides a clear set of foundational metrics for website developers to help build and improve online experiences. These will be introduced across a variety of tools, like Lighthouse, Chrome DevTools, and PageSpeed Insights. Google Search Console currently offers an experimental speed report, which highlights the previous metrics used across these tools. With the announcement of Core Web Vitals, the team is planning to update the speed report to help site owners identify opportunities to improve user experiences on their sites. The Core Web Vitals includes the following metrics. Largest Contentful Paint, or LCP in short, this measures perceived load speed and marks the point in the page load timeline when a page's main content has likely loaded. This metric is dependent on First Contentful Paint and Time to First Bite, which you might have heard of before. First Input Delay, or FID, this measures responsiveness and quantifies the experience users feel when trying to first interact with the page. Communulative Layout Shift, or CLS, which measures the visual stability and quantifies the amount of unexpected layout shift of visible page content. Because the web continues to evolve, we expect to update these on an annual basis and to give you the tools you need to help make your websites fantastic. We'll keep you informed as time goes by. We mentioned Mobile First Indexing in our last episode as well. Mobile First Indexing is a process of Google indexing the web using a crawler that acts like a mobile device, like a smartphone. This matches what users commonly see when they browse. About 70% of all search results currently shown are from Mobile First Indexing, and we expect this number to rise significantly once some of the larger websites are able to be moved over. This is an amazing achievement that's only possible due to a lot of work on websites, making them work well for mobile devices. We're continuing to move forward with Mobile First Indexing as our systems recognize that sites are ready. As a goal, earlier this year, we decided to switch everything over to Mobile First Indexing in September of this year. We picked that date before coronavirus was widespread here, so it's possible that this date might change. Sites continue to improve with regards to Mobile First Indexing, even in times of COVID-19, which is a great sign. To make it easier for sites to get ready for Mobile First Indexing, we added more documentation in our Developer Docs. If you're unsure of your website status with regards to Mobile First Indexing, Google Search Console will show you how we're primarily indexing your pages. These are some pretty big changes, but there's a lot more. Here's a brief run through to help keep you up to date. In the Search Developers documentation, we added a page that lists all updates to the documentation. No need to watch this show anymore. No, wait, not that. But it will help to keep you informed of all changes, for example, in structured data elements. We added documentation about licenseable images, if that's something that you have on your site. JavaScript and structured data, how do they work together? Check out more in the Developer documentation. Search Console now has a revamped removals report, information about review-rich snippets and updated site-new features. And some cool new user interface changes, such as better exports. There's always more happening around Search than we can cover here. If you'd like to stay up to date, I'd recommend subscribing to this channel, checking in on our blog, and following us on Twitter. That's all for now, folks. Thank you for joining us, and thanks for your patience as we navigate recording from home. If you have any questions or comments, feel free to add them right here or reach out to us on Twitter. And now, on to the weather! Let's be realistic, it's not very useful to do a weather report because nobody's going outside anyway. Let's hope that things get better soon. In the meantime, mark your calendars for June 10 to join us for the next Webmaster Conference lightning talk on rich results and Google Search Console.


All right. Well, here we are at PDAC. I'm Stephen Lawdance. I'm Editor-in-Chief and Publisher of Investor Intel and I'm really lucky today to have a distinguished panel of gold companies where we're going to talk a little bit about gold, the future of gold and how the markets are looking at these days. So I introduce my panel from my right, your left. First we have Simon Ridgway, who is the President and CEO of Volcanic Gold Mines, next to him, next to me, John Contact, who is the President of West Red Lake Gold Mines as well. And on my other side we have Jim Indall, CEO of Mass Gold, and last but not least, on the end, Joe Freudman, who is the CEO of True Precious Metals. Welcome everyone, thank you very much. And maybe you can just take a very brief second just to introduce yourselves and your projects and then we'll start talking about some gold. Okay, Simon Ridgway, so our projects are being Guatemala, company's Volcanic Gold Mines. We are from the properties from Radius Gold, so we've been active in, I have been active in Guatemala for some up and on for some 15-20 years. We got some very high-grade gold, silver results over the last six months. Website VG. Hello, my name is John Contact. I'm the President of West Red Lake Gold Mines. I'm part of an experienced management team. This will be the third time that we've monetized gold exploration and development assets in Ontario. Our last project was in Timmins, Ontario, and we sold a two million ounce resource to the Q and Mining for $250 million, or $125 an ounce. Now we have the West Red Lake Project. It's in Red Lake, Ontario. There's three former mines on the property. At the Rowan Mines site we have a 1.1 million ounce inferred resource. It's 7.57 grams per ton. It was within 500 meters of surface and it's open to depth. We also are developing a second resource deposit on the property and wanting to get the property from the 1.1 million resource we're at right now to the 2 million ounce resource we had in Timmins. I'm looking for capital flows into the gold sector to revalue gold in the ground in Ontario upwards to more the level of $125 an ounce that it was at the end of the last cycle. Thank you, John. You've done this before, I can tell. Jim. I'm Jim Engdahl, CEO of Mass Gold Corp and our projects are in Saskatchewan in the LaRange Greenstone Belt area and that really is an area that's been developed over the before the turn of the century. Many deposits found several mines put into production. A lot of them didn't make it because the price of gold at that time was $300 or less but all of those gold deposits are still there and we're a company that's consolidating that and right to this point in time we have 1.1 million ounces. Our target is to be at one and a half to 2 million ounces this year by the end of the year once our drill programs are finished and results all in. With hopefully a second round going the next winter with a target of 3 million for 2023 but there's still lots of opportunity there. It's projects that have been shut in and the price of gold has only gone up about six or seven times since since they was originally attempted to be put into production and the cost hasn't gone up that much so as we talk a little bit more about the gold I think the opportunity will really show what what we have there and and what we're doing with that whole orange belt where we control half of it at this point in time right now. Thanks and Joel how's it going? How's it going at true? Joel Freudman co-founder and CEO of True Precious Metals. We have a Golden Rose project in Central Newfoundland which is our flagship project. It's sandwiched between the two largest gold deposits in Atlanta Canada. So on one side is Marathon Gold, 5 million ounces of gold. On the other side of us is a company called Matador with 840,000 ounces and we control almost all the land between those two companies. So best place to look for a gold mine right beside other gold mines. We have about 40 kilometers of strike length between the two of them. We are financed we recently did a raise and we're setting up to drill in Q3 of this year to target a new new part of the property which has never been drilled before showing very strong indications not only of gold and silver also high-grade copper based on surface samples. So certainly excited about the drilling on our property. We're earlier stage than my colleagues here. Well it's great and so we have a lot of experience here on the panel about gold. So the big question of course is end of 2015 gold was around $1,100 an ounce. Today it's upwards of $1,800. Are the juniors benefiting from that at all? We were. I mean the last couple of years have been stagnated a little bit. I think we're seeing everybody wanting to cash right now on all the markets whether it be the big Dow or the Bitcoin market or the junior gold markets. We're getting sold off. But I do think that there's a pretty good upside over the next five months for gold when the big markets fail as they are right now and people usually turn to gold to save haven after some months of selling. I think that will happen again later this year or next year. Time will tell. I can't agree with that point of view because when you look at the price of gold where it is today if it stays there for a long time I think we all know that there ain't too many deposits right now that you can't make economical at this price and the risk is I don't believe in it going down a whole lot further. I think the opportunity for that to grow and as you referred to the the cryptocurrency world collapse will is not too far around the corner I believe and that should bring back a lot of those junior millennial investors that kind of disappeared from the markets for a while but that's what we're suffering from is some things like that that we had no control on but as long as the price stays where it's at I think all of our companies will have great shots at getting to the right level. The problem that it creates though is is the financing for the projects and if you got a good shareholder base that works that still can work for you and we have that so that's that's how we're approaching life these days and we're just closing the financing to actually I think today or tomorrow. Anyone's a good one. You bet. If you look at March 2020 gold got liquidated along with everything else but it subsequently gold and precious metals like from silver really took off following the crash so you know to your point I think a similar pattern wouldn't be unexpected and we're we're talking in Canada where we're at anyway and I think sounds like everybody else here we're talking in Canadian dollars that's north of 2400 an ounce and so that that's significant when you talk about and I don't believe our dollars going to gain a whole lot of strength over the next while but you never know with the world the way it is affecting all kinds of markets that nobody can really forecast these days it's really a scramble bag of trying to figure out what is really affecting it is it the Russian Ukrainian war is it some some other factors but all of those things are certainly playing. Increasingly turning anti-mining and a number of other jurisdictions and so certainly being in a safe jurisdiction or one that's favorable to mining is a big leg up. Very much so. We've taken the approach to we're not we don't consider ourselves an explorer junior explorer we're acquiring historical resources and then upgrading them or bringing them back in and our cost of adding ounces to our balance sheet right now is in the six dollar an ounce range which is a whole lot cheaper than exploring for it but it does take a little time and the points you made on the ESG those are really critical factors and and you really got to pay attention to them but you also got to look at new technologies that that are out there these days that are starting to really show up and some are getting more tested and I think you're going to see a lot of that opportunity come into play that although it might take a little longer maybe the efficiencies also with technology might be a little better too so sometimes when I speak to you know in potential investors what I mention is to be when you're in the in the goal of business to some extent you have to be an amateur macroeconomist so some people are of course professional macroeconomist I'm an amateur macroeconomist but I think it's important if you're in the precious metal sector including the gold sector that you have that outlook because it's so the price of gold say in US dollar terms is so relative to large macroeconomic forces and I think that but I may have offer a scenario in which there may be some relief in sight for us in the gold sector and especially the exploration and development side like ourselves and that is that you know the macroeconomic story has become inflation on a global basis and I think any talk of it being transitory I don't I don't even hear the word anymore so I shouldn't say it myself but the it's here it's baked into the system it would appear and what is most important for us in the gold sector I think is what's traditionally used to fight inflation is increasing interest rates but now with an economy that's become so used to free money whether it's interest free money I should say whether it's the real estate sector or or equity markets they are very sensitive and I read this morning there's a 93% chance that the Federal Reserve Bank in the US is going to increase the federal funds rate by 75 basis points this afternoon that's essentially doubling the federal funds rate and then there's a meeting in August and one in September and anything I read from your professional economists or business people bankers executives is that there's only so much of this the economy can take so what really does happen in the bull sector historically speaking not me speaking but in prior cycles is if you have negative real interest rates nothing's more positive for the goal sector than negative real interest rate just simply taking the consumer inflation number and subtracting the the bank rate from that so we're we're in historical we're going to be in a period and we're going to be in a period of negative real interest rates and I think the real game comes on for the goal sector when central bankers around the world realized that they cannot fight inflation by the traditional method of increasing central bank interest rates and when that policy pauses or gets reversed I think it's going to take for the most of 22 for that to happen but when that happens you know I think there's going to be a people are going to realize that gold is going to provide its professional its traditional role in the financial system and and we could see a price of gold in the US dollar terms that goes back to $2,000 and looks like it's going higher and that would really be something where the not the gold companies producing companies and certainly in Canada with an 80 cent dollar more or less you know 2,000 gold runs $2,400 gold $2,500 gold becomes over $3,000 gold in Canadian dollar terms the companies get very very profitable every companies like ourselves that are exploration of development stories and don't bring blinds into production but turn them over the gold miners this bodes very well for our shareholders because eventually the gold producing companies become cash rich and asset poor and and that's when they start paying rather than $10 an ounce in the ground or 15 or 20 which is what companies are getting right now exploration development stories just historically speaking we did a deal in the last cycle in Timmins we had 2,000 ounces we sold for $250 million the property in Timmins for $250 million value transaction to McEwen mining that was a hundred twenty five dollars an ounce what stage was that? no just in a resource exploration stage only so what we've been do what we want to what we've been doing is we have a resource at Rowan it's 1.1 million ounces it's 7.57 grams per ton and it's open within 500 meters of meters of surface and it's open to depth and what we've been doing is is doing surface channel sampling to show how this could be a near producing asset on a surface mining basis and a bulk sample basis because I think what's going to be important for this cycle from an exploration development point of view is that you truly do have an economic deposit that's close to production so in the last cycle some of these and the producing companies got and you know kind of had to write down assets over this because they overpaid for assets that they said they're going to be producing in two or three years and ten years later they're not producing so you want to show it's a near producing asset no it's not there we go there you go and so that's why we're doing this sort of the not not there hasn't not been the focus not has not been the focus so I think you know whether large companies medium-sized produces all these gold companies you know when gold when gold went to two thousand dollars at the top of the last cycle and people were some people were talking three thousand four thousand five five instead of went to eleven hundred and a lot of assets had to be written down so I think the company gold co-producing companies have learned that they're well managed now they're focused on cost and if we get positive macroeconomics that has an increasing price of gold with an eighty cent Canadian dollar with the whole thing structure he sets up for positive very positive environment you know it's a long time coming with few exceptions 2016 and and 2020 it's been a gold bear market for a decade but you know for the first ten years of this century it was a positive market for six out of ten years or so so I mean it's hard to believe but there are things as gold bull markets and macroeconomics tends to lead the way and hopefully that's going to come to our side I wouldn't you know given where we are right now with the inflation story and central bankers being in a bit of a box and now they're trying to increase the bank rates but you know there's going to be an outcry relatively soon you know politicians get involved midterms election midterm elections in the US etc and I just see these policies of tightening you know being reversed and I think that becomes a green light for the gold business yeah so and that kind of leads me into the next question Jim Joel is there is there an appetite for gold right now I mean it's a double barrel question because we're actually got a lot of barrels because you've got the you've got the acquirers you've got the retail investors you've got the institutional investors you've got the people who are backing the projects it's gold for a long time cannabis was the flavor of the week sucked all the air out of the room we just saw crypto yesterday they know they reported lost 200 billion dollars of crypto value in one day yesterday and it was the flavor of the of the week for a long time is it's gold popular especially you know millennials is gold an old man investment or is it is it becoming popular again with a whole new generation talk talk fully answer this question forget about the politics just go for it the themes that would appeal to an older crowd should also appeal to a younger crowd people are looking for a hedge against you know governments kind of running money printing endlessly and making the currency worth less that's why you know people were turning to crypto as well I think gold fulfills a very similar function just has a much longer history with a more durable track record is a store of value and as you get inflation I think there's still a good case for it you know for retail investors I guess that interest seems to wax and Wayne kind of just like the gold price pumping up and down between a range but certainly on I think on an industry level yeah companies are increasingly running out of good projects and so you know that's a good longer-term value driver for you know exploration stage company like us and even other companies that are close to do resource stage or production the majors are going to run out of resources they need to replenish their resources they're obviously playing the long game and they just look to go down the chain and pick off you know whoever else is able to bring out since yeah and the and the the cryptocurrency thing was one of the factors for sure that but I think the millennials will start thinking because gold now does not have the excitement that crypto and marijuana had several months ago that kind of I think is worn off and so will they return to something that still is pretty exciting but less adrenaline rush than than a crypto currency I think they're going to understand that that's just a fuzzy scheme for the most part yeah so the bit that they probably weren't but they're going to look at they're gonna yeah they're gonna understand there's nothing behind the cryptocurrency and gold is behind currencies of the world mainly the US but and that gives it some stability and some reason for being but there's also strong demand increasing for the physical gold as well and that's going to keep I think things in balance for the most part the central banks a number of central banks have been stockpiling gold rushes increasingly using gold to back it's falling rubble that's now increasing central banks are large buyers forget people going buying little amounts of jewelry I mean there's still significant central bank demand for gold tells me that you know people in charge of monetary policy still think it has a significant value in a decade ago China was stockpiling gold yeah the biggest gold holders of the world we haven't heard a lot from them lately on the gold front so maybe they've got enough gold at this point if you could ever have enough or they're or you're just not disclosing what it is they're doing for some sort of yes they're not selling any they're consuming it all domestically but I can just speak to them on the millennial thing because it comes up so often at you know cleaning their conferences and the I think the millennials for one could say for example that for the last 10 years they've been doing the right thing in the sense that they've been buying their home of the place where they live in an increased in real estate market environment that makes a lot of sense they've been buying large tech this is tech they know and they use and they know the companies and they know the executives and they like what they're doing and they've done well in the market Apple Google Facebook and so what's wrong with the plan well the wrong that what you know there's nothing wrong with that plan for the last 10 years and the other thing on the total the goal sector in terms of return on capital basis really hasn't performed at that level so but this is rolling over I think you know we're right in the middle of it rolling over what can see how large equity markets how jittery they are the big tech is rolling over sort of real it nothing's more sensitive a real interest rates in real estate so you know so when when gold and commodities in general start to show a return on capital and appreciating equities I think the millennials a lot of which took undergraduate degrees in finance and obviously works spreadsheets very well and know how to study markets and sectors etc when they see commodities including precious metals out before me I don't think they're going to be saying well that's daddy's dirty mining project no they're going to say I can make money there and and I'm going to start out you know rotating into it here we are B-deck and just to sort of finish up and this has been incredibly unscientific but it's maybe as good a gauge as anything you've been walking the floors you've been talking people were back for the first time in a couple of years what's the sentiment on the floor about gold it's pretty optimistic I think I mean I think that's quite a usually when they're when the markets take I mean they always take a different feedback it seems okay we had one lose yesterday yeah but the the attitude that all the people I'm talking to it seems everybody's like the panel here pretty optimistic on the price going forward likewise that's what I've been hearing and again there's no reason that the prices are going to go down if they haven't gone down yet or gold price so I think the thought is positive on the upward swing and maybe significant upward swing so I think and that's what most people believe here and I think it's generally the right attitude and I've been seeing some financing as well that's always a good sign that people are prepared for some money there's some very good buys in the market today and the juniors and if you believe in it and if you're a good got some capital behind you it's a great opportunity I think right now yeah we just managed to close the financing despite the markets about a month ago we got that participation from the Sprott flow-through fund another flow-through fund as well some high net worth there are still people cutting checks in this environment into gold and they wanted to diversify their assets so it does happen greater the merit of the project more money can raise well great well thank you all for participating in the panel been very enlightening and it's great catching up with everyone so enjoy the rest of PDAC and look forward to hearing more about y'all thank you very much pleasure okay thank you very much