THOUGHT is the backbone of study, and if more ministers would think, what a blessing it would be! Only, we want men who will think about the revealed truth of God, and not dreamers who evolve religions out of their own consciousness. Nowadays we are pestered with a set of fellows who must needs stand on their head and think with their feet. Romancing is their notion of meditation. Instead of considering revealed truth, they excogitate a mess of their own, in which error and nonsense and conceit appear in about equal parts; and they call this broth “modern thought.” We want men who will try to think straight, and yet think deep, because they think God’s thoughts. Far be it from me to urge you to imitate the boastful thinkers of this age, who empty their meeting-houses, and then glory that they preach to the cultivated and intellectual. It is miserable cant. Earnest thoughts upon the things which are assuredly believed among us is quite another matter, and to that I urge you.—C. H. Spurgeon’s “Lectures to my Students.”