‘Hold Fast That Thou Hast.’ For if you do not hold it fast, it will slip. The metaphor is a plain one—if a man has got something very precious, he grips it with a very tight hand. The slack hand will very soon be an empty hand. Anybody walking through the midst of a crowd of thieves with a bag of gold in charge would not hold it dangling from a fingertip, but he would put all five round it, and wrap the strings about his wrist. The first shape which we may give to this exhortation is—hold fast by