equality in nature and power. As he had been God on earth, so henceforth the Holy Spirit was to be God in the human heart; only he himself had been visible, but the Spirit should be invisible. This other representative of God should in one sense take his place on earth, while he himself went back to the right hand of the throne to act as Mediator and Intercessor.

And thus the matter stands to-day and evermore. In the absolute and impenetrable depths of his own infinitude, dwelling in light that no man can approach unto, whom no man hath seen or can see and live, is God the Father, the Self-existent, the Eternal, the Changeless One. At his right hand, standing between the throne and the earth is God the Son, our Saviour and Mediator. But both of these are in

heaven, and away from us. We can pray unto them, but we cannot come near them. Have we, then, no God on earth? Are we bereft of the divine presence and power entirely? Ah, no; Christ made provision for this need when he sent into the world after his departure this other representative of God, the Holy Spirit, that he might abide with us forever. "Whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him;" but Christians know him, because they have been born again by his power, and he dwelleth with them, and is in them.

But we must indicate a few of the Spirit's special offices. When he comes to a soul he finds it spiritually insensible, paralyzed, blind. The Scriptures use concerning it, the phraseology, "dead in trespasses and in sins," thus making it without spiritual life or motion; physically, and intellectually, and emotionally

active, but destitute of spiritual life and power.

The

soul can hear about the gospel, but cannot spiritually understand it, and has no desire to accept it. Sometimes the soul knows what it ought to do, but, like a man paralyzed, it cannot do what it wants to. As Paul says, "To will is present with me, i. e. I have power to will, my will operates freely, but how to perform, I find not," i. e. I cannot carry it out; I cannot do what I know I ought to do, and what I sometimes wish to do.

The Holy Spirit first accompanies some word of truth to the insensible mind. New views of self, of life, and of God, now begin to crowd the mind, and to produce deep agitation. Instead of being insensible, the soul begins to be awakened, begins to see, and feel, and desire. The Spirit continues to press all these new considerations upon it until its past sins loom up like overhanging mountains and threaten to crush it forever. It then begins to be in agony and cries out to God for mercy, and for the first time is led to pray.

Then, having shown the soul its own lost state and led it to realize its sinful thralldom, the Spirit next turns the soul's attention to the remedy, and begins to talk of the things of Christ, and show them to the soul. This at first only aggravates the distress, because it adds a new accusing thought, viz: The thought of rejecting so long the means of salvation which God has provided. Finally, the Holy Spirit begins to give the soul power to believe, and it then surrenders itself entirely to him who says, "I am the way, the truth, and the life, and he that believeth on me, though he were dead, yet shall he live." The

soul now passes from a state of condemnation to one of justification, from insensibility to life, from blindness to sight, from paralysis to vigor.

Up to this point the Holy Spirit has applied the word of truth and set in motion a course of religious thought, and reflection, and meditation. Before the Spirit operated, the soul was careless, indifferent, proud, and self-complacent. It rejected as an insult what the Scriptures said concerning its essential and natural depravity. But the Spirit continues to use his sword, which is the Word of God, so vigorously that by and by the heart is all cut to pieces and broken up by sharp strokes and rapid blows, and is glad to avail itself of any method of escape. the Spirit applies the blood of cleansing. This expression of course is figurative, but very truthful, nevertheless. The real work is to get the soul to surrender itself to Christ, utterly and entirely, and then make it feel that Christ has received and pardoned it, and that henceforth Christ's merit is imputed to it. And then follow peace, and pardon, and joy, expressed in song, and praise, and prayer.

Then

A SANCTIFIER.

The Christian life has now commenced in the soul, but the Spirit's work is not yet done. Now, he is to enable the soul to grow in grace and in knowledge, to help it resist temptation and overcome sin, within and without; to help it pray the effectual fervent prayer that availeth much before God; to enable it to understand the Scriptures and feed upon them, and also enable it to work effectively and faithfully

for the salvation of others. All the work of sanctification is the Spirit's work. All the Christian graces are his fruits within.

In trying to state what the Spirit does for souls spiritually, the difficulty is rather to find what he does not do. The work of conviction is his, of enlightenment, of subduing, of believing, of understanding, of enabling the soul to pray, and preach, and exhort, of resisting evil, and growing in holiness. Says Dr. Jenkyn: "As the same shower blesses various lands in different degrees according to their respective susceptibilities, making the grass to spring up on the mead, the grain to vegetate in the field, the shrub to grow on the plain, and the flower to blossom in the garden; so the influences of the Holy Spirit, descending on the moral soil, produce convictions in the guilty, illumination in the ignorant, holiness in the defiled, strength in the feeble, and comfort in the distressed. As the Spirit of holiness, he imparts a pure love; as the Spirit of glory, he throws a radiance over the character; as the Spirit of life, he revives religion; as the Spirit of truth, he gives transparency to the understanding; as the Spirit of prayer, he melts the soul into devotion; as the Spirit of power, he covers the face of the earth with works of faith, and labors of love."

3÷

HE famous Welsh preacher, Christmas Evans, said of prayer that it was "the rope in the belfry; we pull it, and it rings the bell up in heaven." Mary, Queen of Scotland, used to say: "I fear the prayers of John Knox more than an army of ten thousand men." With both of these characters, so opposite in themselves, prayer was real. And so it is, or must be, to all who would be Christians. a fact that God has condescended to put himself in real relations with men, so that their approaches unto him could be approaches unto a real, living being who knew what they said, and was abundantly able to respond. This conception of reality is essential to the very existence of prayer. Before we can be said to pray at all we must believe and realize thoroughly

It is