* S. 0. Lowry, Hymns cund Spiritual Songs, 26.
ST. LUKE XI. 13 245
noblest aspirations. The potent, ineffable influence, the Holy Spirit, appears to be indispensable in order that man may realize his highest possibilities and come to the crown of his being.
^ Those of you who still go to chapel say every day your creed ; and, I suppose, too often, less and less every day believing it. Now, you may cease to believe two articles of it, and, — admitting Christianity to be true, — still be forgiven. But I can tell you — you must not cease to believe the third ! You begin by saying that you believe in an Almighty Father. Well, you may entirely lose the sense of that Fatherhood, and yet be forgiven. You go on to say that you believe in a Saviour Son. You may entirely lose the sense of that Sonship, and yet be forgiven. But the third article — disbelieve if you dare ! " I believe in the Holy Ghost, the Lord and Giver of life" — Disbelieve that ; and your own being is degraded into the state of dust driven by the wind ; and the elements of dissolution have entered your very heart and soul.^
3. Christ could commend the Holy Spirit to His disciples, because He knew from experience what this gift would mean. See how the Saviour Himself from the moment of His baptism saw His life of service. His victory through death, unfolded before Him in the power of the anointing, the consecrating Spirit ; how in the Spirit He was driven into the wilderness to meet the ordeal of fire by which He was annealed for His redemptive cross. See how one New Testament writer after another with sympathetic insight represents the Son of Man as through the eternal Spirit offering Himself without spot to God, and through the same indwelling presence raised from the dead by the glory of the Father ! It is the Spirit who alone can show us the shining vesture of Him who has the keys of Death and of Hades in the coarse garments of the Syrian peasant arraigned before Annas and condemned by Pilate, for no man can say that Jesus is Lord but by the Holy Ghost. It is the Spirit who alone can show us in that figure stumbling along the way of sorrows none other than Jehovah Himself, travelling in the greatness of His strength mighty to save. None but the Spirit can put a new song in our mouths as we uplift our eyes to the deserted cross, bidding us cry with the innumerable company of celestial choirs, and with the spirits of the just, " Worthy is the Lamb that was slain." " He
* Ruskin, The Eagle's Nest, § 169 ( Works, xxii. 236).
246 THE GIFT OF THE HOLY SPIRIT
that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith to the Churches."
II If I have to speak more than once at a Convention, I invari- ably give at least one address to the subject of the Holy Spirit. But I am more and more deeply impressed with the fact that Jesus Christ is the great centre of Christianity, and that the Spirit's work is to reveal Him. If we speak so as to fill people with a vague desire and expectancy to receive something into their hearts — they don't quite know what — we may lead them away from the truth. This prevents my saying all that I hear some men say, but I quite agree with you that the Spirit has not been sufficiently honoured in the churches, and that we have not cultivated as we ought a sense of dependence on Him. In this way He has been dishonoured and grieved, and His work restrained. All this modern sensationalism is a sad token of our loss of faith in Him. Amid all these varying theories and conflicting views there is great comfort for a man like me in the remembrance that the Holy Spirit is the gift of God, and that He will certainly fill with His Spirit a surrendered, open, believing heart. There are times when I am quite sure that I speak in the power of the Spirit, though I should hesitate to say precisely what was my relation to the Spirit. I mean that I could not state it in any doctrinal form.^
(1) At Christ's Baptism, the Spirit descended like a dove, and filled His soul with peace. And this peace He wished to share with His disciples. It is the peace that comes after victory. For forty days Jesus was tempted of the devil, but not overcome. The Spirit brought Him into the wilderness, and now when the conflict is over what takes place ? We are told that angels came and ministered unto Him, but we are also told of the Spirit ministering unto Him, for it is said that He " returned in the power of the Spirit to Galilee." Yet it is not said that He, like the angels, came unto Him. No, He did not come, for since His descent upon Him, He had remained with Him. It is characteristic of the Spirit to abide. " And he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever ; even the Spirit of truth."