^[ It is an old Jewish saying that Moses died from the kiss of God. How true it is to say that many people, especially young people, live because of the kiss of the Spirit. One imprint on their young hearts and they give themselves in love to the great God and His Christ. Yes, God's Spirit still comes like the zephyr, wooing and winning, like the breeze which you can scarcely feel upon your hand, though you know it on your more delicate brow. So He comes to many hearts in pensive hours, in times and seasons of holy quiet and blessed meditation ; so He comes, too, in life's morning to young souls.1
The Lord of brightness and of warmth,
Of fragrance and of dew, Who having joy in life and growth, Finds pleasures ever new ; To herbs the earth, and trees the heaven caressing, Alike He gives His soft and sunny blessing.2
(2) But the Holy Spirit also comes as a mighty rushing wind, as He came of old, and then He comes with great and stirring power ; and the Church has so known the Holy Spirit's coming in the times of great revival. He comes to spirits, invigorating and renewing them until they have a new life, as if it were life from the dead.
And every virtue we possess,
And every conflict won, And every thought of holiness Are His alone.
1 D. L. Ritchie. 2 T. T. Lynch, The Rimdct, 149.
ACTS ii. 4 33
Oh! that God's Spirit would come in both ways to the Church to-day, kissing spirits until they live, moving and thrilling the heart of the Church until there is a great revival of spiritual religion, and a quickening and bracing of all the powers of righteousness in our beloved land.
Hail, mightiest and bounteous wind,
Distributor of wealth, Who giving, comest to confirm Or to restore our health ; A blessing thou, bright energy diffusing, For every other blessing's happiest using.1
(3) And there is another function of the wind. It is some- times a winnowing wind, separating chaff from grain, the false from the true ; or it sometimes comes as a blight. There is, for example, the sirocco that starts in the heart of Africa, and, with its blighting breath, passes over whole tracts of country, leaving nothing but destruction in its train. Yes ! the wind blights as well as gives health and strength; and so does God's Spirit. God's Spirit gives health and vigour to every virtue we possess, and it seeks to blight for ever every sin that besets our nature or reigns in our life.
A rushing, mighty wind across the sky,
A swirling, swinging, roaring, ringing breath
Which seems to fill the world, as, flying by, It sweeps the pathway both of life and death.
Into our hearts it blows, and bears away
All evil thoughts, all hate, and strife, and sin,
All dust of hopes and fears and sorrows grey, To let the light of love and truth within.
So Charity shall come, a living flame,
A fire divine, a firm and steady glow, The pulsing light of life, for aye the same,
To make us tender kindly words to know.
Thus, year by year, the nodding, bending trees, Whose sentient branches swiftly bear along
The cleansing, rushing, purifying breeze,
Shall sing Earth's mighty Pentecostal song.2
1 T. T. Lynch, The Rivulet, 149.
2 M. A. B. Evans, The Moonlight Sonata, 118. ACTS & ROM. — 3
34 WHITSUN DAY
Fire.
Fire has three uses — it gives light, it gives heat, and it purifies.
(1) The Spirit of God comes to us as light It comes to enlighten us, to show us the meaning of God's blessed Word, to explain to us what God is, and what our blessed Saviour's life and death meant for us ; and so to teach us many things which we cannot know without Him. So we say in the Collect for this day that God did teach the hearts of His faithful people, by sending to them the Light of His Holy Spirit. And so, according to one interpretation, the Day of Pentecost is called Whitsun Day because God gave to His disciples " wit," i.e. " wisdom," as the word " wit " used to mean.1
Tj " It is with man's Soul," says Carlyle, " as it was with Nature : the beginning of Creation is — Light." And of Conversion he says : " Blame not the word, rejoice rather that such a word, signifying such a thing, has come to light in our modern Era, though hidden from the wisest Ancients. The Old World knew nothing of Conversion ; instead of an Ecce Homo, they had only some Choice of Hercules. It was a new-attained progress in the Moral Development of man : hereby has the Highest come home to the bosoms of the most Limited; what to Plato was but a hallucination, and to Socrates a chimera, is now clear and certain to your Zinzendorfs, your Wesleys, and the poorest of their Pietists and Methodists." 2
Spirit, guiding us aright, Spirit, making darkness light, Spirit of resistless might, Hear us, Holy Spirit.
(2) Fire gives heat as well as light. The Holy Spirit not only teaches us about God and about Christ, but He makes our hearts flame up in love to Him.