T[ I pray you, attempt to correct the circumference of your life from the centre ; do not attempt to correct the centre from the circumference — that is, do not attempt to correct your spirit by altering your habits. Correct your habits by an alteration of the spirit. And how is the spirit to be altered ? Only by the true, whole-hearted, unquestioning abandonment of your whole being to the Spirit of God will it be possible for you to have the Spirit of Christ.1
2. Character is the deepest fact of human life. There can be no final and satisfactory analysis of it ; there can be no final and satisfactory statement of what character is. It is the essential truth concerning a man. The word means originally and simply an engraving, something written upon, carved into ; and the man's character is the truth about the man written upon his personality, to be read constantly and clearly by God, to be deciphered slowly and blunderingly by his fellow-men ; but it is the fact, the essential fact, concerning a man.
T| It was Ralph Waldo Emerson who once said : " Gentlemen, I cannot hear what you say for listening to what you are." That is very often the case. Speech is constantly discounted by conduct,
1 G. C. Morgan.
4io THE OWNER'S MARK
and profession is cancelled by the contradictory character that lies behind it.
III.
Some Characteristics of the Spirit of Christ.
If we are to be tested by the possession of the Spirit of Christ, we must have some clear conception as to what that Spirit is. Can we analyze it so far as to gather some conception as to its component parts ?
It may be said that the Spirit of Christ is summed up in the one word Love. But we are bound to break the thought of love up, and notice how in Christ love expresses itself. What are the facts that, woven into perfect warp and woof, make up the fine and delicate texture of His Spirit ?
T| Can there be a doubt as to the Spirit of Christ set forth in His teaching ? " Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two com- mandments hang all the law and the prophets." All religion comes to that : those are its high and final words. A filial soul in communion with the Father, a fraternal soul in communion with humanity. " A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another, as I have loved you." That is, surely without controversy, " the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus." And clear as His teaching is, that Spirit of Christ is yet more evident in His life.1
1. Take Gentleness first. The chief element of gentleness is self-restraint, the power to check those natural tendencies to self- assertion in its various forms of pride or bluster or fretfulness, not to speak of the more obvious faults of malice and bitterness. And then there is fairness of judgment, a kindly allowance for faults in others which a very little thought would show to be serious enough in ourselves, a consideration for the feelings of others. In these days of what some people would consider over- refinement, there is special need for this. Delicacy of sentiment makes men peculiarly liable to sensitiveness. The common courtesies of society are not always a sufficient remedy against
1 B. J. Snell.
ROMANS vm. 9 411
this, because they may be merely the conventional veneer which hides very real unkindness. Nothing can be more unkind than rudeness expressed in honeyed words of transparent insincerity. Christian gentleness means gentleness of feeling, real kindness of heart. It will generally show itself in gentleness of manner, but gentleness of manner is by no means a substitute for it.
^[ A few months ago I read one of those exquisite little articles by Dr. George Matheson. In this particular one he spoke of the gentleness of God, and he said a thing about gentleness that I did not know before. He said this about gentleness : " Gentleness is power in reserve, in check." Said Dr. Matheson, " We speak of the gentleness of the brook, and it is a false figure. The brook has no gentleness; the brook is beautiful but not gentle; noisy, not gentle. It laughs over the stones and runs through its banks of moss and fern. While men may come and men may go the brook runs on for ever. But it is making all the noise it can, and it is exerting all the force it can. You cannot get more force out of it than it is exerting as it runs. There is no gentleness in the brook. You may talk, if you will, of the gentleness of the mighty river, the river that, if it once but breaks and bursts its banks, would devastate the whole countryside, yet it quietly and gently carries its burden on its bosom to the sea, and you hardly know it is strong. That is gentleness." Oh, the gentleness of Jesus! What said He? Know ye not that I could ask of My Father, and He could straightway give Me ten legions of angels to fight My battles ? All power behind Him, but He left it there and took His way, a perpetual outshining of gentleness ; power in check, held back.1