^ As the foul malaria of a swamp tells of the presence of death, and is itself creative of more death, so an un- Christlike man reveals his moral condition as one of death, and, in revealing it, involves others in his fate. This is the law of spiritual influence. No act or thought dies, but is a living force, germinant of good or evil. Cast your deed or speech into the current of the world's life, and it will affect that current to its utmost bound. Speak but a word for God or man into the listening air, the winds will seize it and waft it adown the centuries, and men in distant lands and times, feeble and tempest-tossed, hearing it " will take heart again." The reverse holds good. Selfishness and meanness, narrowness of thought or vision, mammon-worship, indifference to the eternal realities around you let these things mould you, and you become not only dead yourself, but a bearer of death to others, a sower scattering with careless hand seeds of anarchy and ruin.*
* Sir Lewis Morris, Sorigs of Two Worlds,
* S. McComb.
2 COR. II. 14-16 61
Thought's holy place is like a sepulchre;
The wine of love's communion cup is spilled;
The House of Life is like a tavern filled
With harlots, slaves and strangers, and the stir Of dancing feet before the flute-player. Of shallow voices shrill and counterfeit:
And there the smoky lamps of lust are lit,
And faith is frail, and truth is sinister. Yet, in the sacred chambers of the mind,
He lies as in his grave who is the Lord,
No rumours vex him, and his eyes are blind As death, and he is dead — like Lazarus !
What Christ shall resurrect him with a word ?
What Saviour bring him back to being thus?^ ^ G. C. Lodge, Poems and Drwmas, ii. 139.
The Liberty op the Spirit.
Literature.
Amot (W.), The Lesser Parables of our Lord, 393.
Fleming (S. H.), Fifteen-Minute Sermons for the People, 30.
Greenhougli (J. Q.), The Mind of Christ in St. Paul, 38.
Hopkins (E. H.), The Law of Liberty in the Spiritual Life, 77.
Johnstone (V. L.), Sonship, 71.
Knight (Q. H.), Divine Upliftings, 109.
Liddon (H. P.), University Sermons, 79.
McFadyen (J. E.), The Divine Pursuit, 75.
Neale (J. M.), Sermons Preached in Sachville Chapel, i. 406.
Paget (E. C), Silence, 155.
„ (F.), The Spirit of Discipline, 100. Raymond (G, L.), Suggestions for the Spiritual Life, 290. Spurgeon (G. H.), New Park Street Pulpit, i. (1855), No. 9. Stubbs (W.), Ordination Addresses, 161. Tholuck (A.), Hours of Christian Devotion, 260. Vaughan (J.), Sermons (Brighton Pulpit), iv. (1865), No. 470. Wirgman (A. T.), The Spirit of Liberty, 1. Young (D. T.), The Travels of the Heart, 179. Cambridge Review, xi. Supplement No. 263 (J. Percival). Christian World Pulpit, xxxv. 392 (J. E. C. Welldon) ; liviii. 360 (T.
Phillips). Churchman's Pulpit : Whitsunday, ix. 187 (T. H. Stokoe).
The Liberty of the Spirit.
Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.— 2 Cor. iiL 17.
We almost seem to hear a change in the tone of St. Paul's voice, and to see a new light glisten in his eyes, as in the course of his letter to the Church at Corinth he dictates these words to his amanuensis. For they are words of transition into a region and atmosphere of thought very different from that in which he has before been moving. He has been working out, with some complexity and elaboration of detail, the contrast in substance, in circumstance, and in method between the ministry of the Old Covenant and the ministry of the New; between the transient and fragmentary disclosure of an external Law, and the inner gift of a quickening Spirit, steadfast in the glory of holiness, and endless in its power to renew, to ennoble, to illuminate. With close and tenacious persistence the deep, pervading difference between the two systems has been traced ; and then St. Paul seems to lift up his eyes, and to speak as one for whom the sheer wonder of the sight he sees finds at once the words he needs. He has finished his argumentative comparison; and now the vision of the Christian Hfe, the triumph of God's love and pity in the work of grace, the astonishing goodness that has made such things possible for sinful men, holds his gaze.
It is as when one cHmbs the northern slopes of the Alps with painful drudgery, through shaded paths in which every view is hidden, and stands at last upon the mountain summit, with all the wealth, brightness, and expansiveness of the Italian landscape at his feet. All that toilsome, weary, joyless work before, and now all this widespread beauty, unclouded vision, and heavenly freedom. St. Paul forgets the past in the glory before him, and sets down his rapture in this one word, " Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty." That, to St. Paul, is the distinguishing feature of the Christian life. A life of service? Yes, undoubtedly,
2 COR. & GAL. — 5
66 THE LIBERTY OF THE SPIRIT
but still more a life of liberty. For he who follows Christ enjoys more of that coveted blessedness than any other man. That is the claim which St. Paul makes. " Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty."