Mr. E. K. Simpson sends the following: "At an inquiry meeting in the Assembly Hall I spoke to a bright looking young man, and found that he had decided for Christ. On my asking him what led him to decision, the striking answer was, ' It was the way Mr. Drummond laid his hand on my shoulder and looked me in the face that led me to Christ.' " ^
3. The fruits of the spirit are perfectly spontaneous. " Against such there is no law." Is this an example of St. Paul's irony ? The clause may be read as a supreme example of ironical speech. Rather perhaps it is added to show the Christian's true relation to law, the victory which the spirit gains just because the law is not painfully toiled after, not punctiliously performed, but easily and supremely transcended. The Galatians, led astray by Judaizers, were being brought again into bondage by ceremonies and restrictions, and were fast losing the secret of Christian freedom. Law not only cannot condemn these fruits of the Spirit ; it cannot produce anything of the kind, any more than a machine could fashion a lily.
Neither God nor man will condemn these fruits of the Spirit. God will not, for they are the fruits of His own Divine Spirit working within the soul of man. Law will never be against the eternally right and fitting, and these fruits of the Spirit are to be placed in such high orderings. For God to condemn these fruits of the Spirit would be for God to condemn Himself, to go contrary
' G. A. Smith, Lift of Uenry Drummond, 98.
4IO THE FRUIT OF THE SPIRIT
to His own Divine and glorious nature, to orerturn the balance and ruin the arrangement of the moral universe. Man will not condemn. There is no court on earth, in either barbarous or civilized nations, where a man could be summoned and condemned for being joyful, peaceful, longsuffering, good, meek, gentle. Wicked men hate the good and plot for their condemnation and destruction ; but the good are never summoned to the bar of justice on account of goodness, meekness, gentleness.
^ I remember some words of Socrates, shortly before he drank the cup of hemlock. In his cell in Athens, he awoke one morn- ing, and there was a friend at his bedside. He asked what news there was, and his friend told him that everything had been arranged for his escape, and that he must flee. But the brave man refused. " No," he answered Crito, " unless the law releases me, I stay. It protected my birth, my growth, my education, my marriage, my whole life. It now commands my death. If I broke it, I should be haunted by its angry ghost for ever." So law encompasses me like an atmosphere. It remains with me always. If I break it, it will haunt me for ever. But I meet its require- ments, not, as Socrates did, by dying myself. There is a better way. The death of the Son of God is available for me. I flee to it and to Him. And now law is the fortress which shelters, and not the sword which smites.^
^ Of course, developing his own thoughts and life freely, he was charged by his opponents with faithlessness to the Church and with latitudinarian opinions. But he rejoiced in finding within the Church of England room to expand his soul, and freedom for his intellect. If the latter part of the accusation was true, and he was latitudinarian in opinion, it is at least remarkable that he should have induced, in those who heard him profitably, not only a spiritual life, but also a high and punctilious morality. His hearers kept the Law all the better for being freed from the Law. And many a working man in Brighton, many a business man in London, many a young officer, many a traveller upon the Continent, many a one living in the great world of politics or in the little world of fashion, can trace back to words heard in Trinity Chapel the creation in them of a loftier idea of moral action, and an abiding influence which has made their lives, in aU their several spheres if not religious, at least severely moral.^
» A. Smellie, In the Secret Place, 849.
» Stopford k. Brooke, Life mnd Letters cf F. W. Bobertton, 479.
Burdens,
4»«
Literature.
Ainsworth (P. C), A Thornless World, 154.
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