overpower, till the effect seems something quite supernatural. But intellect and the Holy Spirit must not be confounded. The highest reach of genius comes far short of the lowest degree of inspiration. To electrify a hearer is one thing; to bring a hearer prostrate at the feet of Jesus is quite another. The one effect is "in word only"; the other is "in power and in the Holy Ghost." And the latter result we have often seen accomplished through the plainest speech, and by the humblest instruments. But how subtle and elusive is the "power"! He who desires it for the sake of being great, can no more have it than Simon Magus could buy it with money. How many a servant of God has quenched the Spirit in his inordinate desire to shine; how often has the soul-winner gone out of the pulpit because the orator has come in and filled the entire foreground with himself. So then the rhetorician cannot teach us the secret. He can help us in word. only. The consecration, by which we put ourselves utterly into the hands of God, to be subject to His will and to be swayed by His Spirit, is the only true pathway to power.

Of course as there are diversities of gifts from

the same Spirit, so the manifestations of spiritual energy will be widely various.

We will select an example which stands in total contrast from that just considered. Stephen Grellet, the saintly Quaker, was endued with extraordinary power as a witness for Christ. "Over two hemispheres he bore a testimony adapted, with marvellous wisdom, alike to dwellers in palaces and in slaves' huts; to the inmates of ecclesiastical mansions and common jails, and yet none the less suited to the periodic meetings of Friends, and to large assemblies of Roman Catholics and Protestants, in Europe and America." * His was preeminently a ministry of love. The word in the mouth of Whitfield was a sharp twoedged sword, piercing and wounding unto life eternal. From the lips of Grellet that word distilled like the dew, even "as the dew of Hermon that descended upon the mountains of Zion; for there the Lord commanded the blessing, even life forevermore."

If we ask whence this strange enchantment which he threw over human hearts so that they opened to his words irresistibly, in spite of preju

* Life of Stephen Grellet, by William Guest, p. 3.

dice and stern tradition, the answer is easily found. It was the love of Christ acting divinely through one who had given himself up to be led of God, and who, as he wrote on the last page of his journal, had learned the habit of "keeping a single eye to the putting forth of the Divine Spirit." This good man had had his Pentecost, blessed and

never to be forgotten, from which he dated a new enduement of power.

Referring to the time and place of this transaction he says:

"There the Lord was pleased, in an humbling and memorable manner, to visit me again and to comfort me. I had gone into the woods, which are there mostly of very lofty and large pines, and my mind being inwardly retired before the Lord, He was pleased so to reveal His love to me, through His blessed Son, my Saviour, that many fears and doubts were at that time removed, my soul's wounds were healed, my mourning was turned into joy. He clothed me with the garment of praise, instead of the spirit of heaviness, and He strengthened me to offer up myself again freely to Him and to His service for my whole life. Walk, O my soul, in that path which thy blessed Master has trodden before thee and has consecrated for thee. Be willing also to die to thyself, that thou mayest live through faith in Him."

Here is a life which constituted a kind of living exegesis of that text, "speaking the truth in love." And, accustomed as we are, to measure power by outward demonstration, it furnishes a most instructive lesson for us. Two chemical elements which are very mild and innocuous in themselves, often have prodigious energy when combined. So it is of love and truth. Those who preach love alone are often the weakest and most ineffective witnesses for Christ. Those who preach the truth alone, not infrequently demonstrate the feebleness of a soulless orthodoxy. But the truth in love is vital, penetrating, and has the dynamic force which we seek. See how Paul, the apostle of truth, and John, the apostle of love, match and supplement each other on this point. Speaking the truth in love," writes the one. "Unto the well beloved Gaius, whom I love in the truth," writes the other. Love furnishing the atmosphere of truth, the medium through which it shines, and by which it is transmitted; and truth lending its gravity and restraint to love, and so preventing it from flying off into a reckless and indiscriminate toleration - this is the combination which gives "Grace is poured into thy lips; there

:

true power.

fore God hath blessed thee forever." Grace that wings the gentle speech; grace that imparts the heavenly unction; grace that is invested with "the irresistible might of weakness," - this is the true secret of divine efficiency, — and yet only half the secret. "Grace and truth came by Jesus Christ." Oh for a conformity to Christ and a nonconformity to the world, that shall enable us to grasp both these gifts. Then the highway of power will be open before us, and we may realize the beautiful ideal of the faithful witness: "He had eyes lifted up to heaven, the best of books was in his hand, the law of truth was written upon his lips, the world was behind his back. He stood as if he pleaded with men ; and a crown of glory did hang over his head."*

Let it not be presumed, however, that the way of consecration is a way exempt from sacrifices and perils. One who moves in this direction is certain to encounter the adversary at every step. The moment the believer makes any determined advance toward holiness, that moment the evil one moves up his picket line for desperate resistance.

Bunyan.