body, soul and spirit; whatever either one surrenders is carried over to the credit of the others, and inures to their strength. That is why fasting helps communion-the carnal appetites being denied that the spiritual appetites may be awakened to a more hungry craving. Hence the significance of the plea that we present our bodies a living sacrifice. We should have said "bodies and spirits," and many so enlarge the exhortation. But no! Let the body be surrendered up for the enrichment of the soul, fleshly desires repressed, that spiritual desires may be enlarged-the carnal man, in a word, sacrificed to the spiritual.

We have seen this significant device on an ancient seal the effigy of a burning candle, and underneath it the superscription, "I give light by being myself consumed." This is the true symbol of Christian devotedness-giving out light by giving up our lives to Him who loved us - the zeal of God's house consuming us while we furnish divine illumination to the world.

And this leads us to urge what we believe to be all important to this whole subject that we should make our consecration a definite, final, and irrevocable event in our spiritual history. It is

not enough for us to hear one say that he believes in Jesus Christ; we want a decisive and confessed act of acceptance. And likewise we are not satisfied to urge upon our readers a consecrated life merely; we wish to insist on the value and power of a solemn and definite and overshadowing act of consecration. Let it be made with the utmost deliberation, and after the most prayerful selfexamination; let the seal of God's acceptance of it be most carefully sought; let it be final, in the sense of being irrevocable, but initiatory in the sense of being introductory to a new life-a life that belongs, henceforth, utterly to God, to be lived where He would have it lived, to be employed as He would have it employed, to be finished when He would have it finished. Oh, who is sufficient for such an engagement! But many have made it, and we find in them a living demonstration of its value.

In the spiritual history of George Whitfield we have a striking example of such definite, and whole hearted consecration. With the Wesleys in the "Holy Club" of Oxford, he had sought with prolonged prayer and self-mortification for a deeper work of the Spirit in his heart. Whole days he

had spent in wrestling with God for the blessing. He found what he sought, and, at his ordination, was made ready to give himself unreservedly to God. He thus speaks of this experience:

"When the Bishop laid his hands upon my head, if my evil heart doth not deceive me, I offered up my whole spirit, soul and body, to the service of God's sanctuary. Let come what will, life or death, depth or height, I shall henceforth live like one who this day, in the presence of men and angels, took the holy sacrament upon the profession of being inwardly moved by the Holy Ghost to take upon me that ministration in the church." "I can call heaven and earth to witness that, when the Bishop laid his hand upon me, I gave myself up, to be a martyr for Him who hung upon the cross for me. Known unto Him are all future events and contingencies. I have thrown myself blindfolded, and I trust without reserve into His almighty hands.” *

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Such was his vow of self-devotion to God, and it must be acknowledged that his whole subsequent life attested its sincerity. And in what life, we may ask, has the power of consecration been more signally displayed? We speak not merely of his seraphic eloquence, but of the immediate

Stevens' History of Methodism, V. I, p. 105.

saving results of his preaching. We judge that other preachers have produced as powerful impression upon congregations - Bossuet, Robert Hall, Chalmers and many more. But that lightning-like penetration of the spoken word which rives men's hearts, and lays bare their sins, and brings out the tears of penitence-here is the test of power. And from the very first sermon of Whitfield, when fifteen were driven to an agony of conviction, to the last, this was the uniform result of his ministry. John Newton records of him that in a single week he received no less than a thousand letters from those distressed in conscience under his preaching. Surely this was not the fruit of his graceful oratory," which Franklin and Chesterfield so much admired; but of that power from on high which is promised to those who are ready to tarry in Jerusalem until they be endued with it. How significant the apostle's description of effective preaching! "For our gospel came not unto you in word only, but also in power and in the Holy Ghost and in much assurance." *

Words, kindled and glowing with the fire of intellectual excitement, can rouse and thrill and

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