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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."*

Such was his vow of self-devotion to God, and it must be acknowledged that his whole subse quent 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.'

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

* 1 Thess. 5.

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. 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."

The

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."

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