but live behind his service in and with his Lord and Life. It asks, ultimately, not whether 1 Cor. xiii. 3. you give your goods to the poor, or your body to the fire, but whether you love.

Col. iii. 3.

So "the Fruit of the Spirit" is a divinely given and developed CHARACTER, drawn out of the fulness of Christ; a character which must express itself in service, but whose essence is hid with Christ in God." This is the "fruit" which, according to the Lord Jesus Christ's own words, we shall surely bear if by the Spirit "we abide John xv. 4-8. in Him." Of this fruit, says the same Teacher, we are to bear "much," to the glory of His Father. We may or may not, in His providence, have much to do for Him in enterprise, in effort, in public testimony, in memorable suffering. Perhaps His will for us, as we submit ourselves wholly to it, humbly ready to "toil and not faint" in His name, may be to do the most silent of domestic duties, or to bear the most exhausting weakness or pain in a neglected sick-room. But these questions touch the accidents of the matter, not the essence. The "fruit" is the

THE "FRUIT" ANALYSED.

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character drawn for us by the Holy Spirit from Jesus Christ our Head. The "much fruit is that character not stunted and dwarfed by the frosts of unbelief, but expanding in sweet and strong development in the sunny open air of the simplest faith.

And now we will look at the particulars of the description, at the elements which this inspired analysis shows us in the texture of this fruit of Paradise grown on earth.

Those elements are nine: "Love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faithfulness, meekness, self-control.'' And we may without over-refinement trace a threefold grouping in the nine. Love, joy, peace," if I read their reference aright, describe the character in its immediate relation to the Lord, who is its spring of "love," its cause of "joy," its living law of internal "peace." "Longsuffering, gentleness, goodness," describe it in its relations with men, as the Christian comes evermore from the "secret of the Ps. xxxi. 20. Presence" to live his “hidden” life, unharmed

1 Εγκράτεια.

and bearing blessing with it, amidst "the plotting of men" and "the strife of tongues. "Faithfulness, meekness, self-control," denote the Christian's characteristics not so much under the trials of opposition or provocation as in the common calls and duties of the day. And so the "fruit" appears in its fair roundness and ripeness. So the man, born of the Spirit, led of the Spirit, taking step by step by the Spirit, filled with this same blessed Spirit (a

filling" of which we shall say more in the next chapter), lives, moves, and has his being, with and for God and man. He is one personality, and so his regenerate and Spiritdeveloped character is one, from the "love" to the "self-control"; from his inmost intercourse with his Lord to his act of most watchful and practical self-discipline in open human life. What he is as indeed a Christian, in toto, that is the Spirit's Fruit.

As we close, let us observe some main truths about our Christian character, conveyed to us in this view of the Fruit of the Spirit.

First, it is a character essentially of love and

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light. There are other qualifying facts about it assuredly. There is in the true Christian a gravity, an earnestness, a recollectedness, the lack of which would put the man out of

character.

This we have set before us here in the word "temperance," self-control. But the material, the essence, of the life and character thus governed and controlled is "love, joy, peace." Let the disciple remember this, and see that nothing hinders the manifestation of it. He is a man in whom dwells that Spirit whose special function it is to "pour out the love of God in the Rom. v. 5. heart." That Spirit was shed upon the exalted Head as "the oil of gladness," and Heb. i. 9. as such He flows down upon the member of that Head to give him "joy in the Holy Ghost." And He is the Dove

Rom xiv. 17; see Phil. iii. 3.

of divine peace; His "mind" is Rom. viii. 6. "peace" as well as "life;" He is "the Spirit of faith," and "peace" as well as 2 Cor. iv. 13. "joy" comes by "believing." His Rom. xv. 13. unhindered in-working must come out then in a life which the known love of God makes loving-loving towards the Lord, and, in the

Rom. v. 1.

Lord, towards men; joyful, with a calm but contagious and beneficent happiness, in its blessed certainty of Christ possessed in His glorious fulness; and peaceful, with a restfulness which cannot but diffuse itself around, as the Spirit shows our spirit that "we have peace with God," and that the "peace of God" can indeed "keep our hearts Phil. iv. 7. and thoughts, in Christ Jesus." Let us remember, let us yield ourselves up, that we may manifest this essential threefold brightness of the life and character of the spiritual man. The Holy Ghost, giving us possession of Christ, is the heavenly Antidote to coldness, to "unpleasantness," to reserve of sympathies and service, to melancholy, to beclouding

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worry." Self-control may have to carve deep lines in heart and life; but the chisel need never deface the brightness of the material.

Again, the character of the spiritual man is, in the relations of man with man, a character which is essentially ready to give way, to forbear, to bear. No elaborate qualification is needed here of this statement. I remember well what energy for service the Holy Spirit