xample and those lives declare that whoever desires to have
his soul purified and invigorated, to be charged with this Divine
electric influence, must have something of separateness and independence
in his life; he must feel himself as not merely one of a crowd moved by
the desires, aims, hopes, tastes, and ambitions which may chance to
prevail around him, but as a separate soul in direct communion with the
Spirit of God.

But if we are to realise this in our own life, it means that our times of
daily prayer, whether in private or in public, are times at which we lay
open our secret life to the Divine presence and influence; it means that
we give some real thought and meditation to this presence of God in our
life, and that we thus feed our souls continually on wholesome spiritual
food. It is in this way that men's lives become in a real sense the
temples of the Holy Spirit, and the influences of sin fall away from
them.

But the hindrances that are always acting to undermine or destroy any
such spiritual power in us are manifold, and seldom far away from our
life.

The world outside is always with us and acting in this way, distracting
thought, setting up its own standards, drawing us into its channels, and
deadening the Spirit in us. This is one of the inevitable conditions of
life as you will have to live it, and the man who is in earnest
recognises it as a paramount reason why he should never drop out of his
personal practice the habit of separate prayer and communion with God. Or
again, we may, and often do, let these hindrances grow up within us
through our own fault, and quite apart from any active influences of the
outer world.

We contract a dulness of spirit, so that spiritual things have no
interest and faith has no living power in the heart; and all this very
often not because any person, or anything outside of us, can be said to
have led us away and entangled us, but simply because we have taken no
pains to keep our life within the range of spiritual influences; we have
let prayer slip out of it; we have lived in no spiritual companionship;
we have done nothing to keep our soul alive in us. This is how men
choose the lower life, and surrender their birthright out of pure
inertia, so that they lose their spiritual capacity.

But worst of all hindrances to the indwelling of God's Holy Spirit in any
life is the harbouring of sensual appetite or craving, passion, or
indulgence. No man can expect the