r any of our brethren;
and so does the glow of compassion, the exercise of the natural human
sympathy which belongs to all, and is deepened and made tenderer and
intenser by the gift of the Spirit. It would be a very different
Church, and a very different world, if Christians, who were not
conscious of possessing gifts which made them fit to be either
prophets, or teachers, or exhorters, and were scarcely endowed even
for any special form of ministry, felt that a gift from their hands,
or a wave of pity from their hearts, was a true token of the movement
of God's Spirit on their spirits. The fruit of the Spirit is to be
found in the wide fields of everyday life, and the vine bears many
clusters for the thirsty lips of wearied men who may little know what
gives them their bloom and sweetness. It would be better for both
giver and receiver if Christian beneficence were more clearly
recognised as one of the manifestations of spiritual life.

III. The exercise of the graces.

There are some difficulties in reference to the grammatical
construction of the words of our text, into which it is not necessary
that we should enter here. We may substantially follow the Authorised
and Revised Versions in supplying verbs in the various clauses, so as
to make of the text a series of exhortations. The first of these is
to 'prophesy according to the proportion of faith'; a commandment
which is best explained by remembering that in the preceding verse
'the measure of faith' has been stated as being the measure of the
gifts. The prophet then is to exercise his gifts in proportion to his
faith. He is to speak his convictions fully and openly, and to let
his utterances be shaped by the indwelling life. This exhortation may
well sink into the heart of preachers in this day. It is but the echo
of Jeremiah's strong words: 'He that hath my word, let him speak my
word faithfully. What is the chaff to the wheat? saith the Lord. Is
not my word like as fire, saith the Lord, and like a hammer that
breaketh the rock in pieces?' The ancient prophet's woe falls with
double weight on those who use their words as a veil to obscure their
real beliefs, and who prophesy, not 'according to the proportion of
faith,' but according to the expectations of the hearers, whose faith
is as vague as theirs.

In the original, the next three exhortations are alike in grammatical
construction, which is represented in the Authorised Version by the
supplement 'let us