an heart that has wandered and is brought back, that is
stricken with the weakness of the fever of sin, and is healed into the
strength of obedience and the omnipotence of dependence. It is much to
say 'for that He is strong in might, not one of these faileth;' it is
more to say 'He giveth power to them that have failed; and to them that
have no might He increaseth strength.' The Gospel is the gift of pardon
for holiness, and its inmost and most characteristic bestowment is the
bestowment of a new power for obedience and service.

And that power, as I need not remind you, is given to us through the
gift of the Divine Spirit. The very name of that Spirit is the 'Spirit
of Might.' Christ spoke to us about being 'endued with power from on
high.' The last of His promises that dropped from His lips upon earth
was the promise that His followers should receive the power of the
Spirit coming upon them. Wheresoever in the early histories we read of a
man who was full of the Holy Ghost, we read that he was 'full of power.'
According to the teaching of this Apostle, God hath given us the 'Spirit
of power,' which is also the Spirit 'of love and of a sound mind.' So
the strength that we must have, if we have strength at all, is the
strength of a Divine Spirit, not our own, that dwells in us, and works
through us.

And there is nothing in that which need startle or surprise any man who
believes in a living God at all, and in the possibility, therefore, of a
connection between the Great Spirit and all the human spirits which are
His children. I would maintain, in opposition to many modern
conceptions, the actual supernatural character of the gift that is
bestowed upon every Christian soul. My reading of the New Testament is
that as distinctly above the order of material nature as is any miracle,
is the gift that flows into a believing heart. There is a direct passage
between God and my spirit. It lies open to His touch; all the paths of
its deep things can be trodden by Him. You and I act upon one another
from without, He acts upon us within. We wish one another blessings; He
gives the blessings. We try to train, to educate, to incline, and
dispose, by the presentation of motives and the urging of reasons; He
can plant in a heart by His own divine husbandry the seed that shall
blossom into immortal life. And so the Christian Church is a great,
continuous, supernatural community in the midst of the material world;
and every believing