enclose, as it were,
within our own little fence, a tiny portion of the great prairie that
rolls boundlessly to the horizon. But to-morrow we may enclose more, if
we will, and more and more; and so ever onwards, for all that is God's
is ours, and He has given us His whole self to use and to possess
through our faith in His Son. A thimble can only take up a thimbleful of
the ocean, but what if the thimble be endowed with a power of expansion
which has no term known to men? May it not, then, be that some time or
other it shall be able to hold so much of the infinite depth as now
seems a dream too audacious to be realised?

So it is with us and God. He lets us come into the vaults, as it were,
where in piles and masses the ingots of uncoined and uncounted gold are
stored and stacked; and He says, 'Take as much as you like to carry.'
There is no limit except the riches of His glory.

And now, dear friends, remember that this great gift, offered to each of
us, is offered on conditions. To you professing Christians especially I
speak. You will never get it unless you want it, and some of you do not
want it. There are plenty of people who call themselves Christian men
that would not for the life of them know what to do with this great gift
if they had it. You will get it if you desire it. 'Ye have not because
ye ask not.'

Oh! when one contrasts the largeness of God's promises and the miserable
contradiction to them which the average Christian life of this
generation presents, what can we say? 'Hath His mercy clean gone for
ever? Doth His promise fail for evermore?' Ye weak Christian people,
born weakling and weak ever since, as so many of you are, open your
mouths wide. Rise to the height of the expectations and the desires
which it is our sin not to cherish; and be sure of this, as we ask so
shall we receive. 'Ye are not straitened in God.' Alas! alas! 'ye are
straitened in yourselves.'

And mind, there must be self-suppression if there is to be the triumph
of a divine power in you. You cannot fight with both classes of weapons.
The human must die if the divine is to live. The life of nature,
dependence on self, must be weakened and subdued if the life of God is
to overcome and to fill you. You must be able to say 'Not I!' or you
will never be able to say 'Christ liveth in me.' The patriarch who
overcame halted on his thigh; and all the life of nature was lamed and
made impotent that the life of grace might prevail. So