e world the Divine Husbandman is ever at work, at work while men
sleep, breaking up the fallow ground, and making ready the soil for the
seed. We need to learn to count more on God, to grasp more fully the
glorious breadth of promise which He has given us in His Spirit, to
remember that, not only in the Church, but in the world--which is His
world--that Spirit is always present to testify of God, to convict men
of sin, of righteousness, and of judgment.

And yet, while we encourage ourselves with thoughts like these, we dare
not forget that men may resist, they may grieve, they may quench the
Holy Spirit. He is grieved whensoever He is resisted; He may be resisted
until He is quenched. It was Christ Himself who spoke of a sin against
the Holy Spirit which "hath never forgiveness." Is there any more
painful, perplexing, and yet more certain fact in life than this, that
man can resist God? Is there any that has bound up with it more terrible
and inevitable issues? "Ye stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and
ears," cried the martyr Stephen to his judges, "ye do always resist the
Holy Ghost: as your fathers did, so do ye." And the end for their
fathers and for them we know. Wherefore the Holy Spirit saith: "To-day,
if ye shall hear His voice, harden not your hearts."

* * * * *

CONCERNING THE KINGDOM OF GOD

"The kingdom of God is not eating and drinking, but
righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Ghost."--ST. PAUL.

* * * * *

VI

CONCERNING THE KINGDOM OF GOD

"_Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done, as in heaven, so on
earth._"--MATT. vi. 10.

I

One of the most obvious features of the teaching of Jesus is the
prominence which it gives to what is called "the kingdom of heaven," or,
"the kingdom of God." And this prominence becomes the more striking when
we turn from the Gospels to the Epistles where the phrase is only rarely
to be found. With Jesus the kingdom was a kind of watchword which was
continually on His lips. Thus, _e.g._, St. Mark begins his account of
the preaching of Jesus in these words: "After that John was delivered
up, Jesus came into Galilee, preaching the Gospel of God and saying, The
time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand: repent ye, and
believe in the Gospel." In like manner, St. Matthew tells us that "Jesus
went about in all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, and