Many of us, I think, must have felt
how extremely unreal, and therefore unsatisfying, the discussions of
this great subject often are. The doctrine somehow fails to find a place
among the proved realities of our Christian experience. It remains, so
to speak, outside of us, a foreign substance which life has not
assimilated. And hence it has come to pass that there is no small danger
to-day lest New Testament phrases about being filled with the Spirit,
baptized with the Spirit, and so forth, become the mere jargon of a
school which wholly fails to interpret the mind of Christ. Doubtless
there are faults on both sides, the faults of neglect and the faults of
false emphasis, and for both the true remedy is a more careful study of
the teaching of Jesus.

What, then, is the Holy Spirit, and what is it He does for us? "I will
pray the Father," Christ said, "and He shall give you another
Comforter," or "another Paraclete." The word translated "Comforter,"
which occurs so often in this discourse of our Lord, is found nowhere
else in the New Testament except in the First Epistle of St. John, where
it is rendered "Advocate"; "If any man sin, we have an Advocate with the
Father, Jesus Christ, the righteous." And this, without doubt, is a more
faithful rendering of the word which Christ used than the more familiar
"Comforter." An advocate is one who is called to our side to be our
friend and helper, more especially to plead our cause in a court of
justice; and this also is the meaning of the word "Paraclete." Perhaps,
however, the word "Comforter" may be retained without loss, if only we
remember to give it its full and original meaning. To "comfort" is not
primarily and originally to console, but to strengthen, to _fort_ify;
and the "Comforter" whom Christ promised to His disciples was not only
one who should soothe them in their sorrows, but should stand by them in
all their conflicts, their unfailing friend and helper.

Further, Christ said God "shall give you _another_ Comforter." That is
to say, Christ Himself was a Comforter, and all that He had been to His
disciples the Holy Spirit should be also. And, if we examine the three
chapters of this Gospel which contain this great discourse of our Lord,
we shall find this idea taken up, and repeated, and developed in passage
after passage. The Holy Spirit was to come in Christ's name, as Christ's
representative and interpreter. "He shall not speak from Himself,"
Christ said; "He s