er all human words the half has not been told
us, and as every soul carries within itself unrevealable emotions, and
is a mystery after all revelation, so the things which God's gift brings
to a soul are after all speech unspeakable, and the words 'cannot be
uttered' which they who are caught up into the third heavens hear.

Then we may extend our thoughts to the future form of Christian
experience. 'It doth not yet appear what we should be.' All our
conceptions of a future existence must necessarily be inadequate.
Nothing but experience can reveal them to us, and our experience there
will be capable of indefinite expansion, and through eternity there will
be endless growth in the appropriation of the unspeakable gift.

For us the only recompense that we can make for the unspeakable gift is
to receive it with 'thanks unto God' and the yielding up of our hearts
to Him. God pours this love upon us freely, without stint. It is
unspeakable in the depths of its source, in the manner of its
manifestation, in the glory of its issues. It is like some great stream,
rising in the trackless mountains, broad and deep, and leading on to a
sunlit ocean. We stand on the bank; let us trust ourselves to its broad
bosom. It will bear us safe. And let us take heed that we receive not
the gift of God _in vain_.

A MILITANT MESSAGE

'Casting down imaginations, and every high thing
that is exalted against the knowledge of God, and
bringing every thought into captivity to the
obedience of Christ; and being in readiness to
avenge all disobedience, when your obedience shall
be fulfilled.'--2 COR. x. 5 and 6 (R.V.).

None of Paul's letters are so full of personal feeling as this one is.
It is written, for the most part, at a white heat; he had heard from his
trusted Titus tidings which on one hand filled him with a thankfulness
of which the first half of the letter is the expression; but there had
also been tidings of a very different kind, and from this point onwards
the letter is seething with the feelings which these had produced. There
was in the Corinthian Church a party, probably Judaisers, which denied
his authority and said bitter things about his character. They
apparently had contrasted the force of his letters and the feebleness of
his 'bodily presence' and speech. They insinuated that his 'bark was
worse than his bite.' Their language put into plain English woul