s make no mistakes, or think that our text in its great
commandment and radiant hope has any word of cheer to those who have not
received into their hearts, in however feeble a manner and minute a
measure, the Spirit of the Son. The first question for us all is, have
we received the Holy Ghost?--and the answer to that question is the
answer to the other, have we accepted Christ? It is through Him and
through faith in Him that that supreme gift of a living spirit is
bestowed. And only when our spirits bear witness with that Spirit that
we are the children of God, have we a right to look upon the text as
pointing our duty and stimulating our hope. If our practical life is to
be directed by the Spirit of God, He must enter into our spirits, and we
shall not be in Him but in the measure that He is in us. Nor will our
spirits be life because of righteousness unless He dwells in us and
casts forth the works of the flesh. There will be no practical direction
of our lives by the Spirit of God unless we make conscience of
cultivating the reception of His life-giving and cleansing influences,
and unless we have inward communion with our inward guide, intimate and
frank, prolonged and submissive. If we are for ever allowing the light
of our inward godliness to be blown about by gusts, or to show in our
inmost hearts but a faint and flickering spark, how can we expect that
it will shine safe direction on our outward path?

II. Such walking in the Spirit conquers the flesh.

We all know it as a familiar experience that the surest way to conquer
any strong desire or emotion is to bring some other into operation. To
concentrate attention on any overmastering thought or purpose, even if
our object is to destroy it, is but too apt to strengthen it. And so to
fix our minds on our own desires of the flesh, even though we may be
honestly wishing to suppress them, is a sure way to invest them with new
force; therefore the wise counsels of sages and moralists are, for the
most part, destined to lead those who listen to them astray. Many a man
has, in good faith, set himself to conquer his own evil lusts and has
found that the nett result of his struggles has been to make the lusts
more conspicuous and correspondingly more powerful. The Apostle knows a
better way, which he has proved to his own experience, and now, with
full confidence and triumph, presses upon his hearers. He would have
them give up the monotonous and hopeless fight against