nd so shall it be
with English and Irish, with French and German, with Asiatic and European:
they shall be "all one" in Christ.

It is so socially. "Bond and free!" The master and the servant shall
discover a glorious intimacy and union. And so shall rich and poor, the
learned and the illiterate, the many-talented and the obscure. The pools
shall flow together.

It is so ecclesiastically. Our sectarianisms are always most frowning and
obtrusive when spiritually we are at "low tide." When the tide rises, it
is amazing how the ramparts are submerged. It is not round-table
conferences that we need, but seasons of communion when together we shall
await the outpouring of the Holy Ghost.

MAY The Twenty-seventh

_RECEIVING THE HOLY GHOST_

ACTS ii. 37-47.

The sacred process by which the Holy Spirit is received is the same
throughout all the years.

First there is _repentance_. And repentance is not a flow of emotion, but
a certain direction of mind. I may repent with dry eyes. It is not a
matter of feeling, but of willing. It is to lay hold of the aimless,
drifting thought, and _steer it toward God_! It is a change of mind.

Second, there is a definite and avowed choice of my new Goal, my new Lord
and King. The Christian life cannot be a subterfuge. It cannot be lived
incognito. I cannot be the Christ's and wear the livery of an alien power.
There must be _confession_, a bold and clarion-like avowal that henceforth
I am a soldier of the Lord.

And the spiritual experiences will be sure, as sure as the law-governed
processes of the material world. There will be "_remission of sins_." The
old guilt will fall away from my soul as the chains fell from Peter's
limbs when the angel touched them. And there will be "_the gift of the
Holy Ghost_." A new dynamic is mine! I enter into fellowship with the
power of the ascended Lord.

MAY The Twenty-eighth

_THE SONS OF GOD_

"_For as many as are led by the Spirit of God they are the sons of God._"
--ROMANS viii. 9-17.

And how unspeakably wealthy are the implications of the great word!

If a son, then what holy freedom is mine! Mine is not "_the spirit of
bondage_." The son has "the run of the house." That is the great contrast
between lodgings and home. And I am to be at home with the Lord.

And if a son, then heir! "All things are yours." Samuel Rutherford used to
counsel his friends to "take a turn" round their estate. And truly it is
an inspiring