nd I will love
him, and _will manifest Myself unto him_." And the twenty-third verse
adds to it: "If a man love Me, he will keep My word: and My Father will
love him, and _We will come unto him and make Our abiding place with
him_." Notice: there is obedience; it is accepted as an evidence of
love: there is a return love--a new, higher, reciprocal love: then there
is a revealing of Himself; and, constant abiding. Now run your eye
through the remaining part of that evening's conversation and you can
quickly pick out these words: "teach," "bring to your remembrance,"
"guide," "bear witness of me," "tell you coming things," "tell you about
me."

Does that not parallel remarkably the wilderness experience? Only it is
all put on such a higher plane. There is a fullness, and richness, and
tenderness, of personal intimacy here. The Presence in the wilderness
was for the national life: here it is peculiarly for the personal life.
There He dwelt actually in the heart of the nation. Here He dwells
actually in one's own very person. And then, too, now He can do so much
more _in_ us because so much more has been done for us through the
person of Jesus.

How to Find the Meaning.

May I say right here plainly: there seems to be even yet in some
quarters a hazy idea about the Holy Spirit being a person. It is
extremely common, even among people of excellent christian training, to
find Him referred to, both in prayer and speech as _it_. Could anything
be more disrespectful or insulting, if it were intentional instead of
being thoughtless or, in ignorance, as I am sure it really is. Imagine
my speaking of the pastor of this church in that way. "_It_ is a good
preacher. _It_ is a helpful pastor." You smile, and he smiles. But if I
said it repeatedly, and in sober earnest, you know how insulted he would
be. I suppose that the use of the word "itself" for the Holy Spirit in
the eighth chapter of Romans is largely responsible for this. The
revisers have properly substituted the word "himself." That very usage
so common has doubtless accustomed many persons to a vague idea of the
personality of the Spirit. And yet apart from that, there is without
doubt much mistiness, and uncertainty, in some minds, because of the
difficulty of thinking of a person without a form. It seems impossible
for our minds to grasp the idea of existence without bodily shape, yet
of course we believe in a personal God. Probably another reason is that
the Holy S