y yours in Christ, and which are not
limited?

Also, do you not see that when there are great natural gifts, people give
the credit to _them_, instead of to the grace which alone did the real
work, and thus God is defrauded of the glory? So that, to say it
reverently, God can get more glory out of a feeble instrument, because
then it is more obvious that the excellency of the power is of God and
not of us. Will you not henceforth say, 'Most gladly, therefore, will I
rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon
me'?

Don't you really believe that the Holy Spirit is just as able to draw a
soul to Jesus, if He will, by your whisper of the one word, '_Come_,' as
by an eloquent sermon an hour long? _I_ do! At the same time, as it is
evidently God's way to work through these intellects of ours, we have no
more right to expect Him to use a mind which we are wilfully neglecting,
and taking no pains whatever to fit for His use, than I should have to
expect you to write a beautiful inscription with my pen, if I would not
take the trouble to wipe it and mend it.

The latter class are tempted to rely on their natural gifts, and to act
and speak in their own strength; to go on too fast, without really
looking up at every step, and for every word; to spend their Lord's time
in polishing up their intellects, nominally for the sake of influence and
power, and so forth, while really, down at the bottom, it is for the sake
of the keen enjoyment of the process; and perhaps, most of all, to spend
the strength of these intellects 'for that which doth not profit,' in
yielding to the specious snare of reading clever books 'on both sides,'
and eating deliberately of the tree of the knowledge of good _and evil_.

The mere mention of these temptations should be sufficient appeal to
conscience. If consecration is to be a reality anywhere, should it not be
in the very thing which you own as an extra gift from God, and which is
evidently closest, so to speak, to His direct action, spirit upon spirit?
And if the very strength of your intellect has been your weakness, will
you not entreat Him to keep it henceforth really and entirely for
Himself? It is so good of Him to have given you something to lay at His
feet; shall not this goodness lead you to lay it _all_ there, and never
hanker after taking it back for yourself or the world? Do you not feel
that in very proportion to the gift you need the special keeping of it?
H