t bear to human responsibility, and to the call to
watch, and pray, and labour? Very soon, over such questions, we have,
in the phrase of the Rabbis, to "teach our tongue to say, _I do not
know_." But the words appear _in this context_ with a purpose
perfectly simple and practical, whatever be their more remote and
hidden indications. They do indeed intimate to us a reality and energy
in the divine sovereignty which may well correct those dreams of
self-salvation which man is so ready to dream. But their more
immediate purpose is as simple as it is profound. It is on the one
hand to solemnize the disciple with the remembrance of such an inward
_Presence_, and on the other hand to make him always glad and ready,
recollecting that such an inward _Power_ is there, altogether for his
highest good, and altogether in the line of the eternal purpose
(_eudokia_). For the while at least let us drop out of sight all hard
questions of theoretical adjustment between the finite will and the
Infinite, and rest quite simply in that thought:--God is in me, working
the willing and the doing. The willing is genuine, and is mine. The
working is genuine, and is mine. _My_ will chooses Him, and _my_
activity labours for Him; both are real, and are personally mine. But
He is at the back; He is at "the pulse of the machine"; I, His personal
creature, am held in no less a hold than His, to be moulded and to be
employed; His implement, His limb.

Not very long ago I was in conversation with a young but deeply
thoughtful Christian, who, placed on a difficult social height, was
seeking with deep desire not only to "follow the Lamb whithersoever He
goeth" but to lead others similarly circumstanced to do the same. I
was struck with the strong consciousness which possessed that heart,
that the religious life must inevitably be a weary and exhausting
effort on any other condition than this--"God working in us, to will
and to do." "Ah, they all say that it is so hard; no one can really do
it; no one can keep it up. But we must speak to them about the
indwelling Spirit of God, about the Lord's power in us; _then_ they
will find that it is possible, and is happy."

_Choris emou_--"isolated from Me (John xv. 5)--_ye can do nothing_";
and what seems our "doing" will, in such isolation, be only too sorely
felt to be a weary toil. But let us accept it as true, at the foot of
the atoning Cross, that the Indwelling of God in Christ is as much a