fect His work in me by the way, and watch
over myself that I may meet Him single-hearted and "without offence" at
the end? Is He the pervading and supreme Interest of my life? Is He
the inward Power which colours my thought and gives direction and
quality to my affections?_

No answer which a heart fully wakeful to God can give to such
deliberate inward questionings can possibly be an easy or
"light-hearted" answer. The gladdest and most thankful utterance of
such a heart will carry along with it always the prayer, "Search me, O
God, and try my heart"; "Enter not into judgment with Thy servant."
Yet we are assuredly meant, if we are in Christ, so to know the fact as
to rejoice in it, and to be strong in it; we are invited, without a
doubt, so to know Him as to know we know Him, and to find in Him "all
our salvation, and all our desire." Let us not rest till, in great
humility but with perfect simplicity, we so see Him as to leave behind
our doubts about our part and lot in Him, and, "believing, to rejoice."

And then let us covet the developement of those results of possession
of Christ, of union with Christ, which we have specially studied in the
opening section of our Epistle. Let us welcome the Lord in to "the
springs of thought and will," with the conscious aim that He should so
warm and enrich them with His presence that they shall overflow for
blessing around us, in the life of Christian love. I do not mean for a
moment that we should set ourselves to construct a spiritual mannerism
of speech or of habit. The matter is one not of manufacture but of
culture; it is a call to "nourish and cherish" the gift of God which is
in us, and to give to it the humble co-operation of our definite wish
and will that it may be _manifested_ in the ways commended in His Word.
It is a call to desire and intend to "_adorn_ the doctrine of God our
Saviour," in the outcoming of His presence in us in our tone, temper,
and converse, towards those around us, and especially where we know
that a common faith and common love do subsist.

If I mistake not, there is far too little of this at present, even in
true Christian circles. A certain dread of "phraseology," of
"pietism," of what is foolishly called "goody-goody," has long been
abroad; a grievously exaggerated dread; a mere parody of rightful
jealousy for sincerity in religion. Under the baneful spell of this
dread it is only too common for really earnest Christians to kee