rent thoughtlessness or contempt, but no right word spoken for
Christ can ever really die. It will live in the long after years, and
bear fruit, as the seeds hidden in the old Egyptian mummy-cases are
bearing fruit to-day in English soil.

XVII.

The Spirit and Power of Elias.

(LUKE I. 17.)

"Oh, may I join the choir invisible
Of those immortal dead who live again
In minds made better by their presence: live
In pulses stirred to generosity;
In deeds of daring rectitude; in scorn
For miserable aims that end with self;
In thoughts sublime that pierce the night like stars,
And with their mild persistence urge man's search
To vaster issues."

The Old Covenant and the New--Elijah and the Baptist--A Parallel--The
Servant inferior to the Lord--The Baptism of the Holy Ghost--The
Indwelling Spirit

Great men are God's greatest gifts to our race; and it is only by their
interposition that mankind is able to step up to higher and better
levels of life. The doctrine of evolution is supposed to explain the
history of the universe. Men would have us believe that certain forces
have been set in motion which have elaborated this great scheme of
which we are a part, and the evolutionist would go so far as to say
that man himself has been evolved from protoplasm, and that the brains
of a Socrates, of a Milton, or of any genius who has left his mark upon
the world, have simply emanated from the whole process which culminates
in them. We believe, on the contrary, that at distinct points in the
history of the universe, there has been a direct interposition of the
will and hand of God; and it is remarkable that in the first chapter of
Genesis that august and majestic word _create_ is three times
introduced, as though the creation of matter, the creation of the
animal world, and the creation of man, were three distinct stages, at
which the direct interposition of the will and workmanship of the
Eternal was specially manifest. Similarly, we believe that there have
been great epochs in human history, which cannot be accounted for by
the previous evolution of moral and religious thought, and which must
be due to the fact that God Himself stepped in, and by the direct
raising up of a man, who became the apostle of the new era, lifted the
race to new levels of thought and action. It is in this light that we
view the two illustrious men who were, each in his own measure, the
apostles of new epochs in h