d worship; but it lies in none of these,
desirable as they are. The body may be as to its organs perfect and
entire, wanting nothing; but simply because the Spirit has been {142}
withdrawn from it, it has passed from a church into a corpse. As one
has powerfully stated it: "When the Holy Spirit withdraws, . . . he
sometimes allows the forms which he has created to remain. The oil is
exhausted, but the lamp is still there; prayer is offered and the Bible
read; church-going is not given up, and to a certain degree the service
is enjoyed; in a word religious habits are preserved, and like the
corpses found at Pompeii, which were in a perfect state of preservation
and in the very position in which death had surprised them, but which
were reduced to ashes by contact with the air, so the blast of trial,
of temptation, or of final judgment will destroy these spiritual
corpses."[3]

2. _The Holy Spirit in the Worship and Service of the Church_. Is
there anything, from highest to lowest, which we are called to do in
connection with the worship of God's house, of which the Holy Spirit is
not the appointed agent? Believers are the instruments indeed through
which he acts; but they have no function apart from his inspiration and
guidance, any more than the organ-pipe has without the wind, which
breathing through it causes it to resound. To make this clear, we may
consider the several parts of the service of the church as we are
accustomed to participate in it, and observe their relation to the
divine Administrator.

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(1) Preaching is by general consent an important factor of the work of
the ministry, both for the pastor and for the evangelist. In what
consists its inspiration and authority? We "have preached the gospel
unto you _with the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven_" (1 Peter 1: 12),
is Peter's simple story of the apostolic method. And the words direct
our thought to the Spirit not as instrumental but as inspiring. "_In
the Holy Ghost_," the words mean literally. The true preacher does not
simply use the Spirit; he is used by the Spirit. He speaks as one
moving in the element and atmosphere of the Holy Ghost, and mastered by
his divine power.

In this fact the sermon differs immeasurably from the speech, and the
preacher from the orator. How distinctly Paul emphasizes this contrast
in his letter to the Corinthians (1 Cor. 2: 4). The sole substance of
his preaching he declares to be "Jesus Christ and h