So grace, when first implanted in the
heart, is often so little in degree, and so much buried up in remaining
corruption, that it can scarcely be discovered at all. But the moment
the leaven begins to work, it increases without ceasing, till the whole
is leavened.

Again; Christ says, "the water that I shall give him shall be _in him_ a
well of water, _springing up into everlasting life_." When these words
were uttered, our Lord was sitting upon a deep well, in conversation
with the woman of Samaria. As his custom was, he drew instruction from
the objects around him. He directed her attention away from the water
which can only quench animal thirst, to that living water which
refreshes the soul. But she, not understanding him, wished to know how
he could obtain _living water_ from a deep well, without anything to
draw with. In order to show the superiority of the water of life, he
told her that those who drank it should have it _in them_, constantly
springing up of itself, as if the waters of the well should rise up and
overflow, without being drawn. The very idea of a _living spring_ seems
to cut off the hope of backsliders. You remember the cold spring that
used to flow from the rock, before our father's door. The severest
drought never affected it, and in the coldest season of a northern
winter it was never frozen. Oft, as I rose in the morning, when the
chilling blasts whistled around our dwelling, and everything seemed
sealed up with perpetual frost, the ice and snow would be smoking around
the spring. Thus, like a steady stream, let your graces flow, unaffected
by the drought or barrenness of others, melting the icy hearts around
you.

This "_living water_," in the soul, is intended to represent the
indwelling of the Holy Spirit. In the new birth, there is formed a holy
union between the Spirit of God and the faculties of the soul, so that
every correct feeling, with every good act, is produced by the Holy
Spirit acting in unison with those faculties. Hence, our bodies are
called the temple of the Holy Ghost, and he is said to dwell in us. What
a solemn truth! What holy fear and carefulness ought we to feel
continually; and how softly should we walk before the Lord of Hosts!

"The righteous," says David, "shall flourish like a palm-tree; he shall
_grow_ like a cedar in Lebanon." But if the cedar should cease to grow
as soon as it springs up, it would never become a tree. It must wither
and die.--Again; it is sa