before it and quickening it. "We are laborers together with God." Man's Christian work, in every part and aspect of it, is accordant with the truth which the whole work of redemption expresses: "We love him, because he first loved us."

1. The first characteristic is spontaneity. Paul was thus actuated: "Whereunto I labor, striving according to his working, which worketh in me mightily." Here is a wonderful accumulation of the strongest Greek words, expressing the intensity of the apostle's action, and the intensity of the Spirit's energy in him quickening the apostle's action: "Whereunto I labor to exhaustion, agonizing, according to his energy energizing in me with might." As if driven by a resistless impulse, he says: "The love of Christ constraineth us"; "Necessity is laid upon me; yea, woe is unto me, if I preach not the gospel."

This zeal is a fire kindled fresh from heaven, enveloping the soul, like the burning bush, ever burning, never consumed. It does not lead its subjects to announce the marvellous work which they are about to do as if a reformation could be manufactured to order. They do their great deeds in unconsciousness, because their zeal for truth and right, their love to God and man compel. The greatest works in the kingdom of grace, like the majestic movements of the heavens, are marked by stillness, and reveal themselves by their effects. They come up, like the sun, and reveal themselves by their own light.

Luther did not set out to work the Protestant Reformation. In the outset he did not even see the reformation needed. He simply followed the leadings of the Spirit; and before he was aware, behold, the Reformation.

The first settlers of New England exemplify the same truth. It was no expectation of founding an empire, of being enrolled among the benefactors of mankind, "all of them princes to look to," which brought them hither. With hearts yearning for dear old England they came, impelled by the fear of God and the purpose to worship him according

to the dictates of their own consciences. When we see the pilgrims hunting, fishing, digging, suffering, we cannot separate their acts from the glory which has followed; we think of them as acting consciously in the presence of posterity and the foresight of the glorious future. But, in fact, they were buried in a wilderness at the ends of the earth; and as to their future, their concern was, that it should not be to perish by savages or by starvation. Theirs was the stern and suffering toil of poverty, disease, and hardship in every form; and the glory which shone into their unglazed cabins was the glory of Calvary and of heaven. And had it been otherwise, if, instead of this simple and sublime obedience to the Spirit, they had lived in the foresight of their fame, boasting of the greatness of their mission, — they would not have been the Christian heroes that they were, and the pigmies of this self-conscious age would point at them, and cry: "Art thou, also, become weak as we? thou become like unto us?"

Art

Thus history teaches that the power of God, working mightily in the human heart, is the spring of all abiding spiritual power; that it is only as men are constrained by the energy of the inward spiritual life that they do great things for God. It is the spirit of Gordon Hall, who was determined to work his passage to Asia, if he could not go otherwise. It is the spirit which impelled Newell and Judson to create an organization to send them out, when no organization had existed. . It is the spirit which moved the Macedonian Christians, who, not waiting to be solicited, sought out an agency through which to expend their gifts, "praying us with much entreaty that we would receive the gift, and take upon us the fellowship of the ministering to the saints."

It is remarkable, in Christ's conception of his kingdom, that he expects the abiding presence of God's Spirit, quickening men to spiritual life; he expects that the enthusiasm of devotedness to God and self-sacrificing love to man, and of fidelity to truth and duty, will be undying powers in

human history, overpowering selfishness and inspiring men to toil and self-denial for others. On these abiding spiritual forces he throws himself without reserve.

This enthusiasm has shown itself a power in the world in all the progress of Christianity. They miserably mistake who calculate the courses and issues of human action with the recognition only of the forces of selfishness, and overlooking the power of the Spirit and the forces of the spiritual life.

2. A second characteristic is the prominence given to the individual as distinguished from the organization. This follows from what has already been said of the prominence of the individual in the constitution of the church.

Isaac Taylor says: "The influence of individual men seems to have ceased almost to make itself felt. The course of events and the progress of opinion is the tide-wave of a mighty ocean, in relation to which the very mention of individual agency would sound like a mockery." This opinion grows out of naturalism-the doctrine that man is but a necessary development of nature. It can never harmonize with Christianity, which always depends on the faith, love, and enterprise of individuals whose hearts God has touched. And it is not a fact. Let a Paul arise to-day, and he will wield Paul's power. It is as true to-day as it was in Paul's day, as true in America as it was in Palestine, that a soul filled with God's Spirit will be mighty through him. The contrary opinion, born of naturalism, is the antagonist of faith and the destroyer of courage and enterprise. We talk sorrowfully of the Elijahs, who once moved the world. Where are the Elishas, who call on the Lord God of Elijah, and divide the waters? Oh for the power of God's Spirit to turn the hearts of his people from looking fearfully one to another for help, from trusting to outward machinery," sacrificing to their net and burning incense to their drag," and to inspire them with personal zeal and enterprise in Christ's work. Great periods and great men have the imprint of the divine seal, and prove God present on

the earth. If we despair of their reappearance, we despair of Christianity. If we suppose that organization and association alone are left us in their place, we suppose that God has abandoned us to our own devices, and that life and growth have given place to mechanism.

It may be objected that we cannot expect every year to be an epoch, and the whole of life to glow with enthusiasm. This is true; yet Christianity accomplishes something like this. It inspires every soul with the faith and love which are the springs of heroism, and ennobles the most commonplace life with consecration, aspiration, and loving service like Christ's.

who

It may be objected that the office of a settled pastor is widely different from that of a prophet. This is true. God has in every age prophetic spirits quickened by the Holy Ghost to declare God's wrath against specific sins, and to call his churches to new thoughts and new duties cannot be expected to confine themselves to any professional routine. Yet every minister and every Christian is a witness for God, called and qualified to testify for God's truth and righteousness, and to stand against the world, the flesh, and the devil.

Every Christian, therefore, is to act in his individuality. He must attempt great things, and expect great things." One secret of the success of the apostolic church was this spirit of individual love and responsibility. When scattered by persecution, they went everywhere preaching the word. Like Michael's angels, fighting against Satan,

"Each on himself relied,

As only in his arm the moment lay

Of victory."

Such a spirit is essential to success. Pervaded by it, "how should one chase a thousand, and two put ten thousand to flight." Then the hosts of God's people, in their organized and associated assaults on the kingdom of Satan, would be like the angelic army,

Though numbered such

As each divided legion might have seemed

A numerous host; in strength each armed hand
A legion."

Without this fire of heaven in individual hearts, associations will be powerless as burning-glasses which concentrate moonbeams.

3. Christianity opens spheres of action adapted to the peculiar proclivity and capacity of every Christian.

Carlyle exclaims: "Blessed is the man who has found his work." And, since man's blessedness is realized not in receiving, so much as in giving; not in indulgence, but in work, blessed indeed is the man who has found a work in which he is conscious that all his faculties are putting themselves forth in their full activity, and all his tastes and aptitudes are fully met.

Every situation, indeed, will bring its chagrins which must be swallowed in silence, and its drudgery which must be toiled through with patience. The world has no patience with the weakling who fills the air with complaints of the hardness and disagreeableness of his work, and especially no patience with complaining and disconsolate ministers. Learn to burn your own smoke, and not pour it forth to make the atmosphere sooty and choking to all around you.

Man is greater than his profession. He is many-sided, many-handed. If one pursuit is not open to him, he can adapt himself to another. Yet the most effective work is that in which the man can most joyfully engage, and in which is consciously satisfied the radical and irrepressible impulse to put forth all his powers in action, and to push forth on every side to the utmost compass of his being.

This adaptation of the individual to his work Christianity permits. Since the Christian work is so broad, since every sphere of human life is to be purified and consecrated to God, there is scope for the highest Christian service to every variety of talent and in every sphere of life. Christianity has great breadth, compass, and flexibility. Its spirit is one