tality, shows that it sustains other than earthly relations, and is destined to another, and a nobler, than any earthly end, then the Bible becomes a new book, and its disclosures assume an aspect of wonderfulness and an interest they never had before.

The change cannot be surprising in view of analogous changes which are continually occurring among men. It is by no means an uncommon thing for a man to be arrested in a career of sensuality and crime, and to put on new forms of character, and exhibits a spirit heaven-wide of that which before belonged to him. It has resulted mainly from the perceived inconsistency between the course he has been pursuing, and the relations he sustains, and the end for which he is destined; and you can understand how the apprehension of these relations, and of this end, to which formerly he was completely blinded, throws a new aspect over every thing, causes him to see things he never saw before, and brings him under influences to which he had been previously a stranger. It has been perhaps, an awakened sense of duty, or some influence which has laid a spell upon his master passion, so that he has been brought to think; and as he has thought, he has felt what he is, what he should be, what he might be, and there has been the commencement of a new and a better life. Somewhat analogous to this case is that of the subject of the office-work of the Holy Ghost. As it is with the wind which bloweth where it listeth, of the action of which we are informed only by its effects, so with the Spirit of God. His modes are various, His means are multiform. Sometimes conscience is awakened, and the first dawnings of light are seen in a sense of danger and of guilt; sometimes there is a gentle whisper to the soul in solitude; sometimes there is a peculiar power coming from the word of God in the Sabbath assembly. Sometimes, there is an effective sense of the vanity of the world, learnt from frequent disappointments, and the felt necessity of something better than an earthly portion. The mode is immaterial, the effect is the thing to be considered, and that effect in the first instance is found in destroying, or at least. holding spell-bound, some controlling earthly passion or carnal desire, so that the mind sees things as they are, life wears its own serious hue, the relations of the spirit stand out in their importance to view, and the testimonies of the Bible bearing upon these relations, all have a new aspect, and bring home truths, which often as they had been heard by the hearing of the ear, were never yet apprehended by the mind. The influence of the Holy Ghost as a spirit of light, is not in itself a mysterious influence, however inexplicable it may be in the mode of its action. Its effects demonstrate its reality, as much as the results of the hurricane demonstrate the reality of the wind, though concerning it we can tell neither "whence it cometh nor whither it goeth."

In speaking of this agency however, let us be guarded against the extravagance of which some men have been guilty, in supposing that the office of the Spirit is to make new revelations to the mind. His influence, we apprehend, as a spirit of light, is but to make plain revelations which are already upon record. Our condition as those who live under the light of the gospel, is not that of a heathen, who is searching after God, if haply he may find him—not that of one who has heard no voice of the Deity except that which is echoed from the visible creation. We have a revelation. God has spoken to us, unfolding every thing it is needful for us to know, in order that we may guide our steps aright, and lay hold upon the hope of the future. We have not to say who shall ascend into heaven for us?-who shall go over the sea for us?" The word is nigh us. Here is the book containing God's revelation, and the question is, can we understand it so as to perceive the reality and power of its truths? To give us this understanding is the precise work of the Spirit. His agency does not consist in revealing unwritten truths, but in bringing to our minds distinctly that which is already written. The influence of the morning sun as it clears the atmosphere, and brings distant objects to view, does not terminate upon the objects, but upon the medium through which we look at them. They had the same reality, their outline was as clearly defined, before the shades were scattered as now that the darkness of night has vanished. The telescope does not give to that distant star its brightness; the microscope does not people an atom with its busy tenantry-they only help our vision to discover them. The sun in his glory, is no more a reality than the star inaccessible to our unassisted organs; the plumage of the bird of paradise is no more sparkling than the imperceptible down upon an insect's wing. The difference is, we have an eye for the one, and not for the other. The objects which God has crowded into the domain of revelation; the spiritualities of our existence; the interests and occupations of an unseen world, are as real, as the things which we see around us-the events which are taking place in a world of sense, and the interests and occupations of our temporal existence which absorb our thoughts. But carnal prejudice, and the mists of worldly passion, the pride and self-sufficiency natural to the heart prevent our perception of them, and the Spirit of God, when he comes to discharge his office-work, does but take the truths which He has Himself indited, and show them to the soul. He does not bring them as new revelations, but He so influences the mind and heart, that the affections no longer blind the understanding, that there is beauty, and there is glory seen where all before was "without form and comeliness;" and the man who sits down to the study of the Bible, rises from it again wondering not more at what he has discovered upon its pages, than at the fact that he has so often heard, but

never understood, so often read, but never perceived. Such is the agency of the Holy Spirit, when He descends to enlighten the mind in the things of God.

Of the reality of this agency, and its absolute necessity in order to any thing like spiritual apprehension, we can never have too distinct or firmly settled ideas. We do not mean to depreciate the value of any of the external evidences of truth. We admit their importance, nay, their indispensableness; but then let us not forget, that the letter of the Bible to which these outward evidences relate, is a vastly different thing from the spirit of the Bible, which nothing but the agency of the Holy Ghost can reveal. The perception of spiritual things themselves, the faith which gives them an actual subsistence to the mind, and an actual power over the heart, is a very different thing from that assent of the understanding which is given to a logical and well arranged demonstration of their reality. I may have a full intellectual conviction of the truth of a particular statement, while the subject-matter of the statement itself may be without interest, if indeed it has any reality to my mind. Now it is not the simple perception of the fact that this Bible is the word of God, which constitutes the evidence of spiritual light; but the perception of the meaning itself of the Bible, and a felt, deep, effective interest in its communications; and this is the result only of the influence of the Holy Ghost.

Upon this influence, as promised by Jesus Christ to his disciples, is dependent the success of the gospel in the world. Aside from this, resting upon the minds of the apostles, they had never put forth any intelligent, and well-directed efforts to accomplish their Master's designs, and except as it accompanied their preaching, all their labors must have been fruitless.

What was true of the apostolical age, is equally true of our own. No mere exhibition of truth, no outward means or appliances, no system of external instrumentality, however wisely constructed and faithfully used, can, independently of this direct and special agency of the Holy Ghost, avail to build up the kingdom of Christ, or change a human being from a carnal into a spiritual man. This idea seems to be interwoven in all God's arrangements for our world. We cannot look over the history of the past, without perceiving how in every process, through which great spiritual results have been brought about, God has shown Himself exceedingly jealous of His own honor; how in compassing His ends, He has not selected any complicated or costly apparatus, such as human wisdom might pronounce competent, but has used feeble and apparently insufficient means, to develope the most glorious issues. The divine supremacy in the spiritual world, the nothingness of man in contrast with the sufficiency of God, are seen everywhere throughout the gospel; and when

its dispensation shall be finished, because its results shall have been developed, then shall the new heavens and the new earth, which are to rise upon the ruins of the old, illustrate in their every part this grand truth, "not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, saith the Lord of Hosts."

A distinct perception and belief of this truth, a felt and controlling sense of dependence upon God's special influence, constitutes in our apprehension, a barometer to indicate the state of the spiritual atmosphere in any particular locality or association. The state of religion in any community, the vigor of Christian character and effort, the success of the gospel in accomplishing its purposes is to be estimated, not by any outward show, not by the number of outward formalities, not by any variety or extent of outward means, nor yet by appearances of great external prosperity; but by an effective pervading sense of absolute dependence upon the special agency of the Holy Ghost, as promised by the Father.

We apprehend that "the signs of the times," the indications in this way furnished, of the state of our own spiritual atmosphere, are far from being favorable. Not that the doctrine before us has been expunged from the creed of any class, in evangelical Christendom, nor that any who make pretensions to evangelical religion, deny the necessity of the special influences of the Holy Spirit in the conversion and sanctification of the soul; and yet we should be blind indeed to events which are transpiring all around us, if we did not see evidences of a disposition sometimes to invest second causes with efficiency, sometimes to explain the supernatural results of the Spirit's agency upon natural principles-in either case, to render doubtful, or dim, the necessity of a special spiritual influence, or reduce the office-work of the Holy Ghost to the exertion of a power in the spiritual world, not different in its nature, from that which God exerts in the natural world, upholding, directing, and controlling all things in all places of his dominions.

Now it strikes us that the early history of Christianity presents scenes, fatal in their influence to every theory which fails to bring in as their exponent a special power from on high. We know not where we shall look for a greater apparent disproportion between means and ends-a more wondrous and magnificent issue, resulting from such feeble and insignificant causes, than is presented in the preaching and its effects, of the first propagators of our faith. Take your position on some eminence overlooking the scene, where the first disciples of the Redeemer made their onset upon the world. It was the golden age-the age of all that was commanding and elevating in civilization, all that was vigorous in philosophy, and all that was beautiful in the arts. The relics of those days clearly show a wonderful enlargement of the

human mind, and attainments, serving in many respects to eclipse the boasted glory of succeeding generations. It was an age too, when religion exercised an unbounded sway; a religion indeed, of idolatry and superstition, and yet of such commanding influence as to pervade and give a cast to all governmental arrangements. It was an age when human pride was at its height, and human sensuality was rampant, when if human wisdom and human policy and human strength, had done their utmost, still human nature in a moral point of view, was deeply depressed. Against this mighty combination of philosophy and power, and sensuality and pride, Christianity arrayed itself. It could advance only by showing the folly of human wisdom, only by neutralizing human power, only by securing the crucifixion of human lust, only by trampling down human altars, and planting upon their ruins the standard of the cross. And by what means is such a result to be secured? In what way are the moral wastes of the world to be reclaimed? How is a transforming element to be infused into this mass of ignorance, and pride, superstition, and sensuality and an influence to be brought to bear upon human character, which like the power of a magician's wand, shall charm the proud into the humble, the sensual into the spiritual, the superstitious devotee into the intelligent worshipper of the living and true God? The only instrumentality which human wisdom would pronounce at all competent to such a result, or to any degree in keeping with an enterprise so magnificent, must be that of men to whom impossibilities are unknown, men of wondrous energies and power of endurance, men perfectly equipped at all points with skill and learning, and prepared to grapple with all the mighty principalities of evil. Now upon the supposition that the gospel was to achieve its results by mere human agency, such reasoning would be perfectly correct. But God, as though He would set at nought all human calculation, and give a decisive demonstration of the reality of the special influences of the Holy Spirit, constructed all His arrangements upon a principle directly the opposite. The men who, at the first establishment of Christianity, entered the lists to contend with the philosophy and learning, the pride, the superstition and sensuality of the world, were to human appearance, of all men least calculated to meet the exigencies which had called them forth. To an eye of carnal wisdom, the primitive apostles, deficient in early training and accomplishments, lacking in physical courage and energy, seem, as they go out in their insignificance to contend with the wise and the mighty, little better than a band of daring and desperate enthusiasts. Yet mark the issue. The effect of their instrumentality upon every thing which opposed the kingdom of the Redeemer, was like an effect upon the earth when an earthquake stirs it. Every thing gave way before it.