understand. Give it to him in the letter, and he can do it. He wants a map of the operations of the Holy Spirit.

"Are you a teacher of Israel, and do not know this?" replies Jesus. "The whole Old Testament is full of this inspiration; full of the Spirit of God coming and going, in a thousand ways, and not by any special rule or method; going as the wind comes and goes in the sky, we do not know whence or how." It is well that some things cannot be ar ranged beforehand-well that no almanac can tell if the wind to-morrow is to be east or west, north or south.

I sit in the sweet autumn woods. I see the squirrel leap from branch to brauch. I hear the woodpecker tapping the trunk with sagacious beak, watching when the sound shall indicate that a worm has hidden himself below the bark. All else is calm and still. I look up and see the white clouds drifting through the deep ocean of blue above. Then there comes a sudden shiver through the tree-tops, a sprinkling of dry leaves on the grass, a whisper, a rush of air; and now every tree is swinging its branches in the breeze.

So is every one that is born of the Spirit! God comes to us all in these uncalculated, incalculable ways. He moves our conscience by the light of loyalty and fidelity in another soul. There comes through all the land a fresh breeze of justice and right, and all at once we feel that we ought to lead better lives, more mauly, more true. There comes a revival of honesty, as well as of piety. Yesterday you did not care for it; now you do. God's holy air of truth and right is sweeping through the land. We all arise and say, "No matter what our fathers consented to; no matter what we have consented to in past times; we will have no more compromises with evil and sin, no more concessions to tyranny and cruelty." When this spirit comes to a nation, or to a community, it is as much a revival sent by God, as the reformation of Luther, or the reformation of Wesley.

Jesus means to teach us here that the Spirit of God comes

in a great many different ways, comes unexpected and unforeseen, comes unapparent as the invisible air. So came the reformation of Luther. Luther did not mean to make a reformation, or to build a new Church.*

All recollect the story of the Quaker, George Fox, how he went from Church to Church, and got no good, and at last opened his soul to God, and was led by the Spirit into new and strange thoughts and purposes, and became a reformer, and founder of a denomination, unintentionally. And so the Quaker movement came-the most radical reform which ever sprang up in the Christian Church. It abolished the ministry and sacraments, baptism, and the Lord's supper. It reformed the theology of Christendom, putting the inner light above the written words. It reformed life, opposing war, oaths, slavery, and fashion. And as it came, so is it passing away, having done its work. As the breeze dies softly, and the leaves cease to glitter in the sunlight, and the red leaf on the topmost twig, far up in the sky, leaves off its airy dance, and at last hangs motionless, so the wild air which stirred in the depths of all hearts dies away in silence, and old opinions and old customs resume their places, yet all purified and changed. Only those which were so wholly dead that the wind blew them entirely away, are gone forever.

So are the changes which come in human hearts, we know not whence or how. It is a great mistake in the Church to have a stereotyped experience, to which all must conform. Procrustes only lopped the limbs to suit the measure of his bed; but these rules and moulds for the spiritual life, cut down the new man, who is made by God's Spirit, to the earthly standard of some narrow stunted experience of other times. This it is "to grieve the Spirit," and to "quench the Spirit.'

* Luther, in his "Table-talk," says of his preaching against the pope, and the enormous labors it entailed, "If I had known then what I now know of the difficulty of the task, ten horses should not have drawn me to it." "At that time Dr. Jerome withstood me, and said, 'What will you do? They will not endure it.' But said I, 'What if they must endure it?'"

For God's Spirit goes everywhere, and where it goes it produces the best evidence of Christianity in sweet, holy, Christian lives. It is the wind which blows where it will, which does not run on a railroad through the sky, or stop at any particular stations in the clouds, or go by any time-table. God's Spirit comes and goes not according to any rules of ours. The publicans and sinners have it, and show it, sometimes, instead of the Scribes and Pharisees. For so the apostle declares that there are "differences of operation, but the same Spirit."

Sometimes you see a hard man, a man of the world, who has been fighting his way through life, till he has come to rely wholly on himself, and feels like some of those rocky reefs which stand out in the sea on our New England coast, and have borne the onset of a thousand storms. Yet at last he is softened. We see it, we feel it. There is a strange softness in his tone, a gentleness in his manner, a suspicion of moisture in his eye. The good God has been moving in his heart; perhaps it was by some trial or disappointment, or the loss of some curly-headed darling, who went up to heaven, and left the doors open behind, so that the joyful music which welcomed her came down to his ears and touched his soul.

When men see that, they say, "Well, there is something in religion, after all, if it can touch such a heart as his." Sometimes we see a Christian who is at first all conscience, all work. Religion means to him, doing his duty. He intends to be a Christian, and wishes others to be so. But it is a piece of hard work. His Christianity reminds one of the poor woman who thought it "a chore to live." But after a while, we see a change-very gradual, but still very certain. He is beginning to get acquainted with the gospel side of Christianity. He learns to forgive himself his own sins, and so he can forgive others. His face begins to reflect more and more of heaven. It is the change which comes to

the grapes in October. Perhaps you have some Catawba grapes on the south side of your house, and they grow very nicely all through the summer. They are good, large grapes, well formed, good clusters, but very sour. But by and by there comes the final change; the juice grows sweet within the berry. There is but a very little difference in its appearance, but a very great change within.

When we see this alteration in a man, we say, "There is surely something in Christianity to produce such a change. Why, what a very sweet Christian he has grown to be! It took all the summer and part of the fall to do the work; but no matter. God is not in a hurry. Some fruit ripens sooner, and some later; that is all.

I looked up from my table as I wrote these words, and saw from my window a tulip tree and a maple, each dressed in its royal robes of beauty- the gift of the declining year; the green leaves of the one touched with gold, and the other with its crimson and scarlet glories. They were full of sunlight, and made the whole landscape glad and gay. No Tyrian loom could rival the purple splendors and deep crimson of these trees. Why does God give all this varied beauty to the October woods, so that Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these oaks or maples? Is not this also to touch our hearts with a sense of his love? An autumn ride is also a means of grace; quite as much so, perhaps, as a tract or sermon. If we see God in nature, then nature may also be the source of a new birth to us.

"One impulse from the autumn wood

May teach us more of man,

Of moral evil and of good,

Than all the sages can."

What I understand Jesus, then, to teach in this passage, is, that we must become as little children, in order to see heavenly things; that, like new-born babes, we must receive meekly the milk of the word of God; that spiritual influences

are all around us, invisible - incalculable: that not by the regular outward means of religion alone, but by a thousand other ways, God comes to us. He means that we should believe in the presence and nearness of God's Spirit always; that we should open our hearts and minds to be led by it into truth and love. He meant the very opposite of what he has been made to mean. He did not mean that all souls must pass through one and the same religious experience, but that, as the wind blows a thousand ways, so God's Spirit comes to the heart by a thousand ways. So coming, it makes the hard heart tender, the rude will gentle, the selfish soul generous, gives the reckless a new sense of responsibility. Jesus means that we should not be discouraged because we find it hard to correct our faults, or to enter into God's love. God's Spirit comes to us when we cannot go to find it. God's love comes into our hearts when we long for it, look for it, wait for it.

Look up, then, poor trembling heart; look up, and see God near. Look up, hard heart, and feel the soft showers of divine grace coming down to make everything tender, Look up, and be made new creatures, become as little children, be born anew, every day, into a fresh inspiration, faith, and hope; and so enter every day the kingdom of heaven!

§ 12. Evidences of Regeneration.—The common Orthodox method is to require and expect evidence of the Christian change. As we have already said, a Christian is expected to know and to be able to tell when, where, and under what circumstances he entered into the new life.

But, perhaps, the preliminary question is, Ought we to have, and can we have, any evidence at all of the new life? And to this question many reply in the negative, and with very good reason.

The new life is a hidden life; a "life hid with Christ in God." Its essence is love, and love is an inward sentiment, not an outward act. Conviction demands utterance; actions