Page:Sermon at the Church Congress 1902.djvu/13

9 feature of a true Christian life; that money spent without a careful setting apart of a proportion for God and the poor; Lord's Day habits which leave the spirit unrefreshed and take no account of labour caused to others; no method about Bible-reading or meditation; no rules or habits of bodily self-denial; no mortification of flesh or spirit; the things of the higher life left to chance or impulse, which means, of course, leaving them to be devoured by the wayward devices and the engrossing occupations—all this together goes to make a state in which the word and work of the Lord in us cannot have free course and be glorified; a state of soul and of Church which shines with no unearthly light and fatally lacks the power of the regeneration.

Here again each may do something, and each is bound to do it. The privileges of the life of God within us is an awful thing. It has a touch of fire. To be named spiritual men (and it is the calling of every one of us to be so named) is something to abash us to the earth when we think of what we are. "Quicken Thou us, O Lord, according to Thy Word."

And the last thing, as you will guess, is charity, or shall I say service. For God is Love, and more and more we realize that only where love is can God work; that love prompts sacrifice and controls it into sweet, wholesome, and helpful forms. There is so much, so frightfully much, that wants doing for human life and for the poor, and the love of God working in us alone makes zeal; there is so much need for stooping, for coming down to do it, and the love of God in us alone makes humility; there is so much call for every Christian to show the spirit of service, and nothing can prompt and sustain them in doing so but the grace of Him Who took the form of a servant and was among us as He that serveth. For He was all love, and as in Him the patient stooping, victorious love of God found and formed its perfect instrument, so His Spirit, stoops still to sheathe and incarnate love in human souls, and to work out, through them, the work of His Love.

Let us plead continually for some fresh rush and sweep of this zealous, stooping, serving love through the whole body of the Church in this easy, shallow, selfish time. It is in this above all else that we would have Him "raise up His power and come and help us, and with great might succour us." Then would controversies be changed into that which they ought to be, and appear as differences of spiritual insight among men joined together in the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God; then out of Christian families would young men and maidens come forth abundantly for every needed ministry; then out of England's enormous wealth would the faith of her Church's sons unlock treasures of liberal and costly giving for the support of the ministry, and for the attack upon the vast tasks of evangelization in her towns; then would spiritual forces of faith and love bring low the mountains of difficulty which face