taken away the sin of the world, gave His Holy Spirit, full of grace and truth and tender human love, to abide with His redeemed ones evermore.

May we not say then that the Indwelling crowns the Incarnation by giving it universality and perpetuity? When the Spirit takes possession of the hearts of Christ's people, is not God manifest in them? The Apostle Paul at all events does not hesitate to put it so: "I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me;" and again, speaking in the name of all true believers: "We are members of His body, of His flesh, and of His bones." And from this point of view we see a new light in those words of the Saviour in reference to the coming of the Comforter: "At that day ye shall know that I am in the Father, and ye in Me, and I in you." This was a knowledge which the saints of old had not at all. Nor did the disciples of Christ reach it in the days of His flesh. It was with the greatest difficulty that they could rise even to a vague conception of the truth that He was in the Father, and they had as yet no experience of being in Him, and He in them. But to those who have received the Spirit it is a matter of familiar knowledge. Not that they understand these mysterious relations; but that they know them as facts of experience. As the Apostle John puts it: "We know that the Son of God is come, and hath given us an understanding, that we may know Him that is true, and we are in Him that is true, even in His Son Jesus Christ." The illustration of the vine and the branches comes home as a shadow of the true vine and its branches-they in Him by faith as the branch is in the vine from which it draws its life, He in them by His Spirit as the sap of the vine stalk is in the branch through which it flows. As there

was a "body of Jesus" in which the Spirit of God dwelt on earth, so there is a "body of Christ," * embracing all who believe in Him throughout the wide world, in which the Spirit of Christ dwells. The Indwelling of the Spirit is, so to speak, the diffusion of the Incarnation, the consummation of which will be reached when "we all come in the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ."

* These expressions are never used as synonyms in Scripture. The first always means the natural, the second always the mystical, body.

X.

ELEMENTAL EMBLEMS OF THE SPIRIT.

AIR-WATER-FIRE.

ACCORDING to the Ancients, there were four elements

-Earth, Water, Air, Fire. These formed an ascending scale, from Earth (which stood for all that was heavy, gross, dark-in a word, "earthy") to Fire, which seemed a thing of Heaven. Water and Air held an intermediate position between Earth and Fire, but had their associations with the higher rather than the lower. Earth alone was positively gross. All the rest were refined, and had, moreover, refining and purifying power. Water was much less gross in texture than Earth, more mobile, more alive, and had, besides, the power of giving to Earth whatever life it had; for waterless earth is always desert. Then, it was pure, except where Earth mixed with it and stained it; and it had the beneficent power of washing earthstains away.

Air, again, was still more refined than Water, lighter, more ethereal, more mobile; invigorating, fresh, pure, except when charged with earthy particles-soot, or smoke, or dust, or something foreign to its native purity; and then it was specially associated with life-for man lives in the Air and by the Air, and only when he is ready for the grave, does Earth receive him to itself. Fire, as we have said, was highest of all. It seemed a thing of

Heaven come to Earth. Hence the old theory of Prometheus stealing fire from Heaven-a fable which, like many of its kind, is more than fable for is not the Fire element heavenly in its origin as none of the others are? Our water, and our air even, are our own, all contained within earth's envelope or sphere; but our light and heat, our fire, comes to us from another orb, far away; is stolen, as it were, from Heaven. And this is even truer than it seems, as science has made plain by teaching us that the hidden fires of coal and all inflammable substances are "imprisoned sunbeams" of long ago. See, too, how much of the heavenly nature is in this Fire element. It shines. with its own light, it is full of life and action-life and action not given to it, as when you throw a stone or set a stream of water running down a slope, but life and action which seem to come out of its own being; and see how it diffuses the warmth and light of Heaven through the darkness and cold of Earth; and, while all other things tend downward, it always soars, as if struggling to get back to its native Heaven.

We know, of course, that these old world ideas were not scientifically correct; but there was, and there is, a great deal in them. They give at least phenomenal truth; and they are full of poetry, which is, after all, deepest truth; and, so looked at, they help us to appreciate the wealth of Scripture imagery, especially in relation to the Holy Spirit and His cleansing, quickening, and refining power. Man as a sinner is "of the earth, earthy -dull, heavy, dark, dead. God's Spirit comes to him like water, like the wind, like fire (for these are the three great symbols of the Spirit; the others are subordinate to these, as, for example, the oil which feeds fire, or the dove which is the visible embodiment of the light and air-like visitation of the Spirit), bringing life, and purity,

and refinement, and all good things, from the heavenly sphere. Earth, dark as it is, and dead as it is when left to itself, is yet stored with abundance of life germs, remaining dormant and to all appearance quite dead till "the scent of water makes them bud;" and then up into the air they grow; on it and by the water they feed, every leaf a lung, and every rootlet a mouth, while by the grace of light and heat they come to lovely flower and luscious fruit. Is there not a whole world of wealth of poetic imagery in these old elemental emblems? little more than show the way to some of it.

We can do

I. Let us begin with the wind or the AIR, as the first and simplest-first, for the very word for "Spirit" in the language of the Bible, as in almost all languages, means breath, or air; and simplest, as containing the most elementary conceptions of the Spirit's person and work, and therefore used by our Lord in giving to Nicodemus his first conception of the higher things of the new dispensation. At first, indeed, it seems disappointingly negative in its suggestions. Air cannot be seen, it cannot be felt, and when you seem to hear it coming as wind, it is only "the sound thereof," it is known only by its effects; and then it "bloweth where it listeth," having apparently no law but its own arbitrary will; and 'thou canst not tell whence it cometh or whither it goeth"-all negative and disappointing-it starts in the unknown, it leads to the unknown, its ways are unknown, it is itself unknown; it is all unknown, unknown; must we then be Agnostics, and have nothing to do with it?

But we cannot. Notwithstanding all its mystery, there it is, and we cannot get away from it. Though we do not see it, and even when we do not feel it, it is all about us, in close relation to us, and our very life depends on it. It is true we are in the habit of treating it as if it were