to swell and unfold this triune promise into the universality and strength required for its own happy fulfilment?

Simply the prevalence of a full experimental union with Jesus by a full trust in his name.

Our union of the future is not to be one merely of convenience or interest, or necessity, to accomplish the work given us to do; but the union of heart and soul, vital as the union of the several members of one's own body. And our activity is not to be that of excitements and occasions, or of the pressure of duty merely, but the increased activity which comes from increased vitality. Life within-life more abundant must be the sustaining power and central spring of the increased life without. And our spirituality will be made full by the full indwelling presence and power of the Spirit of God.

We need, therefore, to turn attention increasingly to the higher form of Christian experience. Not by any means to lose sight of conversion, but rather to press it more urgently than ever upon the attention of the world; but not as the all in all-not as the stopping place of the Christian, or as introducing the convert into all the fulness of the blessings of the gospel of peace.

Suppose Luther had been content to rest where he was when he first found the forgiveness of his sins in the convent at Erfurth, and had not pressed on until he found also the way of full justificaiion,

including sanctification from sin. What would have been the result?

Simply that he might have remained a monk, after all, to the end of his days, and the Reformation untouched by him to the last. It was the final, full experience of the way of salvation by faith, into which the Lord introduced him on Pilate's staircase at Rome, and not his conversion at Erfurth, merely, that made him the reformer he was. And D'Aubigne. Suppose he, too, had never passed beyond the first great stage of his experience, but remained to the end where he was during the years after his conversion at Geneva, and before his second conversion at the inn-room in Kiel; where now had been his great work, the History of the Reformation, and other like works, bearing the stamp of his faith as well as the stamp of his genius? Unwritten, unwritten; every word of them unwritten.

Two books,* of very great value and of deservedly wide circulation may their circulation be a hundred fold greater- have been recently given to the public. In both, the experience of Luther is professedly given, and truly as far as they go. And in one, also, that of D'Aubigne. But in each instance the narrative stops short with conversion, leaving in each the after and deeper experience untold, without

*Narratives of Remarkable Conversions, Conant. Derby & Jackson, N. Y. The Divine Life, Kennedy. Parry & McMillan, Philadelphia; Presbyterian Board.

so much as an allusion, even. The after and deeper experience, without which neither the one or the other would have been qualified by the faith of Jesus in its fulness, or the light of the gospel in its power, for the work and the mission so happily and so nobly fulfilled by them.

The same thing is true, also, of Baxter and Hewitson and others whose conversions are narrated in the two volumes referred to, but Luther and D'Aubigne are singled out because both of their exalted position in the regards of the church, of every name in every land, and also, and especially, of the ample distinctness of their own narrations of their own experiences, in the second great stage as well as the first; and because also of the illustration, peculiarly impressive, in their cases, that the second experience is the indispensable requisite of power to glorify God in the highest degree, by witnessing for Jesus in the fullest, freest, boldest, clearest manner.

This omission is very significant. One of the straws showing the drift of the popular current. It indicates a great historical fact and phase of the present, and a glorious one it is only less glorious than the more excellent phase of the future. It shows the profound absorption of the mind and heart of the church in the matter of conversion.

But then does it not also show the almost equally profound forgetfulness of the deeper experience exemplified by these great and good men, their second conversion?

BAPTISM OF FIRE.

This ought not so to be must not be so.

237

The key note of pulpit and press now for a hundred years, and the clarion note as well-sounding out so loud and clear as to rule every other into the harmonious line with itself on the theological staff has been the new birth. May it never lose one particle of its clarion clearness. Rather let it be sounded out a thousand fold louder and clearer than ever until it shall reach every ear, and every heart in the world, thrilling them with its heavenly power.

But then, in the baptism of John, are we to forget the baptism of Jesus? In the new birth shall we forget the deeper power of Pentecost? In the regeneration by water and the Spirit shall we lose sight of the deeper regeneration by fire and the Spirit?

The new birth is indeed a reality and a blessed one, an experience and an indispensable one, and may it be urged in all the burning, convincing power of the spirit of Elias. So also is the baptism of the Holy Ghost a reality and a more glorious one. Let it be also urged in the spirit and power of the apostles.

The disciples of Jesus needed and received the promise of the Father upon them, conferring the power to be effectual witnesses for Jesus in the introduction of the gospel in its fulness into the world? Do we not need, shall we not receive the same blessed promise in all the fulness of its plena

ry power

the miraculous only excepted-for the struggle of its final victory and the introduction of its glorious fulfilment in the world?

But a case so plain is only weakened by arguments, as if arguments were needed to establish it, when, in fact, it is self-evident at a glance.

One illustration of the power and blessedness of full salvation may suffice to close this chapter, and this part of our discussion.

A better might be looked for in vain than the following parable from life, of

THE JUDGE AND THE POOR AFRICAN WOMAN.

In one of the populous and beautiful towns on the banks of "La Belle Riviere," the Ohio, there dwelt and for aught I know, dwells now a just judge, honorable in life as well as in title; and also a poor lone African woman, long since gone to her crown and her throne in the kingdom above. She was queenly in the power and beauty of her spiritual progress, though poor as poverty could make her in this world's goods here upon earth, but she is now doubtless queenly in position and external adorning as well as in heart, transformed and transfigured in the presence of the glorious Saviour in heaven, whom she loved so dearly and trusted so fully upon earth.

The judge was rich and highly esteemed. He dwelt in a mansion, not so fine as to repel, not so splendid as to make him the envy of the foolish,