One of the reasons why Christian people as a whole do not realise the universality as they ought is, as I have already suggested in a somewhat different connection, because they limit their notions far too much of what the gift of God’s Spirit is to do to men.  We must take a wider view of what that Spirit is meant to effect than we ordinarily take, before we understand how real and how visible its universal manifestations are.  Take a leaf out of the Old Testament.  The man who made the brass-work for the Tabernacle was ’full of the Spirit of God.’  The poets who sung the Psalms, in more than one place, declare of themselves that they, too, were but the harps upon which the divine finger played.  Samson was capable of his rude feats of physical strength, because ‘the Spirit of God was upon him.’  Art, song, counsel, statesmanlike adaptation of means to ends, and discernment of proper courses for a nation, such as were exemplified in Joseph and in Daniel, are, in the Old Testament, ascribed to the Spirit of God, and even the rude physical strength of the simple-natured and sensuous athlete is traced up to the same source.

But again, we see another sphere of the Spirit’s working in the manifestations of it in the experience of the primitive Church.  These are, as we all know, accompanied with miracles, speaking with tongues and working wonders.  The signs of that Spirit in those days were visible and audible.  As I said, when the river first came into its bed, it came like the tide in Morecambe Bay, breast-high, with a roar and a rush.  But it was quiet after that.  In the context we have a whole series of manifestations of this Divine Spirit, some of them miraculous and some being natural faculties heightened, but all concerned with the Church as a society, and being for the benefit of the community.

But there is another class.  If you turn to the Epistle to the Galatians, you will find a wonderful list there of what the Apostle calls ‘the fruit of the Spirit,’ beginning with ‘love, joy, peace.’  These are all moral and religious, bearing upon personal experience and the completeness of the individual character.

Now, let us include all these aspects in our conception of the fruit of the Spirit’s working on men—­the secular, if we may use that word, as exhibited in the Old Testament; the miraculous, as seen in the first days of the Church; the ecclesiastical, if we may so designate the endowments mentioned in the context, and the purely personal, moral, and religious emotions and acts.  The plain fact is that everything in a Christian’s life, except his sin, is the manifestation of that Divine Spirit, from whom all good thoughts, counsels, and works do proceed.  He is the ‘Spirit of adoption,’ and whenever in my heart there rises warm and blessed the aspiration ‘Abba!  Father!’ it is not my voice only, but the voice of that Divine Spirit.  He is the Spirit of intercession; and whenever in my soul there move yearning desires