And still further, the promise of this early history was that of a Spirit which should fill the whole nature of the men to whom He was granted; filling—­in the measure, of course, of their receptivity—­them as the great sea does all the creeks and indentations along the shore.  The deeper the creek, the deeper the water in it; the further inland it runs, the further will the refreshing tide penetrate the bosom of the continent.  And so each man, according to his character, stature, circumstances, and all the varying conditions which determine his power of receptivity, will receive a varying measure of that gift.  Yet it is meant that all shall be full.  The little vessel, the tiny cup, as well as the great cistern and the enormous vat, each contains according to its capacity.  And if all are filled, then this quick Spirit must have the power to influence all the provinces of human nature, must touch the moral, must touch the spiritual.  The temporary manifestations and extraordinary signs of His power may well drop away as the flower drops when the fruit has set.  The operations of the Divine Spirit are to be felt thrilling through all the nature, and every part of the man’s being is to be recipient of the power.  Just as when you take a candle and plunge it into a jar of oxygen it blazes up, so my poor human nature immersed in that Divine Spirit, baptized in the Holy Ghost, shall flame in all its parts into unsuspected and hitherto inexperienced brightness.  Such are the elements of the promise of Pentecost.

II.  And now, in the next place, look at the apparent failure of the promise.

‘Is the Spirit of the Lord straitened?’ Look at Christendom.  Look at all the churches.  Look at yourselves.  Will any one say that the religious condition of any body of professed believers at this moment corresponds to Pentecost?  Is not the gap so wide that to fill it up seems almost impossible?  Is not the stained and imperfect fulfilment a miserable satire upon the promise?  ‘If the Lord be with us,’ said one of the heroes of ancient Israel, ‘wherefore is all this come upon us?’ I am sure that we may say the same.  If the Lord be with us, what is the meaning of the state of things which we see around us, and must recognise in ourselves?  Do any existing churches present the final perfect form of Christianity as embodied in a society?  Would not the best thing that could happen, and the thing that will have to happen some day, be the disintegration of the existing organisations in order to build up a more perfect habitation of God through the Spirit?  I do not wish to exaggerate.  God knows there is no need for exaggerating.  The plain, unvarnished story, without any pessimistic picking out of the black bits and forgetting ail the light ones, is bad enough.