ter had to be broken on the wheel of a servant-girl's question,
and humbled to the dust. In those bitter hours he was thoroughly
emptied of his old proud, self-reliant, vain-glorious spirit, and
became as a little child.

This must be our path also. We must descend with Christ, if we would
ascend to sit at His side. We must submit to the laying of our pride
in the very dust. We must accept humiliations and mortifications, the
humblings of perpetual failure and shortcoming, the friction and fret
of infirmity and pain; and when we have come to an end of ourselves, we
shall begin to know Christ in a new and deeper fashion. He will pass
by and say, "Live!" The spirit of His life will enter into us; the
valley of Achor will become a door of hope, and we shall sing God's
glad new song of Hope. The ideal which had long haunted us, in our
blood, but unable to express itself, will burst into a perfect flower
of exquisite scent and hue.

III. THE CERTAINTY OF THE ULTIMATE GRATIFICATION OF EVERY DESIRE GOD
HAS IMPLANTED.--This is an absolute certainty, that God inserts no
desire or craving in our nature, for which there is no appropriate
gratification. The birds do not seek for food which is not ready for
them. The young lions do not ask for prey that is not awaiting them
somewhere in the forest glade. Hence the absoluteness of that
_shall_--"Thou _shalt_ follow Me afterward." It is as if Jesus said,
"I have taught you to love Me, and long after Me; and I will certainly
gratify the appetite which I have created."

Pentecost was the Divine fulfillment of all those conditions of which
we have been speaking. It was not enough that Peter should be an
emptied and broken man; he must become also a God-possessed, a
Spirit-filled man. Thus only could he be fitted to know Christ after a
spiritual sort, and to participate in His Resurrection Life. It was
surely to the Advent of the Holy Ghost that our Lord referred in that
significant _afterward_.

We too must seek our share in Pentecost. Do not be content with "Not
I"; go on to say, "but Christ." Do not be satisfied with the emptying
of the proud self-life; seek the infilling of the Holy Spirit. Do not
stop at the cross, or the grave; hasten to the upper room, where the
disciples are baptized in fire and glory. The Holy Spirit will enable
you to abide in Christ, because He will bring Christ to abide in you;
and life, through His dear grace, shall be so utterly imbue