ed, of a rushing stream, whose first outgush was attended
with noise, but which thereafter flows continuous and unbroken. If
churches or individuals are scant of that gift, it is not because it
has not been bestowed, but because it has not been accepted.

My text tells us two things: it unconditionally and broadly asserts
that every Christian possesses this great gift--the manifestation is
given to every man; and then it asserts that the gift of each is
meant to be utilised for the good of all. 'The manifestation is given
to every man to profit withal.'

I. Let me, then, say a word or two, to begin with, about the
universality of this gift.

Now, that is implied in our Lord's own language, as commented upon by
the Evangelist. For Jesus Christ declared that this was the standing
law of His kingdom, to be universally applied to all its members,
that 'He that believeth on Him, out of him shall flow rivers of
living water'; and the Evangelist's comment goes on to say, 'This
spake He of the Spirit which they that believe on Him should
receive.' _There_ is the condition and the qualification. Wherever
there is faith, there the Spirit of God is bestowed, and bestowed in
the measure in which faith is exercised. So, then, in full accordance
with such fundamental principles in reference to the gift of the
Spirit of God, comes the language of my text, and of many another
text to which I cannot do more than refer. But let me just quote one
or two of them, in order that I may make more emphatic what I believe
a great many Christian people do not realise as they ought--viz. that
the gift of God's Holy Spirit is not a thing to be desired, as if it
were not possessed or confined to select individuals, or manifested
by exceptional and lofty attainments, but is the universal heritage
of the whole Christian Church. 'Know ye not that ye are the temple of
the Holy Ghost?' 'We have all been made to drink into one Spirit,'
says Paul again, in the immediate context. 'If any man have not the
Spirit of Christ, he is none of His,' says he, unconditionally. And
in many other places the same principle is laid down, a principle
which I believe the Christian Church to-day needs to have recalled to
its consciousness, that it may be quickened to realise it in its
experience far more than is the case at present.

Let me remind you, too, that that universality of the gifts of the
Divine Spirit is implied in the very conception of what Christ's
work,