does, because he is obliged, the work will be slavery. In order,
then, that diligence may neither languish and become slothfulness,
nor be felt to be a heavy weight and an unwelcome necessity, Paul
here bids us see to it that our hearts are moved because there is a
fire below which makes 'the soul's depths boil in earnest.'

Now, of course, I know that, as a great teacher has told us, 'The
gods approve the depth and not the tumult of the soul,' and I know
that there is a great deal of emotional Christianity which is worth
nothing. But it is not that kind of fervour that the Apostle is
enjoining here. Whilst it is perfectly true that mere emotion often
does co-exist with, and very often leads to, entire negligence as to
possessing and manifesting practical excellence, the true relation
between these is just the opposite--viz. that this fervour of which I
speak, this wide-awakeness and enthusiasm of a spirit all quickened
into rapidity of action by the warmth which it has felt from God in
Christ, should drive the wheels of life. Boiling water makes steam,
does it not? And what is to be done with the steam that comes off the
'boiling' spirit? You may either let it go roaring through a
waste-pipe and do nothing but make a noise and be idly dissipated in
the air, or you may lead it into a cylinder and make it lift a
piston, and then you will get work out of it. That is what the
Apostle desires us to do with our emotion. The lightning goes
careering through the sky, but we have harnessed it to tram-cars
nowadays, and made it 'work for its living,' to carry our letters and
light our rooms. Fervour of a Christian spirit is all right when it
is yoked to Christian work, and made to draw what else is a heavy
chariot. It is not emotion, but it is indolent emotion, that is the
curse of much of our 'fervent' Christianity.

There cannot be too much fervour. There may be too little outlet
provided for the fervour to work in. It may all go off in comfortable
feeling, in enthusiastic prayers and 'Amens!' and 'So be it, Lords!'
and the like, or it may come with us into our daily tasks, and make
us buckle to with more earnestness, and more continuity. Diligence
driven by earnestness, and fervour that works, are the true things.

And surely, surely there cannot be any genuine
Christianity--certainly there cannot be any deep Christianity--which
is not fervent.

We hear from certain quarters of the Church a great deal about the
virtue