one hand,
should we be encouraged to expect great things from God, and, on the
other hand, be humbled by the contrast between what we might be and what
we are. The river that rushes full of water from the throne can send but
a narrow and shallow trickle through the narrow channel choked with much
rubbish, which we provide for it. It is of little avail that the sun in
the heavens pours down its flood of light and warmth if the windows of
our hearts are by our own faults so darkened that but a stray beam,
shorn of its brightness and warmth, can find its way into our darkness.
The first lesson which we have to draw from the contrast between the
boundlessness of the gift and the narrow limits of our individual
possession and experience of it, is the lesson of penitent recognition
and confession of the unbelief which lurks in our strongest faith. 'Lord
I believe, help Thou mine unbelief,' should be the prayer of every
Christian soul.

Not less surely will the recognition that the form and amount of the
grace of God, which is possessed by each, is determined by the faith of
each, lead to tolerance of the diversity of gifts. We have received our
own proper gift of God, that which the strength and purity of our faith
is capable of possessing, and it is not for us to carp at our brethren,
either at those in advance of us or at those behind us. We have to
remember that as it takes all sorts of people to make up a world, so it
takes all varieties of Christian character to make a church. It is the
body and not the individual members which represents Christ to the
world. The firmest adherence to our own form of the universal gift will
combine with the widest toleration of the gifts of others. The white
light appears when red, green, and blue blend together, not when each
tries to be the other. 'Every man hath his own proper gift of God, one
after this fashion and another after that,' and we shall be true to the
boundlessness of the gift and to the limitations of our own possession
of it, in the measure of which we combine obedience to the light which
shines in us, with thankful recognition of that which is granted to
others.

The contrast between these two must be kept vivid if we would live in
the freedom of the hope of the glory of God, for in the contrast lies
the assurance of endless growth. A process is begun in every Christian
soul of which the only natural end is the full possession of God in
Christ, and that full possessio