e Edict of Nantes, and they themselves
exiled for liberty to worship God? What can be expected of men who
have been tried in the furnace of temptation till they are pure gold?
Nay, more, what can be expected of men who have in these temptations
been strengthened out of God? Besides the strength of development by
the resistance of evil, they have found that God made a way of escape,
that he strengthened, them and that they were thus by supernal power
able to bear it. Nay, rather, what may not be expected of such men?

But we will not forget that this great outcome is precisely the plan of
God for every man's life, and that when man works he finds that there
are forces outside of him thoroughly cooperative with him. He starts a
rock down the mountain side, but gravitation reaches out ready fingers
and hurls it a thousand times faster and faster. He launches his ship
on the sea and the wind and steam carry it thousands of miles. He
speaks his quiet breath into the ear of the phone and electricity
carries it in every tone and inflection of personal quality a thousand
miles. He vows, and works for purity and greatness of personal
character, and a thousand gravitations of love, a thousand great winds
of Pentecost, a thousand vital principles on which all greatness hangs,
a thousand influences of other men, and especially a thousand personal
aids of a present God, cooperate with his plans and works.

Of course every man who believes in a new type so high that good birth,
wealth, culture, education, and broad opportunity cannot attain it
believes in the divine co-operation to that end. It must be born of
the Spirit. God sends forth his Spirit into our hearts crying, Abba,
Father! It pleases the Father himself to reveal his Son in us.

Not only is this cooperation true in regard to the beginning of this
higher life, but especially so in regard to the development and
perfection of that life into the stature of perfect manhood in Christ
Jesus. By continuous effort to lead into all truth, by intensity of
endeavor that can only be represented by groanings that cannot be
worded in human speech, the perfection of saints is sought.

And in the final glorification of those saints every man will say
nothing of his own efforts, but all the praise will be unto him who
hath redeemed us unto God, and washed us in his blood.

To what extent, then, may we expect God will lend his forces to work
out our plans? First, in so far a