one a Paul, when he lays the
foundation, and an Apollos, when he builds thereupon, are of any use at
all.

Thus, dear brethren, we have to base all our efforts on this deeper
truth, that it is God who builds us into a temple meet for Himself, and
then comes to dwell in the temple that He has built.

So let us keep our hearts and minds expectant of, and open for, that
Spirit's influences. Let us be sure that we are using all the power that
God does give us. His work does not supersede mine. My work is to avail
myself of His. The two thoughts are not contradictory. They correspond
to, and fill out, each other, though warring schools of one-eyed
theologians and teachers have set them in antagonism. 'Work _out_ . . .
for it is God that worketh _in_.' That is the true reconciliation. 'Ye
are God's building; build up yourselves in your most holy faith.'

If God is the builder, then boundless, indomitable hope should be ours.
No man can look at his own character, after all his efforts to mend it,
without being smitten by a sense of despair, if he has only his own
resources to fall back upon. Our experience is like that of the monkish
builders, according to many an old legend, who found every morning that
yesterday's work had been pulled down in the darkness by demon hands.
There is no man whose character is anything more than a torso, an
incomplete attempt to build up the structure that was in his mind--like
the ruins of half-finished palaces and temples which travellers came
across sometimes in lands now desolate, reared by a forgotten race who
were swept away by some unknown calamity, and have left the stones
half-lifted to their courses, half-hewed in their quarries, and the
building gaunt and incomplete. But men will never have to say about any
of God's architecture, He 'began to build and was not able to finish.'
As the old prophecy has it, 'His hands have laid the foundation of the
house, His hands shall also finish it.' Therefore, we are entitled to
cherish endless hope and quiet confidence that we, even we, shall be
reared up into an habitation of God through the Spirit.

What are you building? 'Behold, I lay in Zion for a foundation a stone.'
Let every man take heed _what_ and _how_ and _that_ he buildeth thereon.

CONTINUAL PRAYER AND ITS EFFECTS

'Rejoice evermore. Pray without ceasing. In
everything give thanks.'--1 THESS. v. 16-18.

The peculiarity and the stringency of these thr