ity, are the essentials. The dove will not come into a fouled
nest. It is said that they forsake polluted places. But also we have to
use the power which is inwrought. Use is the way to increase all gifts,
from the muscle in your arm to the Christian life in your spirit. Use
it, and it grows. Neglect it, and it vanishes, and like the old Jewish
heroes, a man may go forth to exercise himself as of old time, and know
not that the Spirit of God hath departed from him. Dear friends, do not
bind yourselves to the slavery of Endeavour, until you come into the
liberty and wealth of receiving. He gives first, and then says to you,
'Now go to work, and keep that good thing which is committed unto
thee.'

There is but one thought more in this last part of my text, which I must
not leave untouched, and that is that this sufficient and universal gift
is not only the means by which the great universal duty can be
discharged, but it ought to be the measure in which it is discharged. 'I
work according to the working in me.' That is, all the force that came
into Paul by that Divine Spirit, came out of Paul in his Christian
conduct, and the gift was not only the source, but also the measure, of
this man's Christian Endeavour. Is that true about us? They say that the
steam-engine is a most wasteful application of power, that a great deal
of the energy which is generated goes without ever doing any work. They
tell us that one of the great difficulties in the way of economic
application of electricity is the loss which comes through using
accumulators. Is not that like a great many of us? So much power poured
into us; so little coming out from us and translated into actual work!
Such a 'rushing mighty wind,' and the air about us so heavy and stagnant
and corrupt! Such a blaze of fire, and we so cold! Such a cataract of
the river of the water of life, and our lips parched and our crops
seared and worthless! Ah, brethren! when we look at ourselves, and when
we think of the condition of so many of the churches to which we belong,
the old rebuke of the prophet comes back to us in this generation, 'Thou
that art named the House of Israel, is the Spirit of the Lord
straitened? Are these His doings?' We have an all-sufficient power. May
our working and striving be according to it, and may we work mightily,
being 'strong in the Lord, and in the power of His might!'

CHRISTIAN PROGRESS

'As therefore ye received Christ Jesus the L