e_ of separation. It is to be found in what God
has said, 'Ye shall be holy unto me, for I the Lord am holy, and have
separated you from the people, that ye should be MINE.' God has
separated us _for Himself_ in the deepest sense of the word; that He
might enter into us, and show forth Himself in us. His holiness is the
sum and the centre of all His perfections; it is that He may make us
holy like Himself that He has separated us. Separation never has any
value in itself; it may become most wrong or hurtful; everything depends
upon the object proposed. It is as God gets and takes full possession of
us, as the eternal life in Christ has the mastery of our whole being, as
the Holy Spirit flows fully and freely through us, so that we dwell in
God, and God in us, that separation will be, not a thing of ordinances
and observances, but a spiritual reality. And it is as this purpose of
God is seen and accepted and followed after, that difficult questions as
to what we must be separated from, and how much sacrifice separation
demands, will find an easy answer. God separates from all that does not
lead us into His holiness and fellowship.

We need, above all, to know _the power_ of separation, the power that
leads us into it in the spirit of desire and of joy, of liberty and of
love. The great separating word in human language is the word _Mine_. In
this we have the great spring of effort and of happiness: in the child
with its toys, in labour with its gains and rewards, in the patriot who
dies for his country, it is this _Mine_ that lays its hand on what it
sets apart from all else. It is the great word that love uses. Be it the
child that says to its mother, My own mamma, and calls forth the
response, My own child; the bridegroom who draws the daughter from her
beloved home and parents to become his; or the Holy God who speaks: 'I
have separated you from the people, that ye should be _Mine_;' it is
always with that _Mine_ that love exerts its mighty power, and draws
from all else to itself. God Himself knows no mightier argument, can put
forth no more powerful attraction than this, 'that ye should be _Mine_.'
And the power of separation will come to us, and work in us, just as we
yield ourselves to study and realize that holy purpose, to listen to and
appropriate that wondrous _Mine_, to be apprehended and possessed of
that Almighty Love.

Let us study step by step the wondrous path in which Divine Love does it
separating wor