art of what he had been told to do. But plainly this humble man of God
believes that that is the essential element in Saul's preparation for
his great work.

In the tenth chapter the Holy Spirit's action with Cornelius completely
upsets the life-long, rock-rooted ideas of these intensely national, and
intensely exclusive Jews. Yet it is accepted as final.

With what quaint simplicity does the thirteenth chapter tell of the Holy
Spirit's initiation of those great missionary journeys of Paul from the
new center of world evangelization? "the Holy Spirit said, etc." And how
like it is the language of James in delivering the judgment of the first
church council:--"it seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us."

Paul's conviction is very plain from numerous references in those
wonderful heart-searching and heart-revealing letters of his. But one
instance in this Book of Acts will serve as a fair illustration of his
teaching and habit. It is in the nineteenth chapter. In his travels he
has come as far as to Ephesus, and finds there a small company of
earnest disciples. They are strangers to him. He longs to help them, but
must first find their need. At once he puts a question to them. A
question may be a great revealer. This one reveals his own conception
of what must be the pivotal experience of every true follower of Jesus.
He asks: "Did ye receive the Holy Spirit when ye believed?"

But they had been poorly instructed, like many others since, and were
not clear just what he meant. They had received the baptism of John--a
baptism of repentance; but not the baptism of Jesus--a baptism of power.
And Paul at once gives himself up to instructing and then praying with
them until the promised gift is graciously bestowed. That is the last we
hear of those twelve persons. Some of them may have been women. Some may
have come to be leaders in that great Ephesian Church. But of that
nothing is said. The emphasis remains on the fact that in Paul's mind
because they were followers of the Lord Jesus they must have this
empowering experience of the Holy Spirit's infilling.

Plainly in this Book of Acts the pivot on which all else rests and turns
is the unhindered presence of the Holy Spirit.

Five Essentials.

If you will stop a while to think into it you will find that a rightly
rounded christian life has five essential characteristics. I mean
essential in the same sense as that light is an essential to the eye.
The eye's seeing d