fact as our pardon and adoption in Him, and we shall know something of
the blessed life. Only, we must not only accept it as true, but use
it. "_Work out_--for it is God who is _working in_ you."

And, let us remember it once more, we shall learn in that quiet School
not only a restful energy but also that holy independence (_ten heauton
soterian_) which is, in its place, the priceless gain of the Christian.
Our spiritual life is indeed intended to be social in its issues--but
not at its root. We accept and thankfully use every assistance given
us by our Lord's care, as we live our life in His Church; yet our life,
as to its source, is to be still "hidden with Christ in God." We are
to be so related to Him, in faith, that our soul's health, growth,
gladness, shall depend not on the presence of even a St Paul at our
side, but on the presence of God in our hearts. Let us cherish this
blessed certainty, and develope it into experience, in these strange
days of unrest and drift. That secret independence will do anything
but isolate us from our fellows. It will make us fit, as nothing else
could make us, to be their strength and light, in truest sympathy, in
kindest insight, in the fullest sense of loving partnership. But we
must learn independence in God if we would be fully serviceable to man.

iii. We have in this passage one of the richest and most beautiful
expressions found in the whole New Testament of that great principle,
that at the very heart of a true life of holiness there needs to lie
the law of holy kindness. The connexion of thought between ver. 13 and
ver. 14 is deeply suggestive here. In ver. 13 we have the power and
wonder of the operative Indwelling of God. In ver. 14 we have depicted
the true conduct of the subjects of the Indwelling; and it shines with
the sweet light of humility and gentleness. It is a life whose hidden
power, which is nothing less than divine, comes out first and most in
the absence of the grudging, self-asserting spirit; in a watchful
consistency and simplicity; in the manifestation of the
_child_-character, as the believer moves about "in the midst of" the
hard and most unchildlike conditions of an unregenerate world. There
is to be action as well as patience; this we shall see presently. The
disciple is to be aggressive, in the right way, as well as submissive.
But the first and deepest characteristic of his wonderful new life is
to be the submission of himself to