others, "in the Lord, and in the
power of His might." We have this aspect of practical holiness
presented to us often in the general teaching of the New Testament; but
seldom is it so explicitly connected as it is here with that other
spiritual fact, the presence in us of the divine _power_. Perhaps our
best parallels come from the two other Epistles of the Roman Captivity,
Ephesians and Colossians. In Ephesians, the third chapter closes with
the astonishing prayer that the Christian (the everyday Christian, be
it remembered) may be, through the Indwelling of Christ, "filled unto
all the fulness of God"; and then the fourth chapter begins at once
with the appeal to him to live "_therefore_" a life of "all lowliness,
meekness, longsuffering, and forbearance in love." In Colossians we
have the same sequence of thought in one noble sentence (ver. 11) of
the first chapter: "Strengthened with all strength, according to the
might of His glory, _unto all patience and longsuffering, with
joy_."[8] In all three passages comes out the same deep and beautiful
suggestion. "The Lord is not in the wind" so much as in "the still
small voice." Omnipotent Love, in its blessed immanence in the
believer's soul, shews its presence and power most of all in a life _of
love_ around. It is to come out not only in self-sacrificing energy
but in the open sympathies of an affectionate heart, in the "soft
answer," in the generous first thought for the interests of others--in
short, in the whole character of 1 Cor. xiii. The spiritual "power"
which runs rather in the direction of harshness and isolation, which
expends itself rather in censures than in "longsuffering, gentleness,
goodness, and meekness," is not the kind of "power" which most accords
with the apostolic idea. Nothing which violates the plain precepts of
the law of love can take a true part in that heavenly harmony.

"On earth, as in the holy place,
Nothing is great but charity." [9]

iv. Meanwhile the "charity" of the saints is not by any means the mere
amiability which makes itself pleasant to every one, and forgets the
solemn fact that we who believe are the servants of a Master whom the
world knows not, the messengers of a King against whom it is in revolt.
The Philippian disciple was to renounce the spirit of unkindness, of
self; he was to live _isolated_ from (_choris_) "murmurings and
disputings." But he was not to hide the sacred Light, for the sake of
so-ca