n inspiration which makes wise is to
be coveted, an inspiration which makes holy is transcendently better.
There we find the safeguard against all the fanaticisms which have
sometimes invaded the Christian Church, namely, in the thought that the
Spirit which dwells in men, and makes them free from the obligations of
outward law and cold morality, is a Spirit that works a deeper holiness
than law dreamed, and a more spontaneous and glad conformity to all
things that are fair and good, than any legislation and outward
commandment could ever enforce. The Spirit that came at Pentecost is not
merely a Spirit of rushing might and of swift-flaming energy, but it is
a Spirit of holiness, whose most blessed and intimate work is the
production in us of all homely virtues and sweet, unpretending
goodnesses which can adorn and gladden humanity.

Still further, the Pentecost carried in it the promise and prophecy of a
Spirit granted to all the Church. 'They were all filled with the Holy
Ghost.' This is the true democracy of Christianity, that its very basis
is laid in the thought that every member of the body is equally close to
the Head, and equally recipient of the life. There is none now who has a
Spirit which others do not possess. The ancient aspiration of the Jewish
law-giver: 'Would God that all the Lord's people were prophets, and that
the Lord would put His Spirit upon them,' is fulfilled in the
experience of Pentecost; and the handmaiden and the children, as well as
the old men and the servants, receive of that universal gift. Therefore
sacerdotal claims, special functions, privileged classes, are alien to
the spirit of Christianity, and blasphemies against the inspiring God.
If 'one is your Master, all ye are brethren,' and if we have all been
made to drink into one Spirit, then no longer hath any man dominion over
our faith nor power to intervene and to intercede with God for us.

And still further, the promise of this early history was that of a
Spirit which should fill the whole nature of the men to whom He was
granted; filling--in the measure, of course, of their receptivity--them
as the great sea does all the creeks and indentations along the shore.
The deeper the creek, the deeper the water in it; the further inland it
runs, the further will the refreshing tide penetrate the bosom of the
continent. And so each man, according to his character, stature,
circumstances, and all the varying conditions which determine his