s power, he has not the
Spirit of God in him. The Dove comes, and where it comes there is peace,
there is purity, there is sacrifice. If any man have not the Spirit of
holiness he is none of Christ's.

So, brethren, remember that not in shining faculty, not in piercing
vision into mystery, not in the eloquence of honeyed tongue, nor the
power of a swift hand, not in any of the lesser and subordinate gifts
which the world exclusively honours as inspiration, is the power of the
indwelling Spirit to be manifested. If the Spirit of God is in you, it
is making you clean.

Still further, remember how, as for the King so for His subjects, the
Dove that crowns Him and that dwells in them is the Spirit of meekness
and of gentleness. That is the true force. Light, which is silent, is
mightier than all lightnings. The Spirit, which is the 'Spirit of love,'
is therefore 'the Spirit of power.' The true type of Christian
character, which the gospel has brought into being, looks modest,
inconspicuous and humdrum, by the side of the more brilliant and vulgar
beauties of the world's ideals. Just as the iridescent hues on a dove's
neck, and the quiet blue of its plumage, look modest and Quaker-like
beside gaudy parroquets and other bedizened birds, so the Christian type
of character, patient, meek, gentle, not self-asserting, seems pale and
sober-tinted beside the world's heroes. But gentleness is the mightiest
and will conquer at last. For Christ and Christ's followers go forth,
through universal love to universal power.

And the last suggestion that I offer to you about the significance of
this symbol is one that I freely admit to be fanciful, and yet it
strikes me as being very beautiful. Noah's dove came back to the ark
with one leaf in his beak. That was the prophecy and the foretaste of a
whole world of beauty and of verdure. The dove that comes to us, bearing
with it some leaf plucked from the tree of life, which is in the midst
of the paradise of God, is the earnest of our inheritance until the day
of redemption. All the gifts of that divine Spirit, gifts of holiness,
of gentleness, of wisdom, of truth--all these are forecasts and
anticipations of the perfectness of the heavens. To us, sailing over a
dismal sea, the Spirit comes bearing with it a message that tells us of
the far-off land and the fair garden of God in which the blessed shall
walk.

Dear friends, remember the one condition on which is suspended our
possession