grace, the Spirit of power, and of love, and of a sound (or wholesome) mind.

'This, indeed, is the great fallacy of 'perfectionism,' that they who 'say that they have no sin' are obliged in consistency to defend all they think and say and do as being absolutely sinless and holy, and to attribute. all their thoughts, emotions, words, and actions, to the Spirit of Truth and Holiness.

་་

'No apostle ever made such a claim. James said, 'In many things we all offend.' John said, 'If we say we have no sin we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.' Paul expressly repudiates the claim when he says, 'I judge not mine own self. For I know nothing against myself; yet am I not hereby justified; but He that judgeth me is the Lord. Therefore, judge nothing before the time, until the Lord come, who both will bring to light the hidden things of darkness, and will make manifest the counsels of the hearts; and then shall everyone have praise of God-God will apprise all his counsels and all his conduct.

"With a very deep sense of responsibility to God and men these protests are made. We have sought to avoid sarcasm, bitterness, and the imputation of motive; we do not question Mr. Harris's sincerity in what he teaches; but recent and ancient church history painfully proves that the self-deceiving claim to sinlessness paves the way for pride, pharisaism, and, in some cases, to aggravated and abominable sin.

"Speaking of Job iv. 17, 18, Mr. Harris says, ‘To

1

build upon this

passage the teaching that God cannot

or will not destroy the works of the devil, is to argue

from a false premise, and to attempt to prove a blasphemous falsehood.'

"This is really a flagrant instance of the suggestio falsi. Neither Mr. Webb - Peploe nor any of the 'Keswick speakers' doubts that the purpose for which 'the Son of God was manifested-to destroy the works of the devil' is in constant operation, and in due time will be perfectly fulfilled. But they are not guilty of an attempt to prove a blasphemous falsehood, because they believe that the 'all' of James iii. 2 includes the Pentecostal League platform; and that, if Mr. Reader Harris and his followers say they have no sin they deceive themselves, and the truth [in this matter] is not in them.

"We are not partisans of the Keswick platform. We increasingly deplore the use of such terms as 'Keswick teaching,' because, even if it were the truth always and everywhere, unmodified either by the excess or the limitation of human infirmity (which it does not claim for itself, and no one will claim for it), even that would confer no title to label the eternal truth of God with a local and transitory name. 'Keswick teaching,' if the name survives this generation, will, perhaps, modified for the worse, become a 'Keswick sect' in the next. Nevertheless, a league, which is a very sectarian sect already, must not, in the name of sinless holiness and of the Holy Ghost, attribute to 'Keswick' what it does not hold

or teach, and then charge it with 'blasphemous falsehood.'

"Does Mr. Reader Harris himself really think that there is the difference between him and Prebendary Webb-Peploe of a sinless man on the one hand, and a teacher of blasphemous falsehood on the other? If not, will he not confess his transgression, and the sinfulness out of which it sprang, and seek grace for the future to walk softly? He hath showed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the Lord thy God require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?'

"God in His mercy send us the union for which His Son our Saviour prayed; but there is nothing more disuniting than the self-righteous spirit, which says, 'Stand by thyself; I am holier than thou.'

"M."

To these remarkable articles I replied in a short letter, of which the following is an extract:

"Is it not a waste of time to suggest that I question the integrity of Mr. Webb-Peploe, or his great knowledge of the Scriptures, or that I charge him with being a teacher of blasphemous falsehood'?

The matter at issue is not what any man thinks, but what the Scriptures say on the matter occupying so many minds to-day, 'Is sin a necessity in a Spiritfilled man?' That question the Christian has discreetly avoided. "READER HARRIS."

CHAPTER IV.

THE REV. HUGH PRICE HUGHES REPLIES.

HE Christian was not, however, to escape with

THE

merely this mild remonstrance. The Rev. Hugh Price Hughes soon after published the following scathing reply in the Methodist Times:

"In the November issue of Tongues of Fire, the official organ of the Pentecostal League, Mr. Reader Harris takes note of the fact that the Rev. Prebendary Webb-Peploe, as officially reported in the Keswick Week, stated at the recent Keswick Convention that sin must remain in the cleansed and Spirit - filled believer until death. As this bold statement has disturbed the minds of many Christians, Mr. Reader Harris publicly offered to pay the sum of £100 for the benefit of the Keswick Mission Fund' to the first Keswick speaker who forwarded him a passage of Scripture which, read with the context, positively affirms the necessity of sin in

THE SPIRIT-FILLED BELIEVER.

Below this offer Mr. Reader Harris prints a recent address delivered by himself on 'Sin and its Remedy.'

"In the last issue of the Christian, a Mr. George Wainwright, of Bournemouth, makes a fierce attack upon Mr. Reader Harris for this offer to the Keswick platform; and this fierce attack is followed by a yet fiercer attack, by somebody who simply signs himself 'M.' We have no idea who Mr. George Wainwright is, or who 'M.' is; but we note in both cases, instead of dealing with Mr. Reader Harris's challenge, they make a bitter personal attack upon Mr. Reader Harris himself. It is quite true that, like John Wesley, Mr. Reader Harris uses strong language in

DENOUNCING A DOGMA

which he regards as unscriptural; but he makes no personal attack whatever upon Prebendary Webb Peploe, or any other Keswick speaker, although he points out what he believes to be the nature and consequence of the dogma they champion.

"But Mr. George Wainwright and M.' make offensive personal references to Mr. Reader Harris. So doing, they are true successors of the men who attacked John Wesley a hundred years ago for similar teaching. But while Wesley's clerical assailants and their unbrotherly personalities are forgotten, the name of Wesley is held in affectionate reverence throughout the whole world. We need only say here that the doctrine which Mr. Reader Harris propounds in

'SIN AND ITS REMEDY'

is precisely the doctrine which John Wesley taught, and which is believed by the most numerous and