Ghost, ever One God, world without end." And we express the same thing in one of the hymns for the season, when we address the Spirit as "Bond of the sacred Trinity!" Reason can but dimly guess at this high mystery. The only way to apprehend it aright is that suggested by the same hymn. "Knit Thou our hearts in one," we pray; and then, as the result,

"To know the blessed unity

Of Father and of Son."

If we can keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace, we shall in some measure understand how God and Christ keep it. "That they may be one, even as We are one." Not one in a common creed merely, in acknowledging the same King and submitting to the same laws; but one as "partakers of the Divine Nature," one in a consanguinity not the less real that it is spiritual, one as bringing forth the same fruits of the Spirit. If we can realize this, if we can rise up to it in heart and life, we shall know something of that blessed fellowship which subsisted before the world was.

And so we come to the last of the words before us.

Father, I will that they also whom Thou hast given Me be with Me where I am, that they may behold My glory which Thou gavest Me: for Thou lovedst Me before the foundation of the world." First He gives us His glory in ourselves, and then admits us to behold it in Himself: He begins with making us like Him, and ends with giving us to see Him as He is. How can we then but purify ourselves as He is pure, having this hope? Cleanse us, O Water of life, from our defilement : consume in us, O Fire of God, the flesh with the affections and lusts: dwell in us, O Love of Love, as Thy hallowed temple! So, being full of the Holy

Ghost, we may look up steadfastly into heaven, and see the glory of God, and Jesus at the right hand of God; and, beholding with open face, be changed into the same image, from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.

And since it is by the Holy Ghost that all such good things come to us; since all that the Father has is Christ's, and the Spirit takes of the things of Christ and makes them ours-what can we say, but "Blessed be the glory of the Lord from His place! "Come, Holy Ghost,' we re-iterate this day: not as crying for an absent one, but as welcoming One who is ever coming. "Blessed is He that cometh in the Name of the Lord!" We greet Him with the flowers of summer, with the voice of choral song; for He makes all flowers of grace to bloom, and all voices of the heart to sing. Come, Holy Ghost-Creator, Renewer, Sanctifier: come, and make us Christ's, to the glory of God the Father! Amen.

The Riber of Water of Life.

Rev. xxii. I.

"AND he shewed me a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and the Lamb."

When St. John was shewn this River, and the Tree of Life on its banks whose leaves were for the

* Ezek. iii. 12.

healing of the nations, his first thought may well have been of the similar vision of Ezekiel. He too had seen waters issuing from under the threshold of the House of the Lord, and trees growing thereby: he had been told of their flowing into the desert and the sea, and healing wheresoever they went, and of the fruit of the trees being for meat and their leaf for medicine.* And then the Apostle's mind may have gone on to that which Zechariah foresaw" It shall be in that day, that living waters shall go out from Jerusalem."† And, last, it

must have rested on his Lord's own word, when on the last day, that great day of the feast, He stood and cried, "If any man thirst, let him come to Me and drink. He that believeth on Me, as the Scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water." Perhaps he was at this time given to see what he afterwards expressed in his Gospel-" this spake He of the Spirit, which they that believe on Him should receive: for the Holy Ghost was not yet given, because Jesus was not yet glorified."‡

To us, at any rate, these Scriptures speak of the same thing. The temple from beneath whose threshold the living waters flow is the temple of Christ's Body. First, of His Body natural. From Jesus, glorified with the Holy Ghost, that Spirit comes to all who believe on Him. But then also from His Body mystical. Out of the believers in their turn rivers of living water were to flow. And so it was in the history of the Church. On the Day of Pentecost Jesus, having received the promise of the Father, shed forth of that Spirit upon His waiting disciples. From them the waters issued forth into the world around, in rejoicing and abounding streams.

* Ezek. xlvii. 1-12.

† Zech. xiv. 8.

John vii. 37-39.

They went down into the desert-into the arid sands of a fruitless and hopeless Heathenism; and that wilderness rejoiced, and blossomed as the rose. They went into the sea-into the wild concourse of the barbarian nations; and its bitterness was healed. Wherever the waters went, the ancient harshness departed, to give place to "sweeter manners, purer laws"; and the fair fruits of civilization sprang up on every side. Thus far the prophets of Israel could see. Under the form of the restoration of their own city and temple, to become the blessing of the nations, they beheld also what was to happen at the founding of the Christian Church. But now the Apostle of Jesus sees farther back. He beholds. the River of water of life at its ultimate source; he is shewn it as it proceeds out of the throne of God and of the Lamb.

*

There is much in every phrase and detail of his inspired description on which we might profitably dwell. We might consider the significance of the word "proceeding" as characterizing the manner of the Spirit's outgoing; we might dwell upon the source of His origin being the throne of God and of the Lamb. But not only for these truths' sake is He so represented. It is also because His blessing is as the blessing of a river that He is exhibited under this image. Limiting ourselves to this aspect of it, what are the benefits which in the physical world we obtain from the rivers of water? We may reckon them as three. The first, cleansing for that which is soiled; the second, drink for that which is thirsty; the third, fertilization of that which is dry and barren.

1. That we are all defiled by sin, and require continual cleansing needs no argument for its demonstration. We speak not now of the sense of guilt before God, and of the cleansing of our conscience therefrom by the Blood of sprinkling. The defilement of which we are speaking is something over and above this. It is the actual presence of the law of sin in our members, the continual intrusion of the flesh into our holy places, the sad shortcoming of the stature of Christ which makes us cover our lips, and put dust on our heads, and And so we look to the

cry

"unclean, unclean"! crucified One, and say

"Let the water and the blocd

From Thy riven side which flowed

Be of sin the double cure,

Cleanse from guilt and make me pure."

This operation of the Holy Ghost is set forth by Baptism, in which we are "born of water and the Spirit." Herein God saves us by the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Ghost." But what is this washing, for after all we are only using a material figure in so speaking? what is it that purifies our hearts as water cleanses the body? There is nothing which perfectly cleanses the thoughts of our hearts but the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. Other strong preoccupations, especially of the imagination or the emotions, may do something for a time. In some of us, while we are young, lofty and refined tastes; in others the home affections, or the power of a virtuous attachment, may avail to keep out the grosser sins from our souls. But there comes a time when these helps and props, mercifully given to our youth, begin to lose their influence. And then we are in danger lest the corruptions of the world,