We turn now to the second part of our question: What is it that the Holy Spirit does for us? Christ's teaching on the work of the Spirit may be gathered up under two heads: (1) His work in the Church; (2) His work in the world.

(1) When we speak of the Spirit's work in the Church, it must be understood that the reference is to no particular ecclesiastical organization, but to the people of Christ generally, "the men and women in whom the spiritual work of Christ is going forward." And among these the Holy Spirit works in two ways.

(a) He is the Spirit of truth, the Divine Remembrancer: "He shall guide you into all the truth;" "He shall take of Mine, and shall declare it unto you;" "He shall teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I said unto you." It is not, it will be observed, all truth, but all the truth of Christ, with which the Spirit deals--the truth concerning Him, and the truth which He taught. Nor is it a new revelation which the Spirit gives, but rather a more perfect understanding of that which has been already given in Christ. Here, then, is the test by which to try all that claims the authority of spiritual truth. Does it "glorify" Christ? Does it lead us into a fuller knowledge of Him "in whom are all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge hidden"? "Whosoever goeth onward," says St. John, in a remarkable passage, for which English readers are indebted to the Revised Version, "and abideth not in the teaching of Christ, hath not God." In other words, no true progress is possible except as we abide in Christ. If He be ignored and left behind, though we still keep the name and boast ourselves "progressives," we have lost the reality. On the other hand, every new discovery, every movement in the life of men, every intellectual and spiritual awakening which serves to make manifest the glory of Christ as Creator, or Revealer, or Redeemer, is a fresh fulfilment of His promise concerning the guiding Spirit of truth. Perhaps our best commentary is the history of the Church. In the New Testament itself we have the first-fruits of the Spirit's work. There we may see, in Gospels and Epistles, how the Spirit took of the things of Christ and showed them unto His disciples. And all through the varied history of the Church's long past, that same Divine Remembrancer has been at work, calling us through the lips of an Augustine, a Luther, or a Wesley, into the fullness of the inheritance of truth which is ours in Christ Jesus.

(b) The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of power. "Behold," said the ascending Christ, "I send forth the promise of My Father upon you; but tarry ye in the city until ye be clothed with power from on high." And, again, "Ye shall receive power, when the Holy Ghost is come upon you." Of Jesus Himself it was said by one of His disciples "that God anointed Him with the Holy Ghost and with power"; and of His disciples Jesus said: "He that believeth on Me, the works that I do shall He do also; and greater works than these shall he do; because I go unto the Father." Here, again, our best commentary is the history of the Church, and especially the first chapter of that history as it is written in the Acts of the Apostles. This was the promise, "Ye shall receive power," and this, in brief, the story of its fulfilment, "With great power gave the apostles their witness of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus." Let any one read the early chapters of St. Luke's narrative; let him mark the utter disparity between the "acts" and the "apostles"--between the things done and the men by whom they were done--and then let him ask if there is any explanation which does really bridge the gulf short of this, that behind Peter and John and the rest there stood Another, speaking through their lips, working through their hands, Himself the real Doer in all those wondrous "acts"? When D.L. Moody was holding in Birmingham one of those remarkable series of meetings which so deeply stirred our country in the early 'seventies, Dr. Dale, who followed the work with the keenest sympathy, and yet not without a feeling akin to stupefaction at the amazing results which it produced, once told Moody that the work was most plainly of God, for he could see no real relation between him and what he had done. Is not this disparity the very sign-manual of the Holy Spirit's presence? "Why," asked Peter, when the multitude were filled with wonder and amazement at the healing of the lame man, "Why fasten ye your eyes on us as though by our own power or godliness we had made him to walk?" Work that is really of God can never be accounted for in that fashion. There is always a something in the effects which cannot be traced back to a human cause. Let "our own power and godliness" be what they may--and they can never be too great--they are all vain and helpless apart from the power of God. "I planted, Apollos watered; God gave the increase." Wherefore let the Church trust neither in him that planteth nor in him that watereth, but in God who giveth the increase.

(2) We come now to the Holy Spirit's work in the world. And, just as in speaking of the "Church" it was not any visible organization which we had in mind, so now by the "world" is not meant merely the persons who are outside all such organizations. There is, as we are often reminded nowadays, a Church outside the Churches; and, on the other hand, not a little of what Christ meant by the "world" is often to be found inside what we mean by the "Church." The "world," then, is simply the mass of men, wherever they are to be found, who are living apart from God. Now, of this world Christ said it "cannot receive" the Spirit of truth; "it beholdeth Him not, neither knoweth Him." If, therefore, there is a ministry of the Spirit in the world, it must be wholly different in kind from that spoken of above. And this is what we learn from Christ's teaching: "He, when He is come, will convict the world in respect of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment." There is a ring of judicial sternness in the words; they call up to our minds the solemnities of a court of justice--the indictment, the conviction, the condemnation. And yet one can well believe that there were hours in the after life of the apostles when, of all the comforting, reassuring words which Christ had spoken to them in that Upper Room, there were none more helpful than these. For they knew now that, when they stood up to bear their witness before a hostile world, they had a fellow-witness in men's hearts. They could go nowhere--in Jerusalem, JudÆa, Samaria, or the uttermost parts of the earth--where the gracious ministries of the Spirit had not preceded them. He, the Paraclete, was not only with them, their "strong-siding Champion," He was in the world also, in the hearts even of them who set themselves most stoutly against the Lord and against His Anointed, subduing their rebelliousness and reconciling them to God. We who teach and preach to-day, do we think of these things as we ought? Does not our message sometimes win a response which is at once a surprise and a rebuke to us? We knew that the seed which we cast into the ground was the word of God; but the soil seemed so poor and thin we scarce had looked for any harvest; yet the seed sprang up and grew, we knew not how. We had forgotten that over all that wide field which is the world the Divine Husbandman is ever at work, at work while men sleep, breaking up the fallow ground, and making ready the soil for the seed. We need to learn to count more on God, to grasp more fully the glorious breadth of promise which He has given us in His Spirit, to remember that, not only in the Church, but in the world--which is His world--that Spirit is always present to testify of God, to convict men of sin, of righteousness, and of judgment.

And yet, while we encourage ourselves with thoughts like these, we dare not forget that men may resist, they may grieve, they may quench the Holy Spirit. He is grieved whensoever He is resisted; He may be resisted until He is quenched. It was Christ Himself who spoke of a sin against the Holy Spirit which "hath never forgiveness." Is there any more painful, perplexing, and yet more certain fact in life than this, that man can resist God? Is there any that has bound up with it more terrible and inevitable issues? "Ye stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears," cried the martyr Stephen to his judges, "ye do always resist the Holy Ghost: as your fathers did, so do ye." And the end for their fathers and for them we know. Wherefore the Holy Spirit saith: "To-day, if ye shall hear His voice, harden not your hearts."

"The kingdom of God is not eating and drinking, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Ghost."--ST. PAUL.