There is hardly a congregation in which there is not some saint, who, without many advantages of education, by spiritual meditation, by prayer, and the inward illumination of the Spirit, has gained an insight into the Gospel that the pastor of the church may well covet. And this is true, though the pastor and the saint enjoy the same knowledge of the facts, as Apollos and Priscilla did not. However we may explain it, there is an insight into spiritual truth and a power in using it that does not come from investigation and reasoning, but from what Luke calls the reception of the Holy Spirit.

And yet while we acknowledge in the fullest sense the correctness of this statement we should not forget that Luke distinctly recognizes the fact that the attainments of Apollos equipped him for a service which the lowly artisan could not render. After Apollos had shared their experience he was endowed for the largest usefulness. Acts, 18 : 28 is a case in point. It is said, "He powerfully confuted the Jews, and that publicly, showing by the Scriptures that Jesus was the Christ." [R.V.] Priscilla might have done that for a little company of sympathetic spirits. Apollos could do that on a great scale against opposition. His hearers felt that they had a match on their own plane, and that his disciplined power commanded respect for his distinctively spiritual message. And if we adopt the venerable tradition that the epistle to the Hebrews is from the pen of Apollos, every time we read it we are aware of how transcendent human gifts may be utilized by the Spirit.

It is a mistake, therefore, to assume that because the Spirit imparts a knowledge of the Gospel to be derived from no other source, therefore the only instruction needed is that of the Spirit. Human faculty has an invaluable service in the work of extending the Kingdom of God. By itself it is not enough. But when it is informed, vitalized, and inspired by the inner illumination, we have the man of God thoroughly equipped for every good work.

The Watchman.

There are signs that Pentecost has fully come. The spirit of Christ, unhurt on that Calvary of greed upon which he has been so often crucified by ecclesiastic and politician, has left a spirit of truth which has come into our political economy. That Pentecostal spirit is taking the things of his and showing them unto us. Christian ideas and ideals of society are being reconsecrated to the missionary effort in the upper room of thought and hope. As these conceptions reappear we know how much of our vaunted has been only Babel building, and that such principles as have most ministered to man's self-confidence under the form of economic orthodoxy cannot form a tower about which to unify the race or create a Prometheus to redeem humanity. The undisturbed genius of our wealth-producing era has been half worshiped as our Prometheus. It is a true Prometheus in this sense, that has robbed God. It has not, however, attained the divine secret. Our age has declined to let its heart be fired with the altruism of Pentecost, and great has been our confusion of tongues. Statemanship now knows that we must rid ourselves of Babel and substitute Christ and Calvary for Prometheus and Caucasus.

Rev. F. W. Gunsaulus.

Rev. Clara E. Morgan writes in The Universalist Leader: "Jesus insists upon love, faith, and spiritual verities, but not as the old theologians taught, to get men into heaven, but rather to get heaven into men. He said very little about heaven, but assumed that after his disciples had entered the kingdom here, they would expect to be a part of it in the next world, for it shall have no end. Hence he says to them, 'In my Father's house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you.' Jesus talks to immortality, of what to do to gain eternal life, as no one else has spoken. Plato, after all his arguments for the soul's immortality, admits that the arguments are but rafts on a stormy sea and to attempt a voyage by them is periious, and he hoped some day a divine word would come that should make the journey safer. That hope has its realization in the words of the Master."

Beyond all systems of ethics and all scientific hypotheses, man is driven back for the best results and the most permanent benefit to the realization that there is a divine something within him which still responds to duty and manliness when all other influences and forces have failed. The new man who shall be the true man, and the new society to be hoped for, will find their greatest moving power in the convictions which the Creator has implanted in every life. The great and final appeal which God makes to man is through the conscience, which is more reliable than any theory for securing results of righteousness. There are extreme wrongs in society and fearful evils in human lives which the age can never to reach and correct except as it shall keep the conscience of mankind tender. The best police force in the nation's life is an awakened conscience.—The Standard.

The Rev. Quincy Ewing, Rector of St. James Episcopal Church, Greenville, Miss., is thus quoted by The Examiner: "But what kind of faith is it for which we have special need to pray that it may be increased? For a dogma—some metaphysical proposition—some verbal formula? Nay. It is that faith which means a steadying wisdom of the divine unseen and the divine eternal, "the deep below the deep, and the height beyond the height;' a consciousness that the real value of things is a spiritual value, and their real end a spiritual end. If our doctrines do not inspire such a faith they become as sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal. God has made us to live that our earthliest efforts may be noble enough to bespeak a heavenly meaning, and our earthliest hopes heroic enough to prophesy a heavenly consummation."

Rev. Theodore T. Munger says in The Congregationalist and Christian World: "The dangerous point to the higher life is that between the good and the best. The good has its charm, its use, its necessity. It keeps the laws; it is the enemy of evil habits, the friend of things lovely and of good report; and it says, Is not this enough? It is, unless, in some rare moment, one has caught sight of the ideal hidden in that mystical word: 'If thou wouldst be perfect.' Then the good retreats before the best, and a divine restlessness drives one in search of the deeper meanings of life. Then one is ready to lay down all and follow after the Ideal that cares not for lands and herds and the delights of life, or holds them as though they were not."

Our life should be an ascent. There should be no violent contrast between spiritual experience on earth and spiritual experience in heaven. And the next thing to do is to step into heaven.

The judgment day, too, can be so anticipated as to become as to become as one of the natural days of the common week.

Joseph Parker.

"The world is held back from true progress, not so much by the badness of bad men as by the obstinacy of good men who have stopped growing," said an after-dinner speaker recently at a college alumni meeting. The worst of it is that such good men think their immovable stand in what they call the old paths is their chief virtue.

The Congregationalist and Christian World.

Believers find heaven begun below. The hope of a heaven beyond is founded on the possession of heaven here. When our prayer is answered and the Lord "cleanses the thoughts of our hearts by the inspiration of his Holy Spirit," we quickly learn to love heavenly things. — Dr. T. W. Campbell.

The best proof of repentance is the abandonment of sin. Words mean nothing unless supported by deeds. The name of Jesus is magnified when men repent, believe, and live holy, self-sacrificing lives, devoted to Christ's service and ministry of love.—The Examiner.

This is the beginning of all Gospels,—that the kingdom of heaven is at hand just where we are. It is just as near us as our work is, for the gate of heaven for each soul lies in the endeavor to do that work perfectly.

William C. Gannett.

There are multitudes in our congregations who are just waiting when they ought to be acting. They must work, if they would have God work in them. There can be no religion without obedience.—Ichabod Spencer.

In his last discourse Theodore Parker said: "The soul's power of recovery from wickedness is infinite; its time of healing is time without bounds.... In all the family of God there is never a son of perdition."