in triumphant exultation, "I am now ready to be offered, and the time of my departure is at hand. I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith. Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day; and not to me only, but unto all them also that love his appearing."

SERMON VIII.

THE GIFTS OF THE HOLY GHOST.

(PREACHED AT THE CHAPEL ROYAL, WHITEHALL, ON WHIT-SUNDAY, 1858.)

JOHN xiv. 16.

And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for

ever.

It was a sad and anxious moment to the Apostles when they stood on the top of the Mount of Olives and saw Jesus parted from them and a cloud receive Him out of their sight. We may reasonably imagine that they stood gazing into heaven, doubting whether Jesus had ascended from them for ever, or whether His departure was only one of those many mysterious disappearances which they had witnessed in the forty days which had succeeded to His resurrection, when the heavens had suddenly yielded up to them His presence, and Jesus had stood in the midst, and had as suddenly vanished out of their sight. They might well think that He had only gone away for a season;

but these hopes were dissipated by the appearance of the two heavenly messengers, who assured them that Jesus had taken a final farewell, and had departed till the last great day: "Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven? This same Jesus which is taken up from you into heaven shall so come in like manner as ye have seen Him go into heaven." It was then that the Apostles first felt their loss. It was then that they knew their loneliness. A band of men-most of them rude fishermen from a northern province had left their occupation to follow a wonderful teacher, as his associates in subduing the world; and now he had vanished and abandoned them to subdue that world, as it seemed, unaided.1

It was at a moment when such thoughts as these filled the Apostles' minds, that they would begin to turn their hopes to that mysterious promise which their Master had not long before given them of a Comforter who should be with them in His absence. "And I will pray the Father, and He shall give you another Comforter, that He may abide with you for ever: even the Spirit of truth. I will not leave you

1 Their feelings of solitude at that moment have been beautifully depicted by a Spanish lyric poet, Luis de Leon, in his hymn, "En la Ascension," beginning " Y dexas, Pastor Santo," &c., a translation of which, hardly inferior to the original, will be found in Ticknor's "Hist. of Spanish Literature," vol. ii. ch. 9: "And dost thou, holy Shepherd, leave," &c.

comfortless; I will come to you. Yet a little while and the world seeth me no more; but ye see me; because I live ye shall live also." Nor did they wait long in doubt, for after about ten days the surprising miracle happened, that there came from heaven a sound as of a mighty rushing wind, and they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to speak with other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance. Of all miracles ever wrought, the gift of the Spirit was the most astounding.

That marvel is a surprising one which the Scripture opens up to us in the miracle of creation, when it places us at the dawn of created nature; when it transports us backward to the depths of a past eternity when God was alone. Then as now God was; but besides Him there was nothing. The Supreme Being existed with universal silence round Him. Suddenly his fiat went forth, and the universe was peopled with motion and life. Orbs began to roll in periodic cycle round His eternal throne, and intelligences, sparklings of the Infinite, sprung into existence at His bidding. "The morning stars sung together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy." That, again, was a stupendous miracle worthy of a God, the loftiest expression of the tenderness of the Almighty, when His own Son was born in the village of Bethlehem; stooping to join mankind in their sufferings, that He might elevate human

nature along with Him to the throne which He had left. Well might the choir of the Heavenly hosts break in upon the stillness of the midnight with their chant of triumph! Well might inanimate nature respond to the event by launching forth a meteor to attract the Eastern sages!

But majestic as was the miraculous sight of the freshness of the morning of created nature, stupendous as was the condescension in God becoming man, the miracle was, if possible, still more marvellous when God the Spirit condescended to come down to take His residence in the hearts of men. It was an infinite condescension for God to live among men, it was a greater one for Him to make His dwellingplace within men's hearts. It was a wondrous comfort for His disciples to be able to go to a God present on this earth and ask His aid; but it was a mightier privilege to know that, without undertaking a long pilgrimage to seek the presence of a local Saviour, there was help to be found from an omnipresent Comforter; that for men of every race and rank, without respect of age or sex or condition, for the captive and for the free, for the sick and for the strong, there was close at hand a Spirit to be given in answer to their prayers; that wheresoever under the broad heaven, on earth, or on sea, in the crowded city or in the solitude of the desert, one prayer is breathed up to God for His Spirit,