the subject mind and heart, and the effects are seen and felt by others. "The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit." (John iii. 8.) It is the office of this blessed Agent to scatter the clouds that overhang the understanding, to convince of sin, to produce godly sorrow, to bear His testimony to the believer's adoption, and thus to inspire love, joy, peace. And he who supposes that these effects may be produced but not perceived, is scarcely to be reasoned with. It were as wise to affirm that the sun may shine without giving light; or the wind blow and no sound be heard, and no motion perceived, either in the trees of the forest, the clouds of the atmosphere, the dust of the earth, or the down of the thistle.

But, while the influences of the Holy Ghost are perceived by those upon whom they are exerted, they are not to be traced by others. "Night-dews fall not more gently to the ground," than Divine visitations upon the soul of man. When sitting in the midst of his family, kneeling in the public congregation, toiling in the field, calculating at the desk, holding the helm or handling the tackle of the ship, whilst winds and waves roar, and dash, and howl around him; the influences of the Holy Spirit distil upon the soul of the Christian, and the fruits of righteousness advance toward maturity. But all is silent. No sound is heard, except, perhaps, a whispered prayer, or "Glory to God in the highest," breathed forth from a soul too full of joy to be able to repress its holy emotions. There are no visible signs of the silent and invisible operation, except the tear of intense gratitude, or the smile of holy enjoyment, beautifully shaded and chastened by humility, reverence, and love.

2. The effusion of the Holy Spirit will be abundant.—In Palestine the dews are very copious, cooling the heated atmosphere, moistening the thirsty soil, deepening the verdure of the grass and the foliage, and spreading beauty and sweetness over every vineyard, field, and forest. Even "the wilderness" and "the solitary place" become "glad," and "the desert" learns to "rejoice and blossom as the rose."

In no age or nation have the influences of grace been wholly withheld. Upon the Gentiles they fell in drops; upon the Jews, in showers. Upon the Christian church they distil like copious eastern dews. But the disciples of Christ are authorized to expect a more abundant outpouring of the Holy Spirit than any with which they have ever yet been favoured. This is promised both in simple terms and in all the luxuriance of Oriental imagery. Such an effusion forms, indeed, one of the most important themes of ancient prophecy. It holds the same place in the hope and faith of Christians, that the promises of a Messiah held in the belief and expectation of the Jews. It is the crowning glory of the present dispensation.

Sometimes, when the rapt Prophet looked into the future, and his far-seeing eye rested upon coming events, the language of the text

was too feeble to express the mighty conceptions which swelled and glowed within him. God has assured us that He will not only be as the dew unto Israel," but that He "will pour water upon him that is thirsty, and floods upon the dry ground; " that He "will open rivers in high places, and fountains in the midst of valleys;" that "the parched ground shall become a pool, and the thirsty land springs of water; that "in the habitation of dragons" there "shall be grass, with reeds and rushes." Similar language was used by our Lord, when, "in the last day, that great day of the feast," He "stood and cried, If any man thirst, let him come unto Me and drink. He that believeth on Me, as the Scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water."

The dew is generally most abundant where the heat is most intense. The influences of the Holy Spirit are the most abundant where they are most needed and most desired. "As thy day, so shall thy strength be." This rich benefaction will be given in answer to believing prayer. The promises just cited are clouds full of rain. But the breath of persevering supplication must waft them to that portion of the moral desert, or of the enclosed field, in which they are most needed; and the more numerous the supplicants, and the more earnest their prayers, the more speedily and copiously will the showers descend upon the thirsty soil.

3. The constancy and impartiality of Divine influence are included in the promise.The dew, more abundant at one time than another, is yet never wholly withheld, except as the punishment of sin. Rain falls but occasionally, and there are regions where for years the earth is not moistened by a single shower. But the dew falls every night. And it is probable that the church, in the most flourishing period of its history, will resemble the earth before the curse of heaven had blighted its beauty and impaired its fruitfulness. No rain fell upon the young creation; but "there went up a mist," or dew, "and watered the whole face of the ground." In the present state of the church, a shower falls now and then upon the seared, verdureless soil, and immediately life and fertility adorn and enrich the favoured district. To the Christian pilgrim this district becomes an object of deep and delighted interest; and his eye is fixed upon it with more pleasure than the eye of the fainting traveller upon the trees which grow beside the fountains of the desert, extend their arms, and invite him to rest under their shadow.

But is this state of things to continue? Is a short period of prosperity to be succeeded by a long and dreary time of drought and barrenness? No; but the reviving influences of the Holy Spirit shall fall constantly upon the church. We are not to consider the day of Pentecost as a specimen of what God can do, but as a pledge of what He will do,

4. The text seems to express the universality of the Holy Spirit's influence. The dew falls upon every part of the globe; upon the mountain and the vale, the field and the vineyard; upon the sands of

the desert, and the flowers of the garden. And the dew of God's blessing shall distil upon every enclosure which His servants are cultivating. Sometimes we are in danger of thinking that saving operations of the Holy Spirit are confined chiefly, if not wholly, to our own enclosure. While we are favoured with them, we should rejoice that others have them in an equal or a superior degree. The Spirit is omnipresent, and His influences may be exerted upon every church and every individual at the same moment.

The sun is the father of the dew. By his influence moist vapours are drawn from the earth into the atmosphere, where they float during the day, and then, condensed by the cold of evening, fall to the earth again. The Lord Jesus is the great Source of all our spiritual blessings. By His atoning death they have been procured, and in virtue of His intercession they fall upon the church. "It is expedient for you," says He, "that I go away for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you; but if I depart, I will send Him unto you." Without the influences of the Holy Spirit, proceeding from the Father and the Son, there can be no new life. Without the influence of the sun and atmosphere, there can be neither corn, nor wine, nor oil.

II. The effects of this Divine influence.

1. Drooping and decaying graces begin to revive: Israel "shall grow as the lily."-Religion, both in the individual and in the church, is liable to decline. Favoured with influences from on high, and cultivated with care and diligence, it will flourish in every soil, and season, and situation. On the mount of honour, and in the low vale of poverty; in the warmth of youth, and in the winter of age; in the sunshine of success, and in the gloom of disappointment; it will grow as the lily, and cast forth its roots as Lebanon: "yea, it will revive as the corn," and flourish "as the vine," in the rich soil of the promised land. But, without care and culture, it will wither and die; and, without God's blessing, cultivation, however skilful and laborious, will avail nothing. In vain does the ploughman toil all day,-in vain open and break the clods of the ground,-in vain "cast in the principal wheat, and the appointed barley, and the rye, in their place." Great Lord of harvests! "Thou blessest the springing thereof," "waterest the ridges abundantly," and "makest it soft with showers." Religion, even in the souls of those who are favoured with all the means of spiritual culture, is too often sickly and dwarfish. Our love, perhaps, is cold; our faith, feeble; our hope, dim. The consolations of God are small with us. We no longer enjoy Him in everything, or walk in the full light of His countenance. The reason is, that we have grieved the Holy Spirit of God, and the dew is withheld. That which is just affirmed of individual believers, is equally true of the church. Every community, every Christian society, has had its seasons of prosperity and of decay, of increase and of diminution. For some time after Christianity was brought into Britain, it flourished here like the vine upon the mountains of

Israel. "The hills were covered with the shadow of it, and the boughs thereof were like the goodly cedars. She sent out her boughs unto the sea, and her branches unto the river." But hardly had the first ripe clusters been gathered, when the barbarians of the north "broke down her hedges," and "all they which passed by the way did pluck her. The boar out of the wood wasted it, and the wild beasts of the field devoured it." After the lapse of years, the national religion began to revive. But scarcely had the fresh buds begun to swell, when they were blighted by the Norman invasion, and by the injustice and cruelty which followed in its train. This storm passed, and Christianity began to look more healthy and promising; when almost all that was beautiful and valuable faded under the breath of the Church of Rome; a church which has been a calamity and a curse to every country where its influence was dominant. When Popery had been driven from the throne, and almost out of the kingdom, Reformed Christianity lost much of its loveliness and power by means of mutual jealousy and aversion among the sections into which it was divided. Ephraim envied Judah, and Judah vexed Ephraim. The Nonconformists, though boasting some of the wisest and best of men, were sometimes fanatical. The Clergy and members of the Established Church, rushing to the opposite extreme, became, to a very great extent, either coldly moral or openly profane.

As a religious communion, we are but of yesterday; and yet we have seen both prosperity and decline. For some time our prosperity seemed almost uninterrupted. Success tended to make us proud and self-confident. Our neighbours called us a great and wealthy people. We were courted by civic and political parties. In the case of some, flatteries and budding honours proved fatal to the simplicity and power of religion; and they overstepped the line by which the church is separated from the world. Let us return to original simplicity and earnestness. Then will God be "as the dew unto Israel," and we "shall revive as the corn." Beautiful and cheering is the promise. We have walked over the corn-fields when the furrows were covered with snow, and the precious grain buried, apparently, without the faintest hope of a resurrection. After the lapse of weeks we revisit the same fields. What a change! The sun and the dew have renovated all things. The grain has sprung up, first the blade, and then the ear; and now we see the full corn in the ear, waving in the breeze, and bending to the hand of the rejoicing reaper. How finely does this illustrate the progress, in all that is good, of a soul under the influence of the Holy Spirit!

2. The dews of grace not only quicken and revive, but adorn and beautify also.-The imagery of the holy seer points to a beauty of which, in this colder latitude, we can form but an inadequate estimate. Let us stand, in imagination, amid scenes which spread before his eye. The soil of the Holy Land has been moistened with dews and vernal showers; the hills are covered with grass, and the valleys stand thick with corn. The eastern lily rears its stately form, and

spreads all its varied beauties. The vine and the olive adorn the sides of the sloping hills; whilst the noble oak and the lofty cedar throw their waving shadows upon the mountain-tops. "The glory of Lebanon," "the excellency of Carmel and Sharon," form the background of the picture.

All this is intended to shadow forth the moral beauty of a soul, or of a church, favoured with constant influences from on high. Sin pollutes and deforms. It destroys all symmetry and harmony, all grace and loveliness. The Holy Spirit of God transforms man into the image of his Maker. It implants and matures "whatsoever things are true," "just," "venerable," "pure," "lovely," or "of good report." These are the ornaments which make the church more attractive to the wise and the good, than the marble column, the noble arch, the painted window, the pealing organ, and all the thrilling tones of choral music. The latter are attractive to taste and science, to the eye, and the ear, and the imagination. But they too often leave the heart untouched, and the soul unfitted for the world of beauty and song.

3. The influences of the Holy Spirit give strength: Israel "shall cast forth his roots as Lebanon.”—The cedars of that famed mount grow to a great size. One of them, measured by an old traveller, was more than twelve yards in the circumference of its trunk, and thirtyseven in the spread of its branches. St. Paul prayed that the Ephesians might be "rooted and grounded in love," "strengthened with might by the Spirit in the inner man." Every Christian needs strength to enable him to resist temptation, to discharge duty, to sustain suffering, to bear the cross, and to conquer all his spiritual enemies. And, that we may be made equal to our part in duty, suffering, and conflict, we must be made "strong in the Lord, and in the power of His might."

Christians receive strength from God; and they may even strengthen each other. A forest is a beautiful emblem of the reciprocal advantage which Christian believers derive from each other. Its trees stand amidst the fiercest storms, like an army in the shock of battle. Their roots, interlaced beneath the surface, clasp each other in mutual embraces. One rank is firmly supported by another; and, in whatever direction the hostile wind comes, it is withstood by a formidable front of veteran foresters, laughing at its fury, and defying its utmost force. Far different is the case with the solitary tree. Whilst the winds slumber in their secret chamber, its leaves may flutter, and its arms be spread abroad in proud independence. But no sooner does the storm stir up its strength, than the tree is blown down, and hills and vales resound with the crash of its fall. Such is the fate of those who profess to be religious, but despise or neglect the communion of saints. Their mountain is so strong, they think they shall never be moved. They can stand alone. The experience and sympathy, the prayers, reproofs, and example of the church, may be of use to others, but not to them. Thus they sport with their own deceivings, and dance upon the edge of a precipice. Whilst 2 Q

VOL. IV.-FIFTH SERIES.