الر

chance; if we are not given what we desire, does He not rule all things, and is it not better for us? When you bow to the will of God, you die to this world.

I dwell more or less (I wish it were more) under the shadow of the Almighty, and though, when I go out of that refuge, I often get wounded by shafts of ridicule, &c., I get healed again, and the shafts are not over sharp. One's inclination is to shoot back, having a quiver full of sharpest arrows. To refrain is self-denial; may I practise it more!

I know I am feared because of this, but it is not fear one would wish to meet, but love. You offer a kindness, it is repelled with a snub. If you did it in a spirit of love, not otherwise, it would be right to shoot back. Have you never experienced having a pet thing, something you have done, and which you truly dote upon and see no fault in? The mere remembrance of it makes you happy, even in the time of trouble; then all of a sudden comes a dart of thought, which shows that this pet is an abortion, is hateful, was done from evil motives: its beauty has gone, it is dead, and you never wish to hear of it again. That dart is the arrow of the Light of God disclosing the truth, and showing you that your beauty is but a scab. One comfort is that, when once it is shown up, you can no longer bear the thought of it. It is the slaying of a child of Anak.

Do you remember the day I went to the Isle of Wight, and just before I left I told you about Agag ? 1

The whole of religion consists in looking at God as the true Ruler, and above the agents He uses (no one can be at rest who regards the latter). We are as much worshippers of gold, silver, and "power" gods, as the heathen. Though we do not acknowledge it, the flesh will always look to agents. I do not mourn over past things, they are gone and nothing can recall them; look to the end and separate yourself from the earth.

I wish God to use me as He likes. Sometimes ambition makes me think "What a waste of time to be out here!"; but it soon ceases to disturb me, and I am glad I have no anchors.

With respect to spiritual matters I am content with what I have; it seems quite clear to me that we are, each of us, worlds in ourselves where all events are represented. The flesh must be broken down for true life to exist. If one looks on the future life as certain and assured, I do not think we should.

1 Agag-catering for notice and praise, hailing the tram of the world! "Look what I have done!!

look on this world as dreary and sad; “enough for the day is its evil," and nothing pleases God more than a contented spirit looking on Him as the source of all things, good and evil, as they appear

to us.

I do think the incarnation was a glorious mode of showing us what God is. I wonder if there are others who realize, by God's spirit, that the soul is of God, incarnated; that it is enabled to learn good and evil, and to demonstrate to other powers the mystery of good and evil by the flesh? I feel daily more and more of this truth, and it is a life buoy in this dull life (not that it is dull to me). The tree is known by its fruits; a selfish act is done by the selfish disposition of the doer, the disposition existed before the act which emanated from it. A loving act is done by the loving disposition, and so on. Before you judge any one, watch his or her actions, see which disposition predominates, and judge each act on its Own

merits.

I like these thoughts, though few ever enter into them with me. As Kingsley remarks: "Verily, however important the mere animal lives of men may be in our eyes, they have never really been so, judging from floods, earthquakes, and storms in the eyes of Him who loves and made us all." Death is nothing in God's sight, and would be nothing in ours if we recognized that our life is only a pilgrimage. It is a strange fact-better for us to ask honestly what it means, instead of shutting our eyes to it,

because it interferes with our views of tenderness

and of pain.

The difference between animal man and animals is that of degree. They are of the same description; but in animal man there is another Power, which, though it may be latent, ever exists, and that is the Spirit of God. In other creatures we cannot discern how far the Spirit of God in them is latent or hidden. "Man that is without understanding is like the beasts that perish." I think that the correct definition of carnal man is that his soul sleeps, while his carnal nature wakes and works; that carnal man is merely an animal, with the difference that God's Spirit dwells hidden in him and from time to time stirs; that God speaks by His Spirit in man and manifests Himself to the animal man, and that then begins the strife between soul and body. The main point that I desire is, to test, by God's help, what I believe, viz., that of man a part is of God, and a part is of the world; that the part that is of God is sinless and cannot sin (“Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin," I John iii. 9), and was such from the beginning; while that which is of the world is sinful ("he that committeth sin is of the devil," I John iii. 8), and carnal after the nature of its root, the world, and yet by God's Spirit through Christ can be changed in its carnal nature to turn to God. Satan is prince of this world and god of it. Out of the dust of this world God formed or shaped man. Out of this world, which had been

delivered to Satan, of which he was god and prince, was man shaped, and then God breathed into his nostrils the breath of life. All philosophers are

nonplused by the fact that in the beginning life must have been given, even if we accepted that we came from sponges. The analogy between our bodies and the tabernacle is certainly to be revealed, if God gives the Spirit to enlighten the Scripture, which contains the solution of all mysteries.

I believe Christ is God, the Second Person of the Trinity, incarnated in a sinless body, imbued with the Holy Ghost without measure. I believe man is of God, incarnated in a sinful body, imbued with such measure of the Holy Ghost as God gives. In the soul's depths is implanted the revelation of God's truth; the Holy Ghost does but awaken this consciousness. The soul is divine, is capable of understanding divine things, is not to be affected. by evil or to be corrupted or alloyed. It can be dormant, retire out of view, hindered from revealing itself, being obscured by the flesh and sense. is the Creator and Almighty; the soul is of God, Divine, unable to create, but eternal. It is possible for the soul to know Divine things which the body cannot and does not know. Children are essentially animal in every way; they are more occupied with their little stomachs than anything else, but they are spiritual as well.*

God

3 February, 1882.—I have to thank God for several precious working truths-"God forbid that