has been almost or quite as rapid, as well as that in parts of the province of Shantung. The native church is still in its infancy, but it is a vigorous infant, and within the next decade it will exert an influence upon the empire as a whole, out of all proportion to its own membership.

CHINA'S GREAT DESTINY.

In estimating the future of any enterprise everything depends upon the point of view. He who reads the writing of a providence that is divine in the last two generations of Chinese history, clearly perceives that the most numerous people now in existence have not been kept alive after the disappearance of all the nations with whom they were contemporary, without a great purpose. The Chinese are now confronted with all the most powerful countries of the world. The

new developments in this ancient empire make it certain that she is to be penetrated with Western thought.

In this great work the United States must bear its part. We cannot take the blessings of the close of the nineteenth century, without accepting its responsibilities also. The hands of those who are trying to do something in this distant realm of the earth ought to be upheld by a faith that sees the coming future as though it were already present. They should in like manner be supported by prayer, earnest, unfaltering, incessant.

When China is a Christian land, things will be seen on the earth which have never been seen hitherto. This will indeed be one of the mightiest triumphs of the gospel, and the sure pledge of its coming universal diffusion.

Pang Chuang, Shantung, China.

"Fear not; for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people," etc. Luke ii. 10, 11.

Christ is the Christmas giver. Many of the richest and sweetest joys human hearts can experience were born into the world when Christ was born. Let us name a few from among the many.

I. One is the joy of knowing the nature of God. Christ was Immanuel-God with us; so near that we could see and understand and know Him. Before the coming of Christ men's ideas of God were most hazy and indistinct and even crude. In a true sense

"Love came down at Christmas,

Love all lovely, Love divine.
Love was born at Christmas,

Star and angels gave the sign."

The incarnation is simply a great object lesson of God's love. He loved before, but it taught men that He loved and how much He loved.

II. Another is the joy of possessing a divine human Mediator. Before Christ was born God seemed distant and difficult of approach, so separating was man's sense of sin. But Christ came "that He might be a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make reconciliation

for the sins of the people." This office He executeth in once offering up of Himself a sacrifice to satisfy divine justice and reconcile us to God, and in making continual intercession for us. The result is that we know the way of pardon, and, having accepted it, carry about with us a sweet and abiding sense of calm and peace. The way of assurance and the privilege of indulging it came largely with the birth of Christ.

III. Still another is the joy of conscious adoption into God's family. Christ revealed Himself to us as our Brother. Thus we are seen to be children of His Father. Through Christ we have adoption, whereby we are received into the number of God's children, have His name put upon us, the Spirit of Christ given unto us, have His fatherly care and dispensations, are admitted to all the liberties and privileges of the sons of God, are made heirs of all the promises, and fellow heirs with Christ in glory. These privileges were not realized by men until after the coming of Christ.

IV. Yet another is the joy of fraternity among men in the realization of human brotherhood. The Jews recognized that they were brothers, before the coming of Christ; but the idea of world-wide brother

hood was born into the world with Christ. Many of the richest blessings of Christian civilization have come through the increase of brotherly relations among men. The gospel is a grand emancipator. It thunders against all wrong and aims to break down every stronghold of oppression. It has been the great messenger of liberty, equality and fraternity.

V. A still further joy we will mention is that which has come through the exaltation of the kindlier graces, which the birth of Christ brought. Meekness, gentleness, forbearance, forgiveness, lowliness, purity, unambitious love, these and such as these are the graces Christ held up for men to desire. Before Christ was born these quali ties had low place in the world's estimation. Might was deemed to exist in mere naked force, not in gentleness. Power was placed before purity; intellect before heart; strength of will before strength of affection. But Christ came, saying, "Blessed are the meek, blessed are the merciful, blessed are the pure in heart," etc. It is impossible to overestimate the total amount of joy that has come into the world through this one fact of Christ's having exalted the passive and kindlier virtues.

VI. A joy we give final mention is that of a bright prophetic hope. The angel message that first Christmas dawn was more

than an announcement; it was a glorious, far-reaching prophecy, telling that the time was coming when the Christmas "good news," and the blessings it brings would reach "all people." May there not be something at least suggestive to us in the fact that Christmas comes when the days begin to lengthen? Christmas day is a trifle longer than the day which precedes it. From this time forward, for months, the days will grow longer and the nights shorter. The first Christmas morning said to the world's night: "Henceforth you must decrease, while the day shall increase." From that time to this Christianity has been taking little by little from the world's night and adding it to the world's day. And this is to continue until the darkness is all swallowed up in the universal shining of the glorious Sun of Righteousness. The world of to-day is one year further away from the birth of Christ, but, glad and happy hope! it is one year nearer to the final and universal reign of Jesus. May every Christ-touched soul count it highest joy at this blessed Christmas season to consecrate himself or herself anew to every good word and work that can help to hasten the time when all the world shall bow beneath the loving sway of the world's Redeemer and King.

Rochester, N. Y.

INDISPENSABLE

Much of the speaking about the filling with the Holy Spirit implies that such filling is desirable, indeed, but not indispensable. It is treated as one of the spiritual luxuries of the Christian life. A minister said to the writer, "I am going to look into that subject one of these days." He seemed utterly oblivious of the sorrowful fact that so long as he was not filled with the Spirit his every act of service was an insolence; and that every sermon preached by him in that state was a direct injury to the cause of Christ; for nothing so surely causes atrophy of con

"Plain Papers on The Holy Spirit" began in the July issue and have been continued through successive months, concluding with the present number.-EDITOR.

science and heart as truth divorced from power.

I. No Christian has any right to per form the slightest act in the service of Christ until he is definitely filled with the Holy Spirit.

"And ye are witnesses of these things And behold, I send the promise of my Father upon you, but tarry ye in the city of Jerusalem until ye be endued with power from on high." (Luke xxiv. 48, 49.)

"But ye shall receive power after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you, and ye shall be witnesses unto me, both in Jerusalem and in all Judea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth." (Acts i. 8.)

How wonderfully all this was fulfilled all readers of the second chapter of Acts know.

After that the Holy Ghost was come upon them they did "receive power," for "they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to speak with other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance."

If, then, the very apostles of Jesus Christ, the chosen men who had been with Him and been moulded by the tremendous impact of His personality; who were first-hand witnesses of His mighty miracles, and of His resurrection; whose memories were stored with His wonderful words, and who had received the indwelling Spirit by His direct outbreathing—if those men must tarry until they were filled with the Spirit before beginning even the least service, what but unspeakable effrontery is it for one of us to begin a service without the filling?

Nor biblically, is the filling with the Holy Spirit indispensable only to ministers of the Word. The filling is indispensable for any service.

"And in those days, when the number of the disciples was multiplied, there arose a murmuring of the Grecians against the Hebrews, because their widows were neglected in the daily ministration. Then the twelve called the multitude of the disciples unto them, and said: It is not reason that we should leave the word of God and serve tables. Wherefore, brethren, look ye out among you seven men of honest report, full of the Holy Ghost and of wisdom, whom we may appoint over this business."

Just as in the Jewish dispensation, Bezaleel was "filled with the Spirit of God" to "work in gold, and in silver, and in brass," because God would teach us that all acceptable ministry, even though mechanical, was acceptable only when rendered by a Spiritfilled servant; so in the church age, He would commit the temporalities of the church only to men qualified in the same way. In other words, it is the method of God's appointment.

The writer believes that all this is most solemn. What is the attempted service of an unfilled Christian but an insolent attempt to override the order of God? It is no uncharity to say that the inevitable result of such service is the attempt to substitute fleshly expedients for the lacking spiritual power.

Look over the church notices of any city

newspaper, and see how feverish and frantic are the attempts to substitute "attractions" for power. It is the sin of Nadab and Abihu; and, as their sin was punished by physical death, so in modern religious life the anti-typical sin of substitution of strange fire is punished by awful spiritual deadness.

Not less urgent is it to note that, blessed and significant as must ever be the memory of the first definite filling with the Spirit, it is most perilous to assume the permanency of that state. This is illustrated in the apostolic experience. Even the astonishing event of Pentecost did not seem to those men sufficient for a life-long ministry. Conscious of loss of courage under the threatenings of the Sanhedrin, we find them carrying their fear to God in Acts iv. 29, with the blessed result that again they were filled with the Spirit before renewing their ministry. No more pernicious notion can be held upon this vital subject than that one filling suffices for a lifelong ministry. The filling with the Spirit indeed begins in a definite, conscious, and ever memorable experience; but a fruitful Christian service is the result of a perpetual drinking at the fountain of "living waters." "I shall be anointed with fresh oil" (Ps. xcii. 10) should be the expression of the confident faith of every yielded servant of God as he goes forward to a new service.

2. No Christian can possibly live a right Christian life who is not filled with the Holy Spirit.

All of the varied offices of the Spirit as indwelling the believer-offices bearing upon the inner life-depend for their vigorous ministry upon the filling with the Spirit. One may have the Spirit, and yet live a carnal, joyless life. The case of the Corinthian church demonstrates this. It is when he is filled with the Spirit that all the marvelous results of His indwelling are realized.

When it is remembered that the Spirit gives victory over sin; actualizes to the believer his position in Christ; produces the fragrant fruits of love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, and temperance;" imparts spiritual vigor, strengthening him "with might in the inner man," indites his prayers, comforts him, guides him, sanctifies him, and makes of him a "true" worshiper, it should be evident that, since every believer may be filled with

who is fearless and trustful in time of storm or danger, makes it easier for all others in the company to be quiet.

There is a lesson also of peaceableness which is suggested in this beatitude. We are to make peace by restraining in ourselves all that is opposed to this spirit. There has been a tendency in the church to make too little of the culture of the graces of Christian life. Doctrinal soundness has been insisted upon as a test of true Christian life, more than sweetness of spirit and beauty of character. An irritable temper is too often regarded, not indeed as a quality to be admired and commended, but at the worst as an excusable infirmity, so common among good people that no one can reprove his neighbor for his failure at this point. So many Christian men and women are touchy and easily offended that it seems necessary to leave a wide margin in defining what religion requires of its followers in the matter of patience and forbearance.

But the teaching of the New Testament is very clear and explicit on this point. The Master Himself insists on love, not merely as a fine sentiment, but as a quality of daily life, affecting all its relations and its contacts with others. "I say unto you, that ye resist not evil; but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if any man will sue thee at the law, and take away thy coat, let him have thy cloak also." No place would seem to be left in Christian life for resisting wrong.

When we turn to the epistles we find many an exhortation to peaceable living. St. Paul, for example, counsels Christians, as far as in them lies, to live peaceably with all men. That is, if there must be quarreling it should not be the fault of the Christian. He must not begin it. It must not come through his insisting on his rights. He must do all in his power to get along with his neighbor without strife or contention. If others are disposed to be quarrelsome, he must meet the disagreeable spirit with love. "The servant of the Lord must not strive-must not be contentious-but must be gentle unto all men."

The whole New Testament thus teaches and impresses the duty of living with others in a quiet and peaceable way. Whatever is unloving in act, word, or spirit is to be

avoided. All malice and bitterness, and all clamor and evil-speaking are to be put off, and all meekness, patience, kindness, and thoughtfulness are to be put on. The full lesson is summed up in St. Paul's matchless picture of love in a life: "Love suffereth long, and is kind; love envieth not; love vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not its own, is not provoked, taketh not account of evil." That is only peaceableness writ large. There is no place here for quarrelsome

ness.

Perhaps the Christian teaching on this subject is really not over illustrated in the old story of the two monks who had never quarreled. They had lived together for many years in a cave, learning to love each other with an ever deeper love. Wearying at last of the monotony of their life, one of them suggested to the other that they should have a quarrel, after the fashion of the people of the outside world.

"But about what shall we quarrel?" asked the other.

"We will take this stone and put it between us, and I will say, 'This stone is mine,' and so we will quarrel."

The stone was placed between them. "This stone is mine," said one.

"I think the stone is mine," the other gently replied.

"If the stone is thine, take it," said the one who had proposed the quarrel.

They found it impossible to quarrel. It should be so with all the friends of Christ. There is no beatitude for an irascible temper, but there are two beatitudes for those who avoid quarreling-"Blessed are the meek," and "blessed are the peacemakers."

We ought to be peacemakers by living so that it will be impossible for any one to have strife or contention with us. The influence of such a life in a community works deeply and widely toward peaceableness. One contentious person can fill a whole neighborhood with strife. A quarrelsome man stirs up bitterness wherever he goes. But one person who has the forbearing spirit of Christ, who meekly endures wrongs rather than contend against them, is a maker of peace. Others are influenced by his example. Every time we keep silent under insult, and loving and sweet under irritation and