possession. We understand how wealth may be desired for mere vanity: not with an appreciation of its uses, but out of the passion of possession and the desire of display. Intellectual power may be coveted from the same motive. Men desire scholarship and skill for the sake of the pride and pleasure of them, for ends of personal self-sufficiency and distinction. And the attainment of spiritual power may be prompted in much the same spirit. Here pride refines itself into invisibility, and we find it difficult to believe in its presence. Spiritual power should be sought so that the ignoble elements of our nature may be effectually purged, that the sanctification of our faculties may be complete, and that all our work for God and man may be efficient. To lose sight of these practical uses is to fall into a subtle snare of refined selfishness and vanity. The cultivation of character in the artistic spirit is a snare of the spiritual life. One of our writers justly observes: "There are two kinds of artists, just as there are moral and spiritual souls. There are the trimmers, the superficialists, the amateurs, not loving beauty for itself, but for its advantages, socially and selfishly." Wuttke in discussing the morals of the Greeks shows that in their reckoning the beautiful was the good; and that, in their opinion, man is moral in enjoying and creating the beautiful. They regarded the moral idea chiefly as an object of artistic enjoyment, and morality as a matter of mere spectacle. Does not this danger beset us?-to cultivate holiness in the æsthetic spirit and as so much personal adornment? He who has understood the teaching of Christ never forgets that the good is the beautiful, and that the two must be sought in this order. He remembers that loveliness of character is first a question of essence and not of form. This sculptor brings the statue to perfection by fine measurements and delicate touches on the surface, but a noble human body is such by virtue of indwelling life, and health, and purity. The Greek sought moral excellence as in the studio of the sculptor; whilst in the school of Christ, which is the school of life, beauty of character is forgotten and found in the purity of the soul. To cultivate the virtues in an artistic temper, and as so much personal ornament, is to fall into serious error; in the power of a holy spirit we much. achieve exterior grace. Harmony, beauty, and serenity of life spring from essential truth, purity, and love. Least of all must moral gracefulness be studied as a matter of mere spectacle. How we stand in the eye of God ought to be the dominant thought; and if we live in His sight clothed in wrought gold, we shall hardly be unlovely in the sight of those about us. To cultivate moral beauty in the spirit of art and fashion is to make shipwreck on the coral reef of a silver sea. Sensuous enjoyment may insinuate itself into spiritual culture so as to become a peril. It might be thought that there is little to fear from sensuality in a fervent spiritual life; it would seem so essentially coarse and vulgar as not to be susceptible of concealment or decoration. But it is not so. With the Greeks the worship of Aphrodite lent to sensuality itself a religious sanction; and the epistle before us makes manifest how soon the disciples of a far higher religion of love and beauty were in danger from the sensual side. Very plainly does Jude speak of gross passions, temptations, and sins. "Strange flesh”; “in their dreamings defile the flesh"; "fornication"; and suggestions of unnatural sin, come in this epistle into strange association with godliness, spiritual enthusiasm, and that fellowship of love in which the primitive Church reached sublimity. A recent writer in discussing Sainte-Beuve and Chateaubriand, both of whom combined an ostentatious profession of religion with sexual licence, observes: "We know, however, that erotic mania and religious mania are in some strange fashion allied alike in Protestant and Catholic communities." The outcome of the high-pitched ideal of monasticism was often licentiousness; and the consecrated communities Mablished by saints like Tersteegen were discredited by unseemly developments. It is true that "we cannot have mountains without precipices," and it is humbling and alarming to note that the love and purity of an exalted spiritual life may so easily pass into unhealthiness and sin. The "lovefeast" became an orgie, and the heavenly love of the individual saint may imperceptibly degenerate into dangerous sentimentalism and profane passion. To cultivate fervent devoutness apart from practical life is another peril of the spiritual. Intense emotion, ecstatic song, fervent witness-bearing, impassioned contemplation, fellowship, and devotion soon become dangerous when severed from the facts and duties of daily life. Contact with the realities of the worldly life is necessary to the health and sanity of the soul, to the strength and soundness of our piety. We must keep in touch with human relations and responsibilities, we must at every step test our faith and feeling by their value in everyday life, even when caught up into paradise we must not lose sight of commonplace duty and things. The kindling afflatus, the lyrical utterance, the solemn awe that dare not move, the lips touched with fire, are precious and delightful in their place and season; but the mystical and ecstatic, the vision and the rapture, must immediately and consistently blend with practical life if they are to leave us strong and safe. Talking too much about our spiritual life may prove to its detriment. Testimony-bearing in the love-feast is a duty and joy, but it is easy to injure our deepest life by discussing it too freely and too frequently. A French critic writes: "Beware of an artist who talks too well of his art. He wastes his art in talk." And it is as certainly true in regard to religion. Men think that they are in saintship because they discuss it so admirably, and they waste in talk the reality and energy of grace; were they to think more and talk less they would be safer. Reticence and reality are close kin. There is much that is sacred and secret about the experiences of the soul, and it is dangerous to violate its delicacy. So we need vigilance on every side. Keep me waiting watchful for Thy will- XLV THE TRANSFORMATIONS OF GRACE And they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning-hooks.-Isa. ii. 4. T HE first great transformation effected by the grace of God is the transformation of the sinner into a saint. It is not the design of the gospel to destroy any of the faculties or affections, any of the energies of human nature, but to reform, renew and strengthen, to exalt them and give them a new direction. It aims to divert the powers of the soul from false and destructive ends, and to fix them on objects and exercises altogether worthy and beautiful. In conversion new faculties are not created within us; but, transformed in the spirit of our mind, the misdirected and dishallowed faculties are restored to high and holy uses. As Archer Butler puts it, "Trust, but trust in the living God. Preserve unbroken every element of your affections; they are all alike the property of heaven. Be ambitious, but ambitious of the eternal heritage. Let avarice be yours, but avarice of celestial treasures. Covet esteem, but esteem in the mind of God and the circles of the blessed. Labour after knowledge, but let it be 'the |