Growth of Christian Character.
A GREAT deal of the preaching of the present day is an exhortation to self-development, with scarcely any reference to divine assistance. We hear men urged to perfect and beautify their character, to build themselves up into a higher and nobler manhood, and to reach out after the true, the good, and the beautiful, as though the moral and spiritual elevation of men was a matter of mere education, and that they are capable, by their own efforts, of attaining to the highest standard of moral excellence. There never was greater nonsense than this if we accept the teachings of the word of God. If there is one truth taught more clearly in the Bible than another, it is that of our utter helplessness without spiritual and divine aid. We are represented in our natural condition as without strength, as in a state of spiritual death, as needing divine quickening, and, without Christ, as incapable of doing anything acceptable to God. All true spiritual development and growth springs from the inner principle of spiritual vitality implanted in the soul by our heavenly Father in the renewal of our nature. This principle of divine life, under the continual influence of the divine Spirit, is cultivated by faith and obedience, resulting in the development and strengthening of all the graces of the Spirit that adorn and beautify the Christian character. Separated from this principle of spiritual life in the soul, there is no development of the true, the good, and the beautiful, in human life. In urging men to higher attainments in Christian character, it must be in connection with the divine and spiritual agencies which God has placed at the foundation of all moral excellence. To do otherwise is to reject God's method of elevating our race and to mislead our fellow-men.—Methodist Recorder.