The Conditions of Spiritual Blessing
By Interior
WHEN a blessing comes to the church, it will mean a surrender of old grudges, a forgiving of those who have wronged us, a wider Christian charity, a more patient endurance of sufferings for Christ's sake, a more self-sacrificing spirit of benevolence, a more complete separation from the world, a holier life, and an intenser service. And perhaps the revival is withheld until the church comes to the point where she shall seek it, not with a qualified, but an absolute surrender and a holy willingness to be and to do all that the Spirit shall command. We want a blessing—the shallowest experience can say that; but whether we want a searching and withering, an unsettling, it may be, of hopes long unquestioned, and a renewal of life when it means agony for souls and cross-bearing for Christ—that is a deeper question. —Interior.