THE presence and agency of the Holy Spirit should be recognized, sought, cherished and gratefully acknowledged; for upon this agency the Church is dependent for prosperity, progress and power. Without it our prayers are not answerd, the ceremonies of worship are formal and powerless, and the preaching of the gospel is comparatively in vain. The terrors of Sinai and the sweet accents of Calvary, divested of living power, fall upon listless ears, and the hearers remain insensible under the discipline of mercies and of judgments. Every thoughtful Christian knows that when the Spirit of God is present in a congregation, Christians are instinct with life, they labor for Christ, they agonize for souls, they bear the cross cheerfully, devise and execute plans for the glory of God, they consecrate themselves, with all that they possess, to the service of Christ, they co-operate cheerfully in every good work, and the preaching of the gospel becomes the power of God in conversion and sanctification.
But when the Spirit of God is not present, Christians are characterized by spiritual insensibility, they are no longer active and devoted, their prayers are listless and formal, they complain of the burden of the cross, they turn aside from the straight and narrow way, and seek a path to Heaven strewn with flowers; they devise no liberal plans of usefulness, and oppose those devised by others, they withhold their gifts from the treasury of the Lord and invest their substance in stocks, and mortgages, and bonds. But the Church languishes, the benevolent agencies are not prosecuted vigorously, the treasury of the Lord is not filled, colleges and seminaries are not endowed, expediency is made the rule of action, prudential maxims constitute the standard of morality, the ritual and the form are the chief manifestations of Christianity, religion is an incident, rather than an essential element of life, and in reference to the great interests of the soul, immortality and retribution, the relation of cause and effect is disregarded.—Selected.