(Eph. 4:3.-Continued.)

The unity of the Spirit is to be kept, then, only by an earnest, active linking ourselves with what is of God among His people, with a steady refusal of all that is not of Him, however inseparably connected with it may seem. With a whole heart for the people of God, just on that very account an intense opposition to all that hinders the full subjection to Christ's claim upon them -to holiness as measured by the Word, and therefore to fellowship in divine things among them. In maintaining this, what need of "all lowliness and meekness, with long-suffering, forbearing one another in love"! We are not permitted simply to withdraw ourselves, and escape from a conflict in which the strife is for men against themselves. Love, while it abides, whether Godward or man-ward, will not suffer us to with draw ourselves. " The whole Church of God for God,"-this and nothing less must be our banner, even though nothing seems so hopeless:for in truth we shall never see it until that day when the Lord's voice shall call us up out of the earth-mists that surround us, to unite us forever in the clear bright sky above. What we want to realize is, that the unity of the Spirit means activity, not passiveness; that to keep it there must be an exercised conscience, as well as a heart aglow with spiritual energy,-love, the spring of power, of courage, and of endurance,- clear-sighted, as true love ever is. How blessed and peaceful a path after all, in fellowship with and under the control of the almighty Worker, upon whom all things wait, and who is working out unfailingly the blessing of His own! Faith with the light of this triumph in its heart finds in its way no invincible difficulty, and can go forward, confident and assured.

The method of compromise for the sake of union can never, it is plain, be taken or acquiesced in by one who would keep the unity of the Spirit. Liberty for the conscience, of course, there must be, which compromise forbids. We can neither bind our own nor that of others, for conscience owns but one Master. In our day, the want of unity is being felt increasingly, and efforts after union are the order of the day. "Union is strength " it is felt; but just here lies a serious danger for the soul. " In quietness and confidence shall be your strength " is the Lord's word to us. Organization and machinery are substituted for the work of individual faith and conscience. The weakness is thus not felt, to which God is so absolute a necessity. Conscience finds other masters, or expediency dictates subjection to them. " Teaching for doctrines the commandments of men" becomes, as of old, the fashion, even though it be more openly owned than of old that they are but commandments of men.

There is indeed one organization, and but one,- "one body; "there is one power for its growth and edification, and but one,-"one Spirit;" and there is "one Lord" alone. To add to these is but, in the spirit, of it, if it be not ignorance, rebellion. The addition is a fatal subtraction. And that which was to help becomes an opposition to God, and an open door for the enemy. The little seed may thus become a tree, but the birds of the air will lodge in the branches of it.