"The word of God is quick, powerful, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart" (Heb. 4:12).

How often we are hindered from discerning the Lord's body and appreciating the presence of the Lord by the waywardness of our minds, so aptly expressed in the lines of the hymn by J. N. Darby:

"No infant's changing pleasure Is like my wandering mind."

But we have the living and powerful Word of God as the discerner (the critic, or analyzer) of the thoughts of our inmost mind, and it is by allowing these wonderful Words of Life to permeate our being that we come to apprehend and enjoy the presence of the Lord.

A prevalent error, and one into which we are very liable to fall, is extracted from that scripture, "The letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life" (2 Cor. 3:6), by wresting it from its context relating to the ministry of the New Covenant in contrast to the ministry of the Covenant which had been annulled.

We do well to hold fast to the letter of Scripture, because the tendency of the present day is to ignore the letter, and to make the spirit or the interpretation anything which suits the wayward mind of man to conceive. But while holding fast to the letter may we seek to be under the influence of the Spirit, and to cultivate acquaintanceship with the living, operative truth, because it is the spirit of truth which alone can expel the spirit of error, indigenous to the natural mind.

It is a prime necessity that we should indeed "believe not every spirit, but that we should try the spirits whether they are of God" (1 John 4:1). The trial, or test, is by the living Word. The apostle John put on inspired record, "He that knoweth God heareth us; he that is not of God heareth not us" (1 John 4:3). T. Oliver (Galashiels)