the soul which has never been wrought except by the Holy Spirit.

The first significant manifestation of the Holy Spirit in New Testament history is in connection with the person of the Messiah, Jesus of Nazareth. Not only was he conceived by the Holy Ghost, but in the temple the Spirit revealed his presence to Simeon and inspired Anna to speak of him to all that waited for salvation in Jerusalem. When he appeared on the banks of the Jordan, to fulfill all righteousness in his baptism, the heavens opened and the Spirit of God descended upon him, while the voice of the Father attested his sonship. From that hour whithersoever he went he went by the Spirit. The prophecies which went before, predicting his Messianic achievements, pointed to this anointing, and ascribed the establishment of his kingdom to it. In the first sermon ever preached to a Gentile audience Peter spoke of a report published throughout all Judea, "How God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and with power: who went about doing good, and healing all that were oppressed of the devil." This comprehensive summation of the life of Jesus accords with all prophetic testimonies in ascribing his miracles to the Spirit, which the Father gave without measure unto him. Jesus himself had said, "But if I cast out devils by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God is come unto you." We must not therefore wonder that all the instrumentalities ordained for spreading the kingdom of God on earth receive their efficiency from the presence and energizing power of the Holy Spirit. Chief among these is the preaching of the Gospel, which wins success and approves itself unto men as "the power of God unto salvation," when preached "with the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven."

The disciples who were called to be apostles-who gave up all to follow Jesus as their Master and Lord, and who witnessed his miracles, heard his discourses, and shared his most intimate fellowship-were doubtless partakers of his saving grace and renewing power, experiencing the work of the Holy Spirit up to the measure of privilege under the dispensation in which they lived; and in some respects they transcended the ordinary privileges of the saints, in that they were endowed with miraculous gifts under the commission which ended before the

crucifixion. But these same disciples, after being witnesses of all that Jesus did and suffered, and then of his resurrection and ascension, were still short of needed qualifications for the Gospel ministry till after an enduement of power from the Holy Ghost which they had not yet received. They were commanded to wait for this special endowment, and not to open their ministry till it should come upon them. Must we not then deem it essential?

This special gift to be waited for was "the promise of the Father," which Jesus had previously declared in their presence should come to them after his departure. We find it in the wonderful discourse delivered by him just before his passion. He then designated the Holy Ghost as the Paraclete-the "Comforter," "Advocate," or "Helper." The Spirit was not unfamiliar to the disciples, but now he was to take a new official relation and become to them what the personal presence of the Master had been-their teacher, defender, guide, and helper. His coming was to be an epiphany, the manifestation of Christ himself, in fulfillment of his promise, "I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you." Nay, more; it was to be the revelation of both the Father and the Son: "He that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him. . . . If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him." He was to manifest himself to his disciples as he did not to the world. But this special manifestation of the Father and the Son, in the person of the Paraclete, the Holy Ghost, was not to be the second coming of Christ in the clouds with the angels, but the consummation of his first advent. It was the coming of the Son of man in his kingdom, or the coming of the kingdom of God with power.

The promise of the Holy Spirit had been in the minds of the disciples from early in Christ's ministry. In his sermon on the duty and privilege of prayer he had said: "If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him?" But now they stood face to face with a crisis. He whom they trusted and loved, who had been their instructor, guide, friend, and helper, was about to leave them.

They knew not as yet how, nor why. Sorrow filled their hearts. In some way they felt that new trials and new responsibilities awaited them, demanding larger measures of divine help than had been vouchsafed to men, except in the personal leadership of Him who was now to depart. It was then he said, "If ye love me, keep my commandments. And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you forever; even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him: but ye know him; for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you." A little later in this discourse he reiterated the promise of the Comforter, and indicated his work: "These things have I spoken unto you, being yet present with you. But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you." The next step in this instruction with regard to the mission of the Comforter points out to the disciples what should be their own office and work under this divine leadership: "But when the Comforter is come, whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, which proceedeth from the Father, he shall testify of me: and ye also shall bear witness, because ye have been with me from the beginning." Further on in this address, still tenderly encouraging their saddened hearts, Jesus said: "Nevertheless I tell you the truth; It is expedient for you that I go away: for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you; but if I depart, I will send him unto you. And when he is come, he will reprove the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment. . . . He will guide you into all truth: for he shall not speak of himself; but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak: and he will show you things to come. He shall glorify me: for he shall receive of mine, and shall show it unto you.'

From these passages, so rich in promised blessings, we pass over to the time beyond the "hour and the power of darkness,” when the risen Christ recalled to his disciples "the promise of the Father," "which," he said, "ye have heard of me." Gethsemane, the cross, and the tomb were now behind him; the last commission had been given; and having bidden them to wait for the promise, and not to depart from Jerusalem with

out its fulfillment, he spoke what were probably his last words before his ascension from Olivet: "But ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth." Surely, then, a new dispensation of the Spirit was at hand-one whose glory should eclipse all that had preceded.

On one occasion, quite a while before his suffering, when Jesus stood up on the great day of the feast of tabernacles and cried, "If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink," and spoke of "rivers of living water," he anticipated this effusion. For the evangelist who recorded his words explained: "This spake he of the Spirit, which they that believe on him should receive: for the Holy Ghost was not yet given; because that Jesus was not yet glorified." After all the revelations of the Spirit, and the work he had done among men, working in them and striving with them through the centuries, "the Holy Ghost was not yet given" in the sense contemplated in "the promise of the Father; " he had not yet come as Comforter in the revelation of the Father and the Son, in the higher experiences to which the Church is called under the new dispensation. This brings us to the epoch of the Pentecost-the starting point for the study of the doctrine under the Gospel; an epoch which opens to the Church visions of spiritual power never known before. It was the day of the opening of the New Testament temple, with walls of salvation and with gates of praise. Beginning at this point we study the work of the Holy Spirit as set forth in the Acts of the Apostles, and as interpreted in the epistles, in his convincing, illuminating, regenerating, sanctifying, and witnessing power-with endowments for comfort, strength, testimony, work, and victory, surpassing all that preceding dispensations had revealed.

S. M. Merrill

ART. II.-CHRISTIANITY AND MOHAMMEDANISM IN ARABIA, EGYPT, AND NORTHERN AFRICA.

NORTH of the Mediterranean, Christ; south of the Mediterranean, Mohammed. This is not history, and it may be even less true as prophecy; yet it marks what almost seems to be a natural division of territory between two great religions, each of which aims at universal empire. Mohammedanism made important conquests in Spain, which it held for centuries; but long ago it was driven back across the Strait of Gibraltar. Suleyman the Magnificent planted the standards of Mohammed at the very gates of Vienna, and all Europe trembled before the conqueror. Yet, for more than three centuries, the retreat of Islam has been as steady and as inevitable as though attended by a Nemesis. All that is left in Europe to the present Sultan of Turkey is a very precarious foothold in the city of Constantine; and it is not very rash to prophesy that his successors, in the not distant future, will preside over the seraglio in some capital beyond the confines of Europe.

Christianity does not furnish the historical counterpart of this picture south of the Mediterranean, yet it presents points of resemblance which in some respects are suggestive. During the early centuries of the Christian era the Gospel made some of its most important conquests in Egypt and the countries of northern Africa. But in its later conflict with the forces of Arabia so completely was it defeated that Gibbon wrote: "The northern coast of Africa is the only land in which the light of the Gospel, after a long and perfect establishment, has been totally extinguished." *

The past is an index to the future only when the philosophy of history is carefully studied.

I. The inhabitants of Arabia just prior to the Christian era were idolaters, principally of the Sabian sect, who worshiped the fixed stars and the planets, and also angels and their images, regarding these as inferior deities acting as intercessors with the one true God. Some tribes worshiped a tree, or a lump of dough, or a stone. Magian worship had also

*Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, vol. v, p. 267.