deluded victim 'knows not that the dead are there, and that her
guests are in the depth of hell.'

II. The method of deliverance.

The previous chapter sounded the depths of human impotence, and
showed the tragic impossibility of human efforts to strip off the
poisoned garment. Here the Apostle tells the wonderful story of how
he himself was delivered, in the full rejoicing confidence that what
availed for his emancipation would equally avail for every captived
soul. Because he himself has experienced a divine power which breaks
the dreadful sequence of sin and of death, he knows that every soul
may share in the experience. No mere outward means will be sufficient
to emancipate a spirit; no merely intellectual methods will avail to
set free the passions and desires which have been captured by sin. It
is vain to seek deliverance from a perverted will by any
republication, however emphatic, of a law of duty. Nothing can touch
the necessities of the case but a gift of power which becomes an
abiding influence in us, and develops a mightier energy to overcome
the evil tendencies of a sinful soul.

That communicated power must impart life. Nothing short of a Spirit
of life, quick and powerful, with an immortal and intense energy,
will avail to meet the need. Such a Spirit must give the life which
it possesses, must quicken and bring into action dormant powers in
the spirit that it would free. It must implant new energies and
directions, new motives, desires, tastes, and tendencies. It must
bring into play mightier attractions to neutralise and deaden
existing ones; as when to some chemical compound a substance is added
which has a stronger affinity for one of the elements, a new thing is