for the Salvation and Holiness of the people. It is for them he
writes. It is to them, living the common life, bound to others by
the obligations of ordinary social intercourse, toiling at their
secular occupations, and rubbing shoulders with the multitude in
the market-place, that his message comes. I venture to hope that
his words will make it plain to some of them that the highest
intercourse with the Divine is their privilege; that the special
province of the Holy Ghost is to lead men into the truest
devotion to God, and to the advancement of His Kingdom on earth,
even while they are carrying on the common avocations associated
with earning their daily bread.

The only purpose of God having a practical bearing on our lives
is His purpose to save men from sin and its awful consequences,
and make them conform to His will in this world as in the next.
The work of the Holy Spirit is to help us to achieve that
purpose. Without His help we are unable to overcome the
difficulties that are in the way, whether we consider them from
the standpoint of the world or of the individual. If anyone could
have looked at the state of the world at the time of our Lord's
death he would surely have regarded the work which the Apostles
were commissioned to attempt as the most utterly wild and
impracticable enterprise that the human mind could conceive. And
it was so, but for one fact. That fact was the promise of the
Comforter, the Holy Spirit, to be the great Helper in the
undertaking.

And equally in the work of uniting the individual soul with God's
purpose that Spirit is our Helper. In the work of righteousness
He is a Partner with us. In the life of faith and prayer He is