The Worldly Necessity of the Spirit

‘‘If He gather unto Himself His Spirit and His breath; all flesh

shall perish together, and man shall turn again unto dust.” — JOB xxxiv. 14, 15.

WS it so! I never knew that man was so s dependent on the Spirit of God. I always knew indeed that the Spirit was necessary to man’s salvation, but it never occurred to me that it was required even to keep up the flesh. I understood well enough that its removal would shut out a man from the other world, but I never thought that its removal would make it impossible to live in this. Yet this is what the Bible says. It tells me that the Divine Spirit is necessary even to the life of the human. It tells me that if the Spirit of God were gathered back to Himself, there would be a simultaneous collapse of the world called secular, that the products of materialism would disappear with the death of spiritualism, that the institutions of earth would fade in the vanishing of the breath of heaven, that in the extinction of grace supreme “‘ all flesh would perish together.”

O Thou divine Spirit, life would be unbearable without Thee. The very fact that I am not consumed by the world is a proof that Thou art in the world. I have never seen anything at its ’ worst. Bad men would be infinitely more bad but for Thee. The ship of life is tossing but it 1s anchored. I often complain of the storm, and say ‘Verily Thou art a God that hidest Thyself.” If Thou didst hide Thyself even for a moment I would know what it is to have a storm. My very complaining shows that the storm is not natural to me, that there is more good than evil in Thy universe. Thou art Thyself the good that outweighs the evil. Thou art the balance of all discords; Thou art the compensation of all losses; Thou art the restraint of all violence; Thou art the limit of all vices. Thou art the oil of every troubled water; Thou art the still small voice of every rolling thunder; Thou art the bow of promise in every threatening cloud. Without Thee we can do nothing even in our own department; only in Thy life does our life become endurable. Abide with us, for our natural strength fades into evening; if Thou take away Thy breath, all flesh shall perish together.