The Fellowship of the Spirit

If there be any fellowship of the Spirit, fulfil ye my joy.” — PHIL ii. 1, 2,

“AND so Paul’s ideal of joy was fellowsh:p. BANG He did not wish to be a recluse, a hermit, a solitary dreamer; he wanted to be a man of society. The world has claimed a monopoly of the social element; it offers the youth what it calls good-fellowship. Why, that is just’ Paul’s word, just Paul’s offer. “The fellowship of the Spirit;” what is that but good-fellowship — the fellowship of goodness? Paul is impressed with the analogy between the good-fellowship of the world and the fellowship of the saints: ‘ Be not drunk with wine,” he cries, “but be ye filled with the Spirit.” What does he mean? is there any connection between them? Yes; they are both forms of self-forgetfulness. Wine lifts me out of my care and causes me to laugh with others; the Spirit also lifts me out of my care and makes me a companion at the feast. God’s wine, like the world’s wine, drowns the darkness of my past, but it drowns it not in oblivion but in glory. It shows me the vision of a past redeemed — of dross transmuted into gold, of evil made to work for good; it lifts the weight from my soul and makes me comrade to my brother man.

O Thou who settest the solitary in families, help me to break the loneliness of my own soul. That which makes my soul solitary is the weight of its past remembrance. I am no companion for others, because I am in communion with my own cares. Hast Thou an elixir of self-forgetfulness? Hast Thou a potion that can set me free without degrading me? Hast Thou a remedy for care which can destroy the care without killing the life? Yes, Thou and Thou alone hast such a cure. Thy Spirit can give me rest — rest from myself. Thy Spirit can lift the burden from the door that prevents my brother from entering in. Send me Thy Spirit, O my God. Take away the depression that makes me seek the shade. Give me the lightness of heart that craves companionship, the joy that longs to tell itself, the buoyancy that cannot be alone. Give me that need for brotherhood which disencumbered souls alone can feel, that joy in human intercourse which only hearts at rest can know. Apart from Thee I have been wandering in a solitary way, but the days ot good-fellowship shall come when I have received Thy Spirit.