And what is our idea of fruitfulness? Is not Christ able to make all grace abound toward us, that we become rich and thoroughly furnished unto every good work? And what is our prayer for victory over sin? are not "these things written, that we sin not?" Is not He able to subdue all things within us and around us, so that we are more than conquerors?
Let us learn from the example of the apostle Paul the true grandeur of Christian prayer. Starting with full assurance of the free grace of God in Christ Jesus, accepted in the Beloved, and clothed with His righteousness, he seeks and obtains the fulness of the blessing of the gospel of Christ. He rejoices in God, though he has no confidence in the flesh. And he asks for himself and the Church to be filled with all the fulness of God, to grow in all things into Christ; that love may abound yet more and more, that we may be sincere and without offence till the day of Christ, being filled with the fruits of righteousness, which are by Jesus Christ unto the glory and praise of God.
The Church is indebted to the apostle Paul for his marvellous labours, more still for the Epistles, which, according to the wisdom given unto him, he has written; but I hesitate not to add, most of all for the example of his character, for that singular combination of depth and breadth, of faith and works, of meditation and activity, of joyousness and fear and trembling. While his character is the explana-
