GRACE

 The word is GRACE. "By the grace of God" we have so lived. Particularly "not by fleshly wisdom." No man can ever reach the heights of safety and purity and joy by that way. Yet that is the principle which multitudes of people are adopting for self-development. "The fleshly wisdom" is just "the wisdom of the world," with its watchings, and windings, and insincerities, with its soft speech, and fair appearance, and secret ways. Does any one think he can develop his nature, and do justice to his immortality by that? Oh, miserable mistake! Not with fleshly wisdom, "but by the grace of God" — by its cleansings, its kindlings, its renewings, its growth; by its whole drift and discipline we have "our conversation in the world." And because it is "the grace of God," those who take it, and trust in it, and put it to use, cannot fail in some measure to realise and embody, and cannot fail, ultimately, to perfect the fair ideal of Scriptural holiness.

(A. Raleigh, D. D.)

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