298 The Gifts of the Spirit. "There are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit. There are differences of administrations [or rather services], but the same INTELI NTELLECTUAL progress consists in discovering the unity which underlies all diversity. In early ages the world seemed a chaos. Everything appeared to be totally different from everything else. Thousands and tens of thousands of conflicting agents were supposed to be at work in the production of natural phenomena. The woods appertained to one set of deitiesthe dryades; the mountains to another setthe oreades. Every star and every planet had a moving principle peculiar to itself. Storms and earthquakes, pestilences and eclipses, were thought to be the work of a variety of beings, who were guided by all sorts of different motives, and whose future action it was absolutely impossible to predict. There were gods many and lords many, who found in the material universe a convenient playground for their manifold caprices. The history of science records the gradual discovery in this primeval chaos of the unifying principle of Law. Over and over again, phenomena that seemed altogether dissimilar, have turned out to be merely different operations of one and the self-same force. The apple, which falls to the ground, once seemed to have nothing in common with the moon, which does not so fall. But now we know that both are equally under the control of gravity; that the moon is attracted no less than the apple; and that the tendency to fall earthwards, produced in it by this attraction, is one of the factors determining its course. Or, to take another example, shooting-stars may even yet be regarded by some as mere lusus naturæ, altogether unique in their origin and nature. But the investigations of some German physicists have recently brought to light the fact, that these eccentric objects contain animal remains. This discovery may be taken as proving what has long been believed by scientific men— that in those distant parts of the universe from which the meteorites have come, the same biolog ical forces were ages ago at work, which are at present in operation upon our own earth. And so, whenever we compare phenomena—no matter how distant they may be from each other in time or space, no matter how diverse they may at first sight appear-we now always expect to find in them an underlying unity of thought and purpose and mode of working; and sooner or later these expectations are fulfilled. In a word, throughout the entire physical universe, there are diversities of operations but the same reign of law. This unity in the midst of diversity is to be found also in the spiritual sphere. There are diversities of gifts, says the apostle, but the same Spirit. The enumeration of these gifts, a few verses later on, is not of course intended to be exhaustive, but merely illustrative. You will notice those which St Paul mentions may be roughly divided into two classes. The first, or secular class, includes the gifts of teaching, of healing, and of government. The second, or religious class, includes those of prophecy and of tongues. What this last precisely was, I do not know. But there would seem to have been a very great and unholy emulation among the Corinthian Christians to possess it. They looked upon it as a peculiarly spiritual endowment. St Paul was anxious to show them that this state of mind was foolish and wrong. The gift of tongues, he says, is only one of many spiritual gifts, and by no means the best. He declares that in comparison with charity, or the enthusiasm of man for man, this highly coveted gift of tongues is nothing worth. He mentions a crucial test by which spiritual gifts may be known, and their relative value determined. "The manifestation of the Spirit is given to every man to profit withal; "—that is, as we see from the context, for the purpose of doing good therewith. Even a secular endowment, such as the power of healing, becomes a gift of the Spirit to him who is desirous of using it worthily-of using it for the welfare of his fellow-men. Such a desire is an inspiration that can only come from above, and this inspiration transforms what would otherwise be a mere natural endowment into a sacred spiritual gift. The mistake of the Corinthians was similar to one that is not uncommon in the present day. It is sometimes imagined that a man in holy orders is, in virtue of those orders, a better Christian than a layman, that a clergyman as such is, in an especial degree, under the guidance of the Spirit of God. So foolish and unscriptural a supposition is not at all necessary, in order to vindicate the usefulness of the clergy as a class of teachers. If, in the choice of his profession, a clergyman has followed the guidance of his natural inclinations and sympathies and gifts, and if he has made a good use of his education and of his leisure, he will often be able, in cases of mental or spiritual difficulty, to render the greatest assistance to men, who have had to devote the most of their time and the best. of their energies to purely secular pursuits. But after all, even in spiritual matters, there is no exclusively clerical prerogative. I pity the clergyman who has not sometimes been ministered unto, when he went to minister. If he has never been taught by a layman some spiritual lesson, more valuable than any he was able at the time to impart, the chances are that he is not a specially inspired priest, but rather a peculiarly obtuse man. Profitableness, according to the apostle, is the sole test and criterion of spiritual gifts. He is the most highly gifted man who does the most good. Human endowments are very diverse, but in so far as the world is made better by them, they are all to be regarded as divinely bestowed. There are diversities of gifts, but it is the same Spirit from whom they have all been derived. |