and could get along quite well without Him.” This fact and truth surprised my own heart. I knew it was true, and yet dreaded the fact that it was true. My friend at once remarked, “It is because of this that your life is so fruitless even though your efforts are so great. If you will seek to personally know the Holy Spirit He will transform your life. Read John 14:16 and 17, and see whether you do really know Him, the Spirit, and if you find you do not, then come to Him immediately in faith and make Him the Lord of your life.” I was afraid to do as this brother suggested. Three ob stacles loomed large before me to prevent me from taking the Holy Spirit for myself. The first was my fear of be coming a religious fanatic; the second was a fear of giv ing Christ an inferior place, and thus hurting His heart. (I did not know that there was no jealousy in the God head.) The third was that I should be giving to the Holy Spirit a position and place that should be occupied only by Christ. The preacher left the city before I had made a decision in my soul. Shortly thereafter that blessed man of God, the late Dr. James Gray, came to our city, and one eve ning expounded Romans 12:1. Leaning over the pulpit, he said, “Have you noticed that this verse does not tell us to whom we should give our bodies? It is not the Father Who asks for it. He remains upon His throne. Another has come to earth without a body. God could have made a body for Him as He did for Jesus, but He did not do so. God gives you the privilege and the indes cribable honor of presenting your bodies to the Holy Spirit, to be His dwelling place on earth. If you have been washed in the Blood of the Lamb then yours is a Holy body, washed whiter than snow, and will be ac cepted by the Spirit when you give it. Will you do so now? When I arrived home that night I went to my study. There I lay upon the carpet, prostrate in God’s presence, heart-broken over a fruitless life, yet filled with a great hope because of the words I had heard from a teacher in whom I had all confidence. There, in the quiet of that late hour, I said to the Holy Spirit, “My, Lord, I have mistreated You all my Christian life. When I wanted You I called for You; when I was about to engage in some work I beckoned You to come and help me perform my task. I have sought to use You only as a willing servant to help me in my self-appointed and chosen work. I shall do so no more. “Just now I give You this body of mine; my hands, my limbs, my eyes and lips, my brain, all that I am within and without. You may send this body to Africa, or lay it on a bed with cancer. It is Your body from this moment on. Help yourself to it. Thank You, my Lord, I believe You have accepted it, for in Romans twelve and one You said ‘acceptable unto God.’ We now belong to each other.” As I left home that morning I said to my wife, “Lover, this is to be a wonderful day with me, for I gave my body to the Holy Spirit last evening. I have quit asking Him to help me do things, and shall today see Him as Lord of my life, doing things through me. I will call you up and let you know what happens.” About ten o’clock two young ladies entered my office, selling advertising. They had often called for that pur pose before, and I had given them some large contracts. Never had I spoken to them about the Lord Jesus. My lips had been my own, and I used them for business pur poses. Now, however, these lips had been given away, and the Holy Spirit made use of them at once.
B e c a u s e there exists in these days a great desire in the heart for, and a confusion in the mind concerning, the Spirit-filled life, or the path of consecration, it may help to clear this matter if I tell you of my own experience with the Lord, the Spirit. I first trusted the Lord Jesus in December, 1896. He saved me and changed my life. Immediately the Word of God became my constant companion. I loved it, studied it, preached it, and gave away tracts in large quantities. No apparent success followed my labors, and much energy produced little fruit. This failure disturbed me greatly, but I assured myself and was assured by others, that we were not to look for results, but only to be busy at seed sowing. In 1913 the Lord sent to my home a godly man who had been serving the Lord in France. He said to me, “What is the Holy Spirit to you?” I replied, “He is one of the Persons of the Godhead.” “Yes,” said he, “that is Who He is but I asked you what is He to you?” I answer ed this question by saying, “He is a Teacher, a Guide; He is the third Person of the Trinity.” My friend corrected me, saying, “He is the first two, but He is not the last that you mentioned, for to call Him the third Person is to give Him a place of insignificance and inferiority which He should not have. He is just as great, just as precious, just as needful as the other two Persons of the Trinity. But still you have not answered my question, what is He to you?” I now saw the point Mr. Levermore was trying to make with me, and answered truthfully, “He is nothing to me. I have no contact with Him, no personal relationship,
THE KING'S BUSINESS
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