In this gift there is accompanying power, a power which it is difficult to describe, but impossible to doubt. It is not the power of intellect or eloquence, for it is bestowed sometimes on persons that have neither one nor the other: but it is a power that cannot be mistaken; for it softens hard hearts, breaks down the most stubborn wills, and subdues those who have been previously opponents to truth. It was such a power that accompanied the preaching St. Paul at Thessalonica, of which he said, ‘Our gospel came not unto you in word only, but also in power, and in the Holy Ghost, and in much assurance’ (1 Thess. i. 5). But if there be such a power, both promised and bestowed, shall any of us be satisfied without the enjoyment of it? Shall we be content with powerless work? Shall we think it enough if our ministry is respectable and orthodox, our churches well attended, and our parochial arrangements complete, while there is no deep impression on the souls of men, no conviction of sin, no earnest inquiry, no conversions to God, no evidence of a new life, and no sign of the mighty power of the Spirit? Shall we be satisfied to live on, and to work on, just as we should be living and working if the Lord had never said, ‘Ye shall receive power after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you?’ There is also indwelling power. We must not look merely at that which accompanies, for the secret of power is in most cases to be found within. We have a remarkable illustration of this in the case of Stephen. He was accompanied with power, for ‘they were not able to resist the wisdom and the spirit by which he spake.’ But the mystery was explained in the secret of his own soul, for in v. 8 of that same chapter we read that he was a man ‘full of faith and power.’ There was, therefore, a fulness of power within as well as the accompanying power without, and the secret of this fulness is explained in v. 5, where it is said he was a man ‘full of faith and of the Holy Ghost.’ Here, then, was the key to that marvellous and irresistible power which accompanied his work. He himself was full of faith, and being full of faith, he was full of the Holy Ghost. He was full of faith, so that he could, as it were, see his Lord at his right hand, and ‘endure as seeing Him who is invisible.’ And he was full of the Holy Ghost, so that he was lifted up above mere human nature. He was taught by the Holy Ghost; he was led by the Holy Ghost; his thoughts were prompted by the Holy Ghost; his wisdom was the wisdom of the Holy Ghost; his words were the words of the Holy Ghost; his mind was governed by the mind of the Holy Ghost; and so he was full of power, for the simple reason that he was ‘full of faith and of the Holy Ghost.’ Thus the outward and the inward were at one. In his outward activity he was accompanied by the Holy Ghost; in his inward life he was full of the Holy Ghost; and in both one and the other he experienced the truth of the