is ever doing good; or one who is not doing good? "God be merciful to me a sinner!" may well rush to our lips. But _that_, when opportunity is given, must be followed by another prayer. Not only--"wash away my sins." Something more. "Fill and purify me with Thy Spirit, that, pardoned and renewed, I may become good, and be doing good." It is sometimes said that the Church is full of souls "dying of their morality." Is it not at least equally true to say that the Church is full of souls dying of their spirituality? That is--souls dying in one case of unreal morality; in the other of unreal spirituality, which juggles with spiritual words, making a sham out of them. Morality which is not spiritual, is imperfect; spirituality which is not moralized through and through is of the spirit of evil. It is a great thing that in these last sentences, written with a trembling hand, which shrank from the labour of pen and ink,[390] the Apostle should have lifted a word (probably current in the atmosphere of Ephesus among spiritualists and astrologers[391]), from the low applications with which it was undeservedly associated; and should have rung out high and clear the Gospel's everlasting justification, the final harmony of the teaching of grace--"he that doeth good is of God." III. The style of the third Epistle of St. John is certainly that of an old man. It is reserved in language and in doctrine. God is thrice and thrice only mentioned.[392] Jesus is not once expressly uttered. But "... They are not empty-hearted whose low sound Reverbs no hollowness."