Sermons on sin and exhortations to holiness may leave us cold, but this Knightly ideal carries an appeal that is permanent and powerful; it cannot fail to find some response in the heart of anyone who is a real man. For the point is that Sir Galahad, with all his purity, was no milksop, no untempted saint; he was uncommonly strong in the right arm, as other men found to their cost. But there was, and is always, a deep-down connexion between what a man is and what he does. A man’s whole life is the product and expression of the real quality of the hidden self. The nature of the tree determines the fruit. The question of purity has its roots in these secret places of a man’s being that lie hid from any human eye. "There is nothing," insisted Christ, "from without a man that entering into him can defile him, but the things which come out of him, from within, out of the heart ... those are they that defile the man."[1] [1] St. Mark vii. 15, 21. Psychologists tell us that below the level of our conscious thought there are large subterranean places where the things we hear and read and think about are being stored up. The things that come up to the surface, whether we produce them voluntarily--’remember’ them, or whether they come up unbidden when our upper minds are empty and receptive, naturally are of the stock that is stored below. What sort of stock are you accumulating in your mental underground? What sort of pictures hang in the most private galleries of your mind? What kind of thoughts come floating up from those mysterious depths, and what are the thoughts that you most enjoy thinking? There is many a man who is often visited by thoughts that he would rather be without; they seem to catch on to some part of him that has a sneaking liking for them, and he cannot dislodge these unwelcome guests. He is almost conscious of a sort of dual personality: part of him wants what is clean and good, but the rest of him seems a very odd mixture which he is powerless to regulate or alter. He feels that he would make a better affair of life if only all the parts of him would push together in the right direction. Is there any way of achieving such a state of affairs? I know of no other certain way but one. There is only one power I ever heard of that could plumb the depths of a human soul and transform the quality of all the stuff that lies down there, and clean out all the refuse, and stiffen the dethroned will and put it back in its place of power--and that is the "Spirit" of Jesus Christ. It is said of the great John Nicholson, that wonderful leader of men, that, however desperate the circumstances, his presence could put new heart into a whole camp. It is just that, with yet deeper result, that Christ does for those who trust Him. He told His followers that if they would open their hearts to receive Him, He would give them His Spirit; by which He meant that, inspired by His