The spirit of God dwells in a man through his faith. One text speaks of “the Holy Ghost which they that believe on him should receive,” and everywhere similar language is held as to the connection between faith and the dwelling of the spirit of goodness in our hearts. By the act of trust in Christ, the Lord of the Spirit, we open our natures for the entrance of the sanctifier, who ever waits to enter in. A man has to shut his door and pull down his blinds to keep the light out. If we open ever so minute a crevice, a beam will come in, and the wider we open, the broader the stream that pours in. So in our simple faith, we open the door and there pour into our hearts the quickening energies of that good spirit. The amount of our faith measures the amount of our possession of the Spirit who makes us good. Thus faith becomes the condition of goodness, because it is the condition of the Spirit of God dwelling in us. It brings us into contact with the electric battery, completes the circuit, and as soon as the circuit is completed the spark comes. It is also the condition of goodness, because it implies self-oblivion and self-distrust, and is the opposite of that self-regard which, as we have seen, is the root of all evil. The germ of all holiness is in faith, not only because it brings us under the operation of the divine power which makes holy, but because it is itself the great antagonist of selfishness. So Christian morality is the very opposite of the practical heathenism which lies at the bottom of so much of the teaching of to-day. Trust thyself, say many voices—it is the beginning of wisdom, strength, freedom. Distrust thyself and trust Christ, says the Gospel—thereby alone wilt thou be made pure and blessed. The Babel builders tried to get up to the heavens by their own building. The Titans tried to storm it by placing mountain on mountain, but “no man hath ascended up to heaven.” Better for us to rise thither by that ladder which now binds together heaven and earth, even Jesus Christ, our brother and our Lord, by whom all bright-winged angels of help and cleansing will come to minister to us purity and joy, and by whom we at last, perfected in goodness, shall pass into that presence, of which the radiant purity would blast all that had one taint of uncleanness.