But draughts of this atmosphere are possible to us also, to whom the Holy Spirit is granted. We too, who sicken with the tainted breath of society, and see the characters of children about us fall away and the hidden evil within leap to swift flame before the blasts of the world--we too may, by Christ's grace, _draw breath_, like Him, _in the fear of the Lord_. Recall some day when, leaving your close room and the smoky city, you breasted the hills of God, and into opened lungs drew deep draughts of the fresh air of heaven. What strength it gave your body, and with what a glow of happiness your mind was filled! What that is physically, Christ has made possible for us men morally. He has revealed stretches and eminences of life, where, following in His footsteps, we also shall draw for our breath the fear of God. This air is inspired up every steep hill of effort, and upon all summits of worship. In the most passion-haunted air, prayer will immediately bring this atmosphere about a man, and on the wings of praise the poorest soul may rise from the miasma of temptation, and sing forth her song into the azure with as clear a throat as the lark's. And what else is heaven to be, if not this? God, we are told, shall be its Sun; but its atmosphere shall be His fear, _which is clean and endureth for ever_. Heaven seems most real as a moral open-air, where every breath is an inspiration, and every pulse a healthy joy, where no thoughts from within us find breath but those of obedience and praise, and all our passions and aspirations are of the will of God. He that lives near to Christ, and by Christ often seeks God in prayer, may create for himself even on earth such a heaven, _perfecting holiness in the fear of God_. II. THE SEVEN SPIRITS OF GOD (xi. 2, 3). This passage, which suggests so much of Christ, is also for Christian Theology and Art a classical passage on the Third Person of the Trinity. If the texts in the book of Revelation (chaps. i. 4; iii. 1; iv. 5; v. 6) upon the Seven Spirits of God were not themselves founded on this text of Isaiah, it is certain that the Church immediately began to interpret them by its details. While there are only six spirits of God named here--three pairs--yet, in order to complete the perfect number, the exegesis of early Christianity sometimes added _the Spirit of the Lord_ at the beginning of verse 2 as the central branch of a seven-branched candlestick; or sometimes _the quick understanding in the fear of the Lord_ in the beginning of verse 3 was attached as the seventh branch. (Compare Zech. iv. 6.)