{94} Let not this great subject be embarrassed by too minute theological definitions on the one hand, nor by the too exacting demand for striking spiritual exercises on the other, lest we put upon simple souls a burden greater than they can bear. Nevertheless we cannot emphasize too strongly the divine crisis in the soul which a full reception of the Holy Ghost may bring. "My little children, of whom I travail in birth again until Christ be formed in you" (Gal. 4: 19), writes the apostle to those who had already believed on the Son of God. Whatever he may have meant in this fervent saying, we doubt not that the deepest yearning of the Spirit is for the informing of Christ in the heart, in order to that outward conformity to Christ which is the supreme end of Christian nurture. If we conceive of the Christian life as only a gradual growth in grace, is there not danger that we come to regard this growth as both invisible and inevitable, and so take little responsibility for its accomplishment? Let the believer receive the Holy Ghost by a definite act of faith for his consecration, as he received Christ by faith for his justification, and may he not be sure that he is in a safe and scriptural way of acting? We know of no plainer form of stating the matter than to speak of it as a simple acceptance by faith, the faith which is An affirmation and an act, Which bids eternal truth be present fact. {95} It is a fact that Christ has made atonement for sin; in conversion faith appropriates this fact in order to our justification. It is a fact that the Holy Ghost has been given; in consecration faith appropriates this fact for our sanctification. One who writes upon this subject with a scholarship evidently illuminated by a deep spiritual tuition, says: "If a reference to personal experience may be permitted, I may indeed here 'set my seal.' Never shall I forget the gain to conscious faith and peace which came to my own soul, not long after a first decisive and appropriating view of the crucified Lord as the sinner's sacrifice of peace, from a more intelligent and conscious hold upon the living and most gracious personality of the Spirit through whose mercy the soul had got that blessed view. It was a new development of insight into the love of God. _It was a new contact as it were with the inner and eternal movements of redeeming goodness and power, a new discovery in divine resources._"[9]