They have crucified not the body of the Lord Jesus, but a spirit which united with man's spirit which unhindered in its work, would have conformed man to the Divine image--now, after the sin against the Holy Ghost, impossible. Spirit murder has been committed--a divinity slain and the guilty one hath no forgiveness. Thank God the number who commit that fearful crime is but few. It is only those who attain to a very great knowledge of the things of God that are capable of committing it, and the number among such are few indeed who become so recklessly wicked as to rebel against and defy the power of God. But when such characters do fall, they fall like Lucifer, never to rise again; they get beyond the power of repentance or the hope of forgiveness. APPENDIX. The next two Lessons I place under the head of "Appendix," because they open up anew many things treated in the body of the work; and which I would not again refer to only because of the associations given to them in the discourses of the great Apostle of the Gentiles, and the greater Apostle of the New Dispensation. I throw the "Appendix" into the form of lessons, in the hope that the topics of the respective discourses will be all the more emphasized and appreciated. LESSON XXIII. (Scripture Reading Exercise.) PAUL, THE APOSTLE, ON SPIRITUAL GIFTS IN THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. ANALYSIS I. Unity of Spirit, but Diversity of Gifts. II. The Church as an Organism Entitled to the Manifestation of All the Gifts. III. Pre-eminence of Charity Over All Other Gifts. IV. The Gift of Prophecy Preferable to the Gift of Tongues. V. Decency and Order to Be Observed in All Things. REFERENCES. These three chapters in Paul's First Epistle to the Corinthians (Chapters xii, xiii, xiv), and the New Testament, passim, for what others have said on Spiritual Gifts. _SPECIAL TEXT: "Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels and have not charity I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal." (I Cor. viii:1.)_ DISCUSSION. _1. The Holy Ghost, the Source of Knowledge of the Christ:_ "Now concerning spiritual gifts, brethren, I would not have you ignorant. Ye know that ye were Gentiles, carried away unto these dumb idols, even as ye were led. Wherefore I give you to understand, that no man speaking by the Spirit of God calleth Jesus accursed: and that no man can say that Jesus is the Lord, but by the Holy Ghost.