But this is far from being the sole means by which Christ is the source of all good things. He promised His disciples before He died, that He would send the Holy Spirit into the world Who should bring to their remembrance all things that He had told them, and should be to them and to their followers an adviser and comforter, such as He had Himself been while He was with them--Who should convince them of sin, of righteousness and judgment--teach them, that is, what sin is, and what righteousness is, and bring home to them the nature of the judgment of God. He formed them into a Society, to be a perpetual witness of Him to the world; and He established two ceremonies (which we call Sacraments) to be a perpetual pledge to His followers of His love and of His grace, and to be a special means by which that grace should be bestowed on them; so that the source of this Divine illumination and bounty is not merely Christ in the past, in His life on earth, as we read of Him in the words of the New Testament, but Christ living and working in His Church by means of those words, and by means of the Sacraments which testify of them and bring them home to every individual soul. The words of Christ and the Sacraments of Christ are means which can be seen and handled, by which the grace of God is manifested and conveyed to us. Moreover, He has told us, as I have mentioned, that the Old Testament throughout, the Law, the Prophets and the Psalms, speak of Him, reveal His character and His Will. To the Jews, who had only the Old Testament, He said, “Search the Scriptures, for in them ye think ye have eternal life, and they are they which testify of Me.” Combined, these are the visible, tangible, and audible instruments by which the “Lord of all power and might, the Author and Giver of all good things,” shines into our hearts and speaks to our inmost souls. There are, indeed, and always have been, other influences in the world by which goodness and truth are impressed upon us; and there are, and always have been, many gracious human influences by which they are upheld in our hearts and in the world at large; but these are all imperfect, and liable to perversion, in comparison with the influence of Jesus Christ and His Church and the Holy Scriptures; and we can never be sure of their being kept true and unperverted, except so far as they are brought to the test, and subjected to the influences, through the Person of Jesus Christ and of His words in the Holy Scriptures, of that Lord of all power and might from whom all good things do come.