June 21

Friday of the Fourth Week after Easter

Grieve not the Holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption. Ephesians 4:30.

HE has left it in our power to accept or reject Himself, our only and infinite good. He appeals to us with Divine tenderness that we "grieve not the Holy Spirit;" but wherewith can we so grieve Him? Alas that one must, I fear, rather ask, wherein may we not? S. Stephen, "full" as he was "of the Holy Ghost," thus summed up the history of the Jews: "Ye do always resist the Holy Ghost; as your fathers, so do ye." We are surrounded by, immersed in, such an ocean of grace. Day by day it besieges us. There is not an avenue which it does not explore. It, yea rather God, adapts Himself to us. He knows the creatures which He has made. He waiteth for us. Grace comes to us in every way in which it can find us, and mostly in that in which we are most accessible to it. Every good we have done, we have done by its operation; every evil which we have resisted, we have cast it out through that same grace. Since our whole life, day by day and hour by hour, has been set between good and ill, with what a multiplicity of grace has God encompassed us! There is not a thought, good or bad, entertained or dismissed; not a word, kind or unkind, spoken or repressed; not a prayer, said listlessly or with intention of heart, in which grace may not have been busy, accepted, neglected, or refused.

Oh, we have grieved Thee, gracious Spirit!

Wayward, wanton, cold are we;

And still our sins, new every morning,

Never yet have wearied Thee.

Holy Ghost! come down upon Thy children,

Give us grace, and make us Thine;

Thy tender fires within us kindle,

Blessed Spirit! Dove Divine!