35. Let us therefore make use of this great benefit, and seek for personal experience of this most needful Gift. For the Apostle says, in words I have already cited, But we have not received the spirit of this world, but the Spirit which is of God, that we may know the things that are given unto us by God127    1 Cor. ii. 12, cited in § 29.. We receive Him, then, that we may know. Faculties of the human body, if denied their exercise, will lie dormant. The eye without light, natural or artificial, cannot fulfil its office; the ear will be ignorant of its function unless some voice or sound be heard; the nostrils unconscious of their purpose unless some scent be breathed. Not that the faculty will be absent, because it is never called into use, but that there will be no experience of its existence. So, too, the soul of man, unless through faith it have appropriated the gift of the Spirit, will have the innate faculty of apprehending God, but be destitute of the light of knowledge. That Gift, which is in Christ, is One, yet offered, and offered fully, to all; denied to none, and given to each according to the measure of his willingness to receive; its stores the richer, the more earnest the desire to earn them. This gift is with us unto the end of the world, the solace of our waiting, the assurance, by the favours which He bestows, of the hope that shall be ours, the light of our minds, the sun of our souls. This Holy Spirit we must seek and must earn, and then hold fast by faith and obedience to the commands of God.

35. Spiritus sancti donum maxime necessarium. Absque eo habetur natura Deum intelligendi, non usus. ---Utamur ergo tam liberalibus donis et usum maxime necessarii muneris expetamus. Ait enim, ut jam superius ostendimus, Apostolus: Nos autem non spiritum hujus mundi accepimus, sed spiritum qui ex Deo est, ut sciamus quae a Deo donata sunt nobis (I Cor. II, 12). Accipitur ergo ob scientiam. Ut enim natura humani corporis cessantibus officii sui causis erit otiosa; nam oculis, nisi lumen aut dies sit, nullus ministerii 0074C erit usus; ut aures, nisi vox sonusve reddatur, munus suum non recognoscent; ut nares, nisi odor fragraverit, in quo officio erunt nescient; non quod his deficiet natura per causam, sed usus habetur ex causa: ita et animus humanus nisi per fidem donum 0075A Spiritus hauserit, habebit quidem naturam Deum intelligendi, sed lumen scientiae non habebit. Munus autem quod in Christo est, omne omnibus patet unum: et quod ubique non deest, in tantum datur in quantum quis volet sumere; in tantum residet, in quantum quis volet promereri. Hoc usque in consummationem saeculi nobiscum, hoc exspectationis nostrae solatium, hoc, in donorum operationibus futurae spei pignus est hoc mentium lumen, hic splendor animorum est. Hic ergo Spiritus sanctus expetendus est, promerendus est, et deinceps praeceptorum fide atque observatione retinendus.