At the time we are passing through any phase of Christian experience, it is difficult for us to understand or to classify the events and phenomena of our spiritual life. But after we get through, we can look back through the medium of an illuminated mind, and mark the steps and the processes in such a way as to lend a helping hand to others who have not yet passed over the journey. The various steps that a soul takes from the time of its conversion to its establishment in the fullness of the Spirit may be described as follows.

1. There springs up in the heart of the young Christian a general desire to grow in grace. His views of growth are vague and as he looks forward upon the Christian journey, a silver mist hangs over the distant horizon, and he catches but faint glimpses of the distant mountains which he is to scale by the grace of God. He does not apprehend clearly the hindrances in his own nature to spiritual progress, nor does he apprehend in any definite way the promises which are made in the Bible of the fulness of salvation. But there is an abiding desire and purpose in his heart to get better, to increase in faith, and hope, and love, to become stronger and more useful. But his whole thought and feeling are characterized by indistinctness.

2, After awhile there comes to his apprehension the special need of some grace or virtue in which he seems to be lacking. Amid the daily vicissitudes of life, and the ordinary trials, and annoyances, and temptations, and besetments- which hem him around, he is made to feel that he needs some special grace by which he can get a more easy victory in daily life. Sometimes it may be a deep sense of the need of a forgiving spirit, or of being more humble, or of being very patient, or of being more self-possessed, or of having a special strength in faith, or love, or calmness of spirit. One person will feel the need of one particular grace more than others, and another person will have a special sense of lacking some other grace. But there will come in some way, a pinching sense of need on the line of some one of the fruits of the Spirit.

3. The next step in the experience will be the souls discovery that there is an internal hindrance in the heart to the very grace it is seeking after. This is the way in which the Spirit leads the soul to discover the great under-world of the latent carnal mind. And many a Christian, who could not believe at first that he had the remains of inward sin in him, is led to make that discovery, by finding that something in his nature lies right in the way of his progress in grace, and strangles his peace, or joy, or liberty. 'God works on a scheme of indirections, or in a circuit of truth. This is the way he works in nature, in the currents of the sea, and the blowing of the winds, and the circuits of electricity, and in the laws of the mind. Thus he works in the realm of grace. The believer had his eye on obtaining some rich and beautiful graces, and pursued it with zest, but in that pursuit he found the barriers to obtaining it within his own heart. And thus the Holy Spirit has led him to search into his inner nature by the indirect route of hunting for some golden grace of which he sees his need. If a Christian in his early love should be told that the reason he cannot grow faster in grace is because he has various forms of evil in his heart, he would not believe it. But in the pursuit of higher degrees of love he is driven back to search the foundations of his heart in a manner which nothing else could have made him do.

4. While making this introspection in his affections and tempers to find out what is the particular besetting evil that prevents his growth in grace, he makes a great discovery that well-nigh horrifies him. He finds that instead of having one besetment which checks his Christian progress, there is a whole world of carnality in his nature. These outcroppings of one or two evil propensities, which at first attracted his attention, were only like the mineral veins of a mine, they lead down into a dark region of corruption and blindness, and unbelief, which he hitherto did not dream was in him. Then he begins to understand that the whole body of sin as an evil principle, remains in his heart. This for the time being saddens his spirit, and causes a real grief in his soul. The very fact that he is born of God, and desires to love him more, causes him inexpressible sorrow of heart to find that his whole being is pervaded with a latent yet positive evil. He then begins to see that many of his good deeds, and much of his Christian work, was tinged with selfishness, or subtle pride, or ambition, or a strain of vanity, or was mixed up with duplicity and double mindedness. This brings on the stage of what has been called the repentance of believers, that is, real grief over inward sin.

5. Next there comes to this soul a thirst for the fullness of Scriptural purity. At first he began with a sense of the need of some one particular grace, but now he sees that he needs a universal cleansing, not only from one form of evil, but from every variety of pride, and unbelief, and selfishness in every form. The light of the Spirit is now widening in the horizon, and he sees that he needs something far more than to be sanctified in spots, his vision takes in the length and breadth of his whole nature, and sweeps the extent of his whole life. Now he yearns for nothing short of a complete and universal cleansing.

6. The next step in this process is, he begins to enter the region of entire yielding of self up to God. Not in the same way that he yielded to get pardon. This is a more profound and interior giving of himself over unlimitedly to the will of God. It is an itemized giving up, of point by point, and thing after thing, in his outward life, and inward life, a letting go of things in the past, and then in the future, and a resigning of circumstances, and plans, and hopes, and anticipations, into the will of God. It is a yielding up of the inward affections, and day dreams, and opinions, and sentiments; a turning over into God's hand of the very core of one's life, with all the contingencies, and the outcomes, and the possibilities of that life. Such a yielding up as this can never be done except under the immediate guidance and searching illumination of the Holy Spirit. It is a thousand miles beyond human logic or the mere utterance of words. It is a real living transaction.

7. When this itemized yielding up of the whole inner being to God is completed' then comes the hour of perfect trust in Jesus as a Saviour, and cleanser, and sanctifier. This faith has no struggle in it, it is a sweet, quiet rest in Jesus, a sort of divine, heavenly indifference as to what the outcome may be. Like a sleeping infant dropping its toy on the floor, the soul has quietly relaxed, and let go everybody and every thing, and peacefully rests upon the promise of God, which is the same to it as the bosom of God. Hence the highest type of faith is not exercise, but a ceasing from exercise, a supernatural repose in God, and a letting of the Holy Spirit do his work without having any anxiety to interfere with him.

8. After awhile this soul will make another discovery concerning the Holy Spirit. At first he is fairly bewildered with the great blessings he has received, and can hardly see or talk of anything else except the blessing. But after learning certain spiritual lessons, it comes to recognize in a wonderful way the blessed Holy Spirit as a divine Person living within. Then he sees that his life is to take on the form of a most intimate, thorough and blessed companionship with a divine Person who lives in his own spirit. From this time on he does not rely upon any particular form of experience, but learns to confide in that blessed Comforter out of whose fullness flows all good experiences. He then learns to commune with the Holy Ghost as he did not know how to do amid the first 'bewildering splendors of the sanctified state. He then learns to let the Holy Spirit use him for the glory of Jesus, and instead of trying to use God's grace and God's gifts, he gets into the secret of so corresponding with the inward monitions of the Comforter, and so understanding the mind of God, that he yields himself continually, with great docility and humility, to be utilized by the blessed Holy Ghost who remains in his heart. This is the state that all sincere Christians have intimations of and desires for, but that so few of them seem to fully enter into in this life. But this is the state which is truly apostolical, and it is for all those who will obey God without fear and in humility.