1. After the intelligence comes the will which also, because of
the very large part it plays in all human action, needs to be
perfected by a gift of the Spirit. It is necessary to repeat that
the Holy Spirit does not by His gifts bestow on the soul new
powers and new faculties, but develops, refines, perfects
faculties already there. It is not the creation of new eyes to see
new visions, but the strengthening of the eyes of the soul so as
to see more clearly and with a longer sight. The will, then, has
also to be strengthened, for it is the will that lies at the very
heart of all heroism. Merely to have a glimpse of greatness is but
part of a hero's need. No doubt it is a larger part, for very many
of us never by instinct at all touch on the borders of greatness,
we do not see or understand how in our little lives we can be
great, we have not the imagination lit up by God, no vision; yet
"when the vision fails, the people shall perish." But even when
that sudden showing does by God's mercy come to us, we still fall
far short of it. It is too high, too ideal, too far removed from
weak human nature to seem possible to us. That is to say, our will
has failed us. We are faced by some huge obstacle, or even by a
persistent refusal to budge on behalf of some one (ourselves or
another) to go forward and to do; we struggle, fail, lose heart,
surrender, cease our efforts. What do we want? Fortitude, that
"persistive constancy" that to Shakespeare was the greatest
quality of human wills.
2. How is this achieved? By appreciating the nearness of God to
us. The gifts make us responsive to God with an ease and
instantaneousness that operates smoothly and without friction.
That is God's doing, not ours. He gives us this wonderful power of
being able to register at once every passing inspiration. The
gifts that refine the intelligence allow it to perceive sights
which else were hidden. The gift that refines the will must do
this by some kindred action. Now the difficulties that beset the
will must necessarily be difficulties for whose overcoming
strength is needed. Therefore the will must be refined by being
made strong. How can it be made strong by the Holy Spirit? What
exactly happens to its mechanism to secure for it the power of
endurance? The easiest way of understanding how this effect is
brought about is to suppose that the soul by its refinement, by
that delicacy whereby it responds instantly to a divine
impression, is quickly aware of God's nearness to it. It perceives
how close it is to the Spirit of God, and the sense of this
nearness makes it better able to hold on to its duty. In the old
style of warfare we often read of wives and mothers coming to the
field of battle that their presence might awake their men to the
topmost pitch of courage. Even in the modern methods of fighting,
the moral effect of the presence of the emperor or king is
considered to have an effect upon the troops. Of course here it is
more homely, since the familiar presence of the Holy Spirit
strengthens and inspires by love, trust, sympathy.
3. For this reason the name Comforter was given to the Holy
Spirit, in its original sense of strengthening, becoming the fort
of the soul; and the result is that the recipient is able to hold
on or, in our modern slang, to "carry on." By nature so many of us
are prone to seek our own comforts at the expense of what we know
to be the higher side of us. Human respect makes us again
cowardly, or the sheer monotony of perseverance dulls and wearies
the soul. We get so depressed with the strain of making efforts
that we are very much inclined to let the spiritual side of life
go under, or at least be rendered as little heroic as possible,
for it is real heroism even just to "go on." The "silent pressure"
of temptations, when their passion and fury have died down, is a
constant worry, an unconscious weight on the mind, like the
thought of war that lies heavily at the back of the consciousness
of those whose external lives seem empty of war-reminders. We want
to be courageous and fearless, to _undergo_. Then we must hold
fast to God's nearness to us, and feel the virtue going out from
Him to us, though He does but touch the hem of our garments by His
indwelling.