but years have passed by, and it remains in the same weakly state.  Now this is just the condition of many believers.  They are converted; they know what it is to have assurance and faith; they believe in pardon for sin; they begin to work for God; and yet, somehow, there is very little growth in spirituality, in the real heavenly life.  We come into contact with them, and we feel at once there is something wanting; there is none of the beauty of holiness or of the power of God’s Spirit in them.  This is the condition of the carnal Corinthians, expressed in what was said to the Hebrews:  “You have had the Gospel so long that by this time you ought to be teachers, and yet you need that men should teach you the very rudiments of the oracles of God.”  Is it not a sad thing to see a believer who has been converted five, ten, twenty years, and yet no growth, and no strength, and no joy of holiness?

What are the marks of a little child?  One is, a little child cannot help himself, but is always keeping others occupied to serve him.  What a tyrant a baby in a house often is!  The mother cannot go out, there must be a servant to nurse it; it needs to be cared for constantly.  God made a man to care for others, but the baby was made to be cared for and to be helped.  So there are Christians who always want help.  Their pastor and their Christian friends must always be teaching and comforting them.  They go to church, and to prayer-meetings, and to conventions, always wanting to be helped,—­a sign of spiritual infancy.

The other sign of an infant is this:  he can do nothing to help his fellow-man.  Every man is expected to contribute something to the welfare of society; every one has a place to fill and a work to do, but the babe can do nothing for the common weal.  It is just so with Christians.  How little some can do!  They take a part in work, as it is called, but there is little of exercising spiritual power and carrying real blessing.  Should we not each ask, “Have I outgrown my spiritual infancy?” Some must reply, “No, instead of having gone forward, I have gone backward, and the joy of conversion and the first love is gone.”  Alas!  They are babes in Christ; they are yet carnal.

The second mark of the carnal state is this:  that there is sin and failure continually.  Paul says:  “Whereas there is strife and division among you, and envying, are ye not carnal?” A man gives way to temper.  He may be a minister, or a preacher of the Gospel, or a Sunday-school teacher, most earnest at the prayer-meeting, but yet strife or bitterness or envying is often shown by him.  Alas!  Alas!  In Gal. 3:5 we are told that the works of the flesh are specially hatred and envy.  How often among Christians, who have to work together, do we see divisions and bitterness!  God have mercy upon them, that the fruit of the Spirit, which is love, is so frequently absent from His own people.  You ask, “Why is it, that for twenty years I have been fighting with my temper, and can not conquer