between your spirit and your flesh--your spirit trying to be master
and guide, as it ought to be, and your flesh rebelling, and trying
to conquer your spirit and make you a mere animal, like a fox in
cunning, a peacock in vanity, or a hog in greedy sloth. But
believe, too, that it is your sin and your shame if your spirit does
not conquer your flesh--for God has promised to help your spirits.
Ask Him, and His Spirit will teach them--fill them with pure, noble
hopes, with calm, clear thoughts, and with deep, unselfish love to
God and man. He will strengthen your wills, that they may be able
to refuse the evil and choose the good. Ask Him, and He will join
them to His own Spirit--to the Spirit of Christ, your Master; for he
that is joined unto the Lord is one spirit with Him. Ask him, and
He will give you the mind of Christ--teach you to see and feel all
matters as Christ sees and feels them. Ask Him, and He will give
you wisdom to listen to His Spirit when it teaches your spirit, and
then you will be able to walk after the spirit, and not obey the
lusts of the flesh; and you will be able to crucify the flesh with
its passions and lusts, that is, to make it, what it ought to be, a
dead thing--a dead tool for your spirit to work with manfully and
godly, and not a live tyrant to lead you into brutishness and folly;
and then you will find that the fruit of the spirit, of your spirit
led by God's Spirit, is really, as St. Paul says, "love, joy, peace,
long-suffering, gentleness, honesty"--"whatsoever things are true,
whatsoever things are honourable and of good report;" and instead of
being the miserable slaves of your own passions, and of the opinions
of your neighbours, you will find that where the Spirit of the Lord
is, there is liberty, true freedom, not only from your neighbours'
sins, but, what is far better, freedom from your own.

These are large words, my friends, and promise mighty things. But I