Tf While St. Paul's heart is on fire his reason is cool ; after all this expenditure of feeling and effort he looks for very partial results. " That I may save some." Not " all " — that were too much to hope. But whether in the Jewish synagogue or on Mars' Hill in Athens ; whether among scholars or the unlettered ; whether amidst friends or foes ; whether he stands face to face with multitudes or is pleading with a single soul ; he keeps one purpose steadily before him ; he is what he is, he does what he does, that some at least may know the power of that faithful
I COR. — 17
258 ADAPTABILITY
saying which is ever worthy of all acceptation, that "Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners." *
U Some people are quite intolerable to one by the way in which they insist that sympathy means looking at things as they do, without any feeling of real conviction. Now, to me, sympathy means understanding other people, and acting in accordance with one's perception, though neither one's feelings nor one's reason may approve of their condition. An abandon- ment of one's personality to another makes sympathy a quite useless gift. Yet that is the sort of sympathy which people most demand. They come in a defiant way and say, " You shall feel with me: you shall tell me that my feelings are the best, the noblest, the richest." I am afraid that I never look for more than a modified approval of my own doings. In proportion as a man is really worth consulting, he will show his appreciation of my difficulties, but will suggest, without expressing, a more excellent way in the future.2
2. Let us be sure that we have the right motive. Mere human sympathy, however strong, wears itself out; it is at least half physical in its nature, and its energy shares the vicissitudes and decay of our bodily frame. One motive only — the love of God — really lasts ; and of the love of God, the love of man, whom God has loved so well as to create and to redeem him, is in reality the consequence and the attestation.
^[ What we have to be on our guard against is not the versa- tility itself, but a wrong motive, or the absence of a good one to direct it. This is well illustrated by the different forms which versatility took in the history of the Greeks. In the age of Pericles it was the great Hellenic virtue, on the excellence of which the Greek prided himself. " It was a happy and graceful flexibility." Freedom from prejudice, freedom from stiffness, openness of mind, amiability of manners, clearness and propriety of language — all these seem to have had their part in that which enabled the Athenian, without loss of earnestness or "relaxation of moral force," to become all things to all men. In the age of Aristotle this versatility is still a grace, but a subordinate grace, of character. It is now little more than an elegant accomplish- ment, which the Athenian gentleman, enveloped in a sense of dignity and self-importance, cultivates only that he may avoid the unpleasant extremes of buffoonery and boorishness. Four
1 H. P. Liddon, Clerical Life and Work, 318. 8 Life and Letters of Mandell Crcighton, i. 271.
i CORINTHIANS ix. 22 259
hundred years later the same word appears in the Epistle of St. Paul to the Ephesians, and lo, it is coupled with filthiness and foolish talking; it is the "jesting" which is not convenient. Wherein then does the flexibility of St. Paul differ from the frivolity and fickleness of the Ionians of Asia Minor? Simply and solely in the motive which actuated him. It was when Greece lost its reality, its earnestness, when its moral fibre became relaxed, that this grace of character became hateful and contemptible.1
3. The principle of adaptation when applied to Christian work gives no sanction to the satanic doctrine that the end justifies the means. St. Paul wore different characters only so long as he could wear them consistently with his Christianity. There must be no infidelity to conscience, no compromise with wrong, no overcoming evil with evil, though we might think that we could save souls thereby. The motives of the Jesuits and Inquisitors were often of the purest, but they defiled themselves by the use of means that were nothing short of diabolical. The conversion of a sinner from the error of his ways will not hide any sins that may be committed in the process. Nothing is justifiable in Christian work which is not justifiable elsewhere. There must be no sharp practice. Christ drives the traffickers out of the Temple, though the Temple may make a profit from their gains.
If Some days before, the missionary had used the same device (Industrie) for baptizing a little boy six or seven years old. His father, who was very sick, had several times refused to receive baptism ; and when asked if he would not be glad to have his son baptized, he had answered, No, " At least," said Father Pijart, " you will not object to my giving him a little sugar." " No ; but you must not baptize him." The missionary gave it to him once ; then again; and at the third spoonful, before he had put the sugar into the water, he let a drop of it fall on the child, at the same time pronouncing the sacramental words. A little girl, who was looking at him, cried out, " Father, he is baptizing him ! " The child's father was much disturbed ; but the missionary said to him, " Did you not see that I was giving him sugar ? " The child died soon after ; but God showed His grace to the father, who is now in perfect health.2