Satan's enormous power over 'the hurna.n soul. Time was when this truth wrui felt fur more profoundly than now, or at least when it filled a much larger space In pulpit thought and Christi1tn literature. And the fruits of it appeare,i everywhere not only in a higher orcler of religious sentiment, but in the amenability of folly and vice to tlmt moral fear which no oommunity can afford to lose. Wickedness abounded then ts now and yet wickedness was open to the probing of its conscience and to the disturbance of its sensibilities, nor did it commonly have the complacent hardness and the defiant nttitude towards the solemn hereafter which it now wears as its familiar aspoot. Com- munities had convictions then on rnor1tl and religious subjects, but only sections of communities (speaking generally) have such convictions now. Men of convictions, were sure of an audience. Savonarola could not but be heard. Luther had an intense realization of an evil spirit; less of it would have made him lees of a reformer. Milton and Bunyan, the two names that Englishmen would choose as the finest representatives of English genius and manhood in the literary spheres they filled, wrote as men who realized that Satan was something more in the affairs of the world than a. subject for artistic treatment. ,ve have come to the closing quarter of the nineteenth century, and within the century the land of Luther has given us 'Faust' with Mephistopheles, and the England of Milton and Bunyan has gives us • Festus' with Lucifer. Iusensibly to itself, the pulpit has caught the effeminate spirit of the age, and it discusses sin much more than it grapples with Satan in sin. "For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that he might destroy the works of the devil." If the most tender and loving soul among inspired thinkers could lay such an emphasis.on this truth, assuredly there is a way for this doctrine to be strenuously preached, free from every taint of extravagance and morbid imagination. Depend upon it, when we throw this doctrine into the background of set purpose, or when we let it lapse from our grasp by casual infirmity, we have nothing left but a fragmentary Christ and a depleted ethical Christianity.-L.
Vers. 16-20.-Oomparison of himself with hi., opponents. The weapons of his warfare were not carnal, and yet he must use, under protest and with undissembled humiliation, the weapons of his enemies. Boa.sting was their favourite art. Would they think him a fool? Let him not be so considered. If, however, they would regard him in this light, nevertheless be must "boast a little.'! Only he would pray to be heard by the Corinthians, but, at the same time, he wished it understood that he was :.;peaking as a man, not as an apostle. "That which I speak, I speak· it not after the Lord, but as it were foolishly, in this confidence of boasting." St. Paul is careful to ~tate when he speaks from his own mind, and he is equally concerned to let his readers l,now that, if others boasted from mean and selfish motives, he boasted in a very different spirit from theirs. "Many glory after the flesh," referring to his adversaries, and "I will glory also," but not as they do. "After the Lord" and "after the flesh" are contrasted, and yet in doing this (boasting), if he imitated the manner of these " false apostles, deceitful workers," there was nothing false or deceitful in his conduct. ·what he boasted of was matter of fact; and then he remarks, continuing the ironical vein in which he had been arguing, that the Corinthians were well able to bear with his foolishness, since they suffered fools gladly, seeing that they were wise. "Wise," verily. Then he cites what they had endured from these new teachers. Where was their freedom? They had been brought into "bondage "-moral and ecclesiastical submission t.o tyrannical rulers. Where was their selt~protection against imposition and craftiness, their discernment of men and motives? They had been taken in, captured devoured, by these designing men. Where was their self-respect? These •' fools," ~hom they suffered" gladly," had exalted themselves and hu_miliated a Church a.boundin" in special endowments. Where, finally, was their manliness? '!'hey had borne ins~lence, personal ill treatmentr--had been smitten on the face. Such was his arraignment of these "false apostles," such his indictment of those Corinthians who ha.d allowed themselves to be dominated by these insulting pretenders. Such, too, was the background for a vivid picture now t.o be sketche<l.-L.
Vers. 21-33.-What St. Paul was and what lt.e had suffered as an apostle of Ohrist, If, indeed, the standard of strength which the deceiving ministers of Satan had aet up en. xt. 1-33.J THE SECOND EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIA~S. 2,1,