St. Paul had a "Very clear insight into this fact. No man makes so many reference~, <lirect and indirect, to the physiological connections of sin. As a writer of Scripture the terrible truth of the" fleshly mind" is often beforo him, and Crom him we learn th; supreme ucce~sity of keeping the body under, lest we become castaways. "Castaways" are far more numerous than we take knowledge of. Short of rlownright materialism :rnd its counterpart in sensual degeneration, we have innumerable evidences of .the wreck of the spiritual nature. These nerves of ours-delicate threads that interlace the whole body and are freqnently too fine for tho eye-what a machinery for the band uf Satan, skilled by the practice of centuries, to play upon 1 We err when we confine our Yiew of materialism to its professed advocates. \Ve err also when we measure tl,@ sensualism of the age by its grosser forms. Far greater, far more harmful, and fau more widesprearl, are the deleterious effects, often unrecognized, that work havoc amoncr onr spiritual sensibilities. It is this deadening of the intellect hy the sensuousne~ that keeps itself aloof from overt scnsualism which St. Paul so earnestly assails as "the wisdom of this world.'' Not seldom it boasts of morality, cultivates beauty, patronizes ~sthetics, and abounds in animalized poetry and eloquence and science. Meantime it lends all its aid, acting through an army of auxiliaries, to encourage men in a bloated. sense of self-sufficiency, until there is no felt need of God and still less of Christ. Most of all, this sULte of minrl is inimical to the agency of the Holy Ghost upon the human heart, and consequently we find in our times a much more wilful and violent rejection of the Holy Ghost and a contempt for his gracious offices than hostility to the Father and the Son. Against this most evil and fatal habit St. Paul lifts a vehement remonstrance. And he was the only man of his day competent to this task. No rude Galilean was he; no obscure and unlettered person; but a cultured soul, whose end°'1·- ments had been signalized ~fore he went forth to convert an empire to Christ. "Become a fool "-a fool in the world's estimation-" that ye may be wise." It is "craftiness," argues the man who had experimentally known it all, and, furthermore, it ensnares itself in its own net. And hence glory not in man; there is no wisdom in it, no plea and no excuse for it, since" all things are yours." Party spirit shuts us up in narrow limits; Christianity gives the freedom of the world. Party spirit makes Ul! the disciples of men; Christianity declares that we do not belong to Paul, Apollos, Peter, but that they belong to us, and all Divine in them ministers to the Divine in ourselves, so that our life superahounds by means of theirs. Nor is this all. 'l'he vast inventory embraces things as well as men: "'l'he world, or life, or· death, or things present, or things to come; all are yours." No room for pride here, since it is a common possession ; no opportunity to thank God like the Pharisee that we are not as others. are, for God"s grace humbles the natural man, that it may endow and then exalt the- Christian. If we undertake to be Christians of a particular sort, it is certain that we- shall be cast in a very dwarfing mould, and get our colouring from a very earthly pig- ment. 'l'o be a true Christian is not to adopt the Name of Christ as the watchword of a sect or party, but to accept and venerate it as the watchword of humanity redeemed in the Son of man. Any other use of Christ's Name is essentially schismatic. All things are ours only so far as we are Christ's. And it is the Christ of God, the Son of God, the anointed Messiah, who was filled with the unction of the Spirit, and who said, "I do nothing of myself,"-it is this Christ who is ours. Seen in him, life redeems itself from everything low, groveling, and merely sensuous; and even the human body, whose wants and demands are the unmanageable factor in all civilization, and whose warfare against the Spirit is the most fearful hazard in moral probation, becomes, through Christ, the temple of the Holy Ghost. Spiritualize in this sense the human body; sanctify its large and beautiful capacity for a true sensuousness; organize its habits until it becomes almost the automaton of the S1,irit, and self-denial, prayer, and praise, by virtue of the automatic and semi-automatic laws of the physical system, are well- nigh incorporated in the nervons functions. Ask art, science, philosophy, to attempt such a task, and would they set themselves to it? Political economy, physiology, hygiene, sanitary science, concern themselves much with the human body, and are entitle,! to Lonour for their interest in its welfare-welfare only, however, stopping very far short of genuine well-being. Let no word of ours be understood as depreciating these invaluable services. But, nevertheless, their field lies in a department of life com- JJaratively humble-life as cxbtence, as organic and vegetative, life as intellectual ancl. 1:11. m. 1-23.] THE FIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTIIL\XS. 1C5
more.I, noe in lif-, as spirilual. Now, at this very point, the incomparable rrlory ,,r Christianity demonstrates it~clf by a profound interest in the human body as a ;eli"iou,; question, and, first and last, its words are, "temple of God." No wonder that St. Paul rises to the height of exultation. 'l'he eagle-wing smites the upper air in it& buoyant strength, and the eagle-eye, catching a radiance unknown in the thick atmo- sphere of earth, commands the scope of a va8t horizon. One of his grand powers wa;; this instinct-shall we call it '?-of exultation, always held in check till the Divin'-' fulness of Christ and the sublimity of humanity in Christ kindled it into rapture. Nor is he ever more like himself nor ever nearer to us than in these moments-" such hH1 0 hour of visitation from the living God."-L.