The Pulpit Commentary — 1 Corinthians — Section 236

"mercy" indeed, since it shows the digaity of spiritual intellect, and what importance men should attach to its daily offices in life. "The time is shortened:" here is his starting-point; and this abridged time is applied instantly to a certain state of mind, which ::lt. Paul would have his converts to cultivate with regard to the world and its relations. Future time is not ordinary future time. It bas been narrowed, in order that you Corinthians and all other believers may have an intenser conception of opportunity, a deeper sense of Christ in time, and so learn to look upon human existence under this aspect of its solemnity. First of all, the domestic relation; this most beautiful, tender, and noble of all earthly relationships, whose spirit refuses to be limited by what its loving arms embrace, and is ever reaching towards a loftier ideal, and even when its arms are paralyzed still symbolizes alike in memory and hope the immortality of affection,-tbis holy relation must be made holier by the fact, "the time is shortened." If true of this, it is true of all else. Sorrow may be, to some extent, pure and noble, and yet, unawares to ourselves, it may contain a selfish element, and, in the degree this is present, we mourn over ourselves as losers rather than over the object lost. A sorrow truly pure and noble bides its tears from the world, takes up the cross of daily work, feels its loneliaess and bears it silently, and toils on with serene patience. To be a Divine discipline-the most purifying and exalting of which we are capable-it must loosen ns from earthly things and raise our hearts to God. The death of othel'll, even of our dearest friends, is thus overruled by Providence, as the death in some measure of our pleasure-loving nature. "Perfect through snfferiag;" was said of Christ, and in sq far as we realize perfection, it is only attained in this way. Our joy must not engross us so as to impair our lively sense of things spiritual. Busiaess must leave us free for meditation and devout exercises. And in whatever way we use the world, whether the world of home, of culture, of trade aad commerce, or of professional activity, it must be used in moderation and with due regard to its moral significaace. "The earth bath he given to the children of men," that they may be more than earthly. "All things are yours," that ye may thereby be richer in Christ Jesus. Viewed in this light, it may not be proper to say that these things are "means of grace," but they are helpers and auxiliaries to goodness, and give us no small furtherance in the life Divine. Much, very much, in this world is capable of a most blessed utility. Much of it will live for ever, not in itself, but taken into us and assimilated and glorified. Bodily, how much that is bodily, is ever becoming eternally mental and spiritual! It is the immortal soul, born of God, redeemed by Christ, sanctified by the Holy Ghost, that saves material nature from beiug a picturesque show and a deceptions sham. Plentifully, indeed, she meets our physical want.s, quite as lavishly our wishes, generously too our tastes, and yet, while guaranteeing her economic and intellectual uses with a royal magnificence, she is looking beyond and afar, and her thought is of the blessings that are imperishable. "The body is . . . for the Lord;" and through the pathways of the body, the gates of the senses, the " vaults," the "galleries," and "passage-ways" that physiology assures us exist beneath the grey matter of the upper brain ;-through these ns highways what vast processions are daily moving heavenwards! Beauty and sublimity have not terminated their offices when they have flashed to the canvas of the painter or breathed themselves into tbti marble of the sculptor. Poetry ho.snot finished her task when she bas fountl a Dante, a Shakespeare, a Milton. Music has not been exhausted in the act of creating Mozart and Beethoven and Mendelssohn. Every one of these influences is what it is in itself, because of man's immortality. The training we get in the body and through the body, such as the subjugation of the material organization to the organism of the man, the clear common sense won by experience from toil and enterprise, the swift energy, the mastering will of achievement, the patience of endeavour, the heroism that works and waits, and the discipline of the social and rational man,-all this complicated training, which suff~rs no constituent of manhood t" evade its grasp, bas a rdcrcuce distinctly providential to the future man. 'l'be idea of a Christian probation as altogether different from other conceivable probations,and as standing specifically by itself in the dispensations of the universe, runs through all the economic arrangements of our world. ,lud hence the words of St. Paul, "Use this world as not abusing it," using it not to the full of the senses and the intellect and the sensibilities as if it were all, but using it as a world even now moviug from beneath your feet, and which has no permanency  238 THE FIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS. [cu. vu. 1-40.