~hort," and we may therefore wisely sit loosely from all earthly things, and remember that where our treasure is there will our heart be also, and that, as Christians, our treasure is in heaven.-R. T. Ver. 31.-The passing world. "For the fashion of this world passeth away." The figure used by the apostle 1s that of a shifting scene in a theatre. We may better realize the figure by applying it to a moving panorama. On, on it goes, ever new scenes coming into view, moving across, and then passing for ever away. Such lire appears to us when we can seem to step aside and look at it. Sometimes it bas been likened to the river, which bears the vessel on from the harbour among the bills, down past e'<'er-mrying scenes, and out into the great ocean. Poetic souls are touched with a fine melancholy as they see the "•stately ships pass on," and feel how each resembles a human life. Time is short; the voyage is brief, and the ocean is so vast, so unexplored, so unknown. "'l'be word• fashion' has not here the popular mcanino- which bas been generally assigned to it. It does not refer to those customs and con;ention- alities which vary in <lifferent nations and different ages,-all these pass away; but the word refers here to all that is external upon earth; all that bas form and shape and scenery; all that is visible in contradistinction t-0 that which is invisible." Work out and illustrate two things. I. lT IS O~'LY THE FASHIO:S OF THE WORLD THAT PASSES AWAY•. This we should feel if we could rightly understand what the" fashion of the world" is. Clearly distin- guish between the "essence" and the "accident" of a thing. It may be quite true that the " essence" escapes us; it is beyond our present vision. But we can realize it in thought. We know that within appearances are undying realities, and that appearances may change and pass, but the reality is eternal. Phenomena are but the· utterance of eternal things, so that under our present sense-limitations we may know something of them. This is best apprehended by reference to the Lord Jesus Christ, who was "Goel manifest" in our sense-spheres. 'l'he mere fashion of him, as the Fellow-man, with whom we might bavo sense-relations, may pass away-it did pass away-but such passing in no way touched the reality of his abiding presence with us. So we seem every day to be losing things, but we only lose the fashion of them, the outward show. \Vhatever tbey have really been to us, for good or for bad, they are still, and they shall be for ever. \Ve ourselves must presently pass away; but it is only the fashion that passes; we remain. With reverence it may even be saicl of us, that "our years are throughout all generations." Then we can loose from our grasp the merely "seen and temporal," if we have for our possession the "unseen and eternal." II. IT IS THE REALITY OF THE WORLD THAT IS ABIDING. If we can only find out what that reality is. And surely it is this-the character of the beings that pass under its thousandfold influences. There is nothing else that is abiding. '!'he physical world is ever changing and passing away. We talk of the everlasting mountains, while they are crumblina and being washed down into the plains. "He that doetb the will of God abidetb for° ever," and be alone. The reality of the world is just that unseen spiritual sphere in which Christ's soul and the Christian soul lives. You may call it earth or call it heaven, accordin" to the fashion in which it is apprehended. So the apostle urcres bis practical point'.:_Do not even try to satisfy your souls in the merely sensuous ;pheres that so surely pa~s away. Break all these bonds of the sensual, if you are now bound with them. Keep away from these bonds of the sensual, if in any form they are likely to entangle you. Live in the Spirit. "Walk in the Spirit; and you will not fulfil the lusts of the flesh."-H. T.
EXPOSITION. CHAPTER VIII. Ver. 1.-As touohing things offered unto- idols. '!'his was doubtless one of th& Vera. l-13.-17terelationof love to lmoic• questions 011 which the Corinthians hud ledge with respect to the queBlion of ealin!J uskcd for udvice. We judgo from the tone idol-offerings. of the questions to which St. P11ul here en. Yiu.1_.:_13,] THm FIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS. 263