The Pulpit Commentary — 1 Corinthians — Section 409

as a fellowship that is called to illustrate before the world the Divine idea of social human life. Taking this broader 1·iew of the passage, observe- !. THE WAY IX WHICH CHRISTIANITY RECOGNIZES SOCIAL DISTINCTIONS. These are suggested by the "eye," the "hand," the "head," and the "feet." 'l'he distinctions that exist among men are of various kinds-natural and acquired, essential and conventional. There are distinctions intellectual, moral, educational, national, official, circumstantial. All these are recognized in some way or other by the religion of Christ. Ilut the;y do not receive from it precisely the same recognition. They are not recognized by 1t to the same extent. There are certain social distinctions that arc far too deeply rooted in the instinctive tendencies of our nature, or in the moral necessity of things, ever to be obliterated. If they could be levelled in one age they would inevitably rise again in the next. If levelled in a violent and repressive way, they only spring up aftenrnrds in some exaggerated and extravagant form. The ~rench l~evolutio~ began with gl?rious_dreams of "liberty, fraternity, and equality;" 1t ended JU a "Reign of Terror" m winch every man's hand was aO'ainst his brother in a military despotism that crushed the hopes and energies of the 1~eople in the dust: in social separations broader and deeper than had been known before. The reliaion of Christ is in no way antagonistic to those radical and natural tendencioJs-it does but mould and reguln.te them. It seeks to control, but not to crush them, wisely to direct the current, but not to stay its course. Revolutionary as it is in its purpose and workings, it is truly conservative, gradually transforming the whole life of man, but demanding no violent changes, developing the form of the nobler future out of the crude, imperfect, and misshapen past. Hence what seems to some the strange silence of apostolic teaching in reference to many of the dark facts and phases of the social life of the world as then existing-slavery, polygamy, military tyranny, oppressive laws, etc. The chief lesson for us here, however, is this-that in the body politic, the living frame of society, each man according to his distinction has his own special function and special work to do. There is the eye-the discerning, per- ceptive, observant power; the head-the regulative, guiding, governmental power; the kand-the operative faculty, the power that does the finer and more skilful work of the world; and the feet-the part of the frame that bears the heavier burdens, does the drudgery, endures in the way of physical toil the more painful pressur_e of life. Each member has its own particular work to do, and which another cannot do. 'l'he eye cannot handle, the hand cannot see, the head cannot hear the heavy burdens, the feet cannot direct. 'l'here are men of fine speculative, philosophic thought, but who have little practical capacity; a nice discernment of the truth of things, but no power to embody even their own ideas in real and substantial forms. Again, there are men of great administrative ability, quick for all the practical business of life, " horn to rule " or to manage affairs; place them where you will they will soon assert their power, and others will recognize it and follow their leading. While there are aiso men to whom physical toil is a natural instinctive delight, and whom the educational influences of life never have fitted or, perhaps, could fit for any other function. Distinctions that grow thus in a natural way out of radical qualities in men Christianity recognizes. Also those that belong to the parental and family relations, or that may be necessary to assert the majesty of law (Rom. xiii. 1-6). But as to any further distinctions, any that rest upon a purely fictitious and con1·entional basis, having no foundation in nature, which merely feed the lust of power and the pride of life, it would seem to acknowledge none. ll. 'J.'HE LAW OP' MUTUAL DEPENDENCE THAT GOVEilNS ALL PARTS OF THE SOCIAL FRAME, The conditions of our life in this world involve us all, in a thousand subtle ways, in the obligation to serve one another, and subject us all, whether we will or not, to the law of self-sacrifice. All nature, in its purely physical aspects, is framed on this principle. '"Nothing in the world is single, All things, by a law Divine, In another's being mingle." Every form of physical existence draws its life from thoso beneath it, and in its turn has to surrender its life to them. 'l'he lower forms exist for the higher, the highest can never assert its freedom from the law of dependence on the lowest, So in the en. xu. 1-31.] THE FIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIAKS. 417