and therefore on condition through
eternity. If our peace does not rest where we would fain see it
settle, it will not be wasted, but will return to us again, like the
dove to the ark, and we shall 'self-enfold the large results of'
labour that seemed to have been thrown away.

STRONG AND LOVING

'Watch ye, stand fast in the faith, quit you like
men, be strong. 14. Let all your things be done
with charity.'--1 COR. xvi. 13, 14.

There is a singular contrast between the first four of these
exhortations and the last. The former ring sharp and short like
pistol-shots; the last is of gentler mould. The former sound like the
word of command shouted from an officer along the ranks; and there is
a military metaphor running all through them. The foe threatens to
advance; let the guards keep their eyes open. He comes nearer;
prepare for the charge, stand firm in your ranks. The battle is
joined; 'quit you like men'--strike a man's stroke--'be strong.'

And then all the apparatus of warfare is put away out of sight, and
the captain's word of command is softened into the Christian
teacher's exhortation: 'Let all your deeds be done in charity.' For
love is better than fighting, and is stronger than swords. And yet,
although there is a contrast here, there is also a sequence and
connection. No doubt these exhortations, which are Paul's last word
to that Corinthian Church on whom he had lavished in turn the
treasures of his manifold eloquence, indignation, argumentation, and
tenderness, reflected the deficiencies of the people to whom he was
speaking. They were schismatic and factious to the very core, and so
they needed the exhortation to be left last in their ears, as it
were, that everything should be done in love. They were ill-grounded
in regard to the very fundamental doctrines of the faith, as all
Paul's argumentation about the resurrection proves, and so they
needed to be bidden to 'stand fast in the faith.' Their slothful
carelessness as to the discipline of the Christian life, and their
consequent feebleness of grasp of the Christian verities, made them
loose-braced and weak in all respects, and incapacitated them for
vigorous warfare. Thus, we see a picture in these injunctions of the
sort of community that Paul had to deal with in Corinth, which yet he
called a Church of saints, and for which he loved and laboured. Let
me then run over and try to bring out the importance and mutual
connection of wha