l suppose, not without a personal reference in my own
consciousness.

I. Note here first, then, the Apostolic theme--Jesus Christ and Him
crucified.

Now, the Apostle, in this context, gives us a little autobiographical
glimpse which is singularly and interestingly confirmed by some
slight incidental notices in the Book of the Acts. He says, in the
context, that he was with the Corinthians 'in weakness and in fear
and in much trembling,' and, if we turn to the narrative, we find
that a singular period of silence, apparent abandonment of his work
and dejection, seems to have synchronised with his coming to the
great city of Corinth. The reasons were very plain. He had recently
come into Europe for the first time and had had to front a new
condition of things, very different from what he had found in
Palestine or in Asia Minor. His experience had not been encouraging.
He had been imprisoned in Philippi; he had been smuggled away by
night from Thessalonica; he had been hounded from Berea; he had all
but wholly failed to make any impression in Athens, and in his
solitude he came to Corinth, and lay quiet, and took stock of his
adversaries. He came to the conclusion which he records in my text;
he felt that it was not for him to argue with philosophers, or to
attempt to vie with Sophists and professional orators, but that his
only way to meet Greek civilisation, Greek philosophy, Greek
eloquence, Greek self-conceit, was to preach 'Christ and Him
crucified.' The determination was not come to in ignorance of the
conditions that were fronting him. He knew Corinth, its wealth, its
wickedness, its culture, and knowing these he said, 'I have made up
my mind that I will know nothing amongst you save Jesus Christ and
Him crucified.'

So, then, this Apostle's conception of his theme was--the biography
of a Man, with especial emphasis laid on one act in His history--His
death. Christianity is Christ, and Christ is Christianity. His
relation to the truth that He proclaimed, and to the truths that may
be deducible from the story of His life and death, is altogether
different from the relation of any other founder of a religion to the
truths that he has proclaimed. For in these you can accept the
teaching, and ignore the teacher. But you cannot do that with
Christianity; 'I am the Way, and the Truth, and the Life'; and in
that revealing biography, which is the preacher's theme, the
palpitating heart and centre is the death upon the