own. If you would run
for the incorruptible prize of effort in the fashion in which others
and yourselves run for the corruptible, your whole lives would be
changed. Why! if Christian people in general really took half--half?
ay! a tenth part of--the honest, persistent pains to improve their
Christian character, and become more like Jesus Christ, which a
violinist will take to master his instrument, there would be a new
life for most of our Christian communities. Hours and hours of
patient practice are not too much for the one; how many moments do we
give to the other? 'So run, that ye obtain.'

II. The victorious runner sets Christians an example of rigid
self-control.

Every man that is striving for the mastery is 'temperate in all
things.' The discipline for runners and athletes was rigid. They had
ten months of spare diet--no wine--hard gymnastic exercises every
day, until not an ounce of superfluous flesh was upon their muscles,
before they were allowed to run in the arena. And, says Paul, that is
the example for us. They practise this rigid discipline and
abstinence by way of preparation for the race, and after it was run
they might dispense with the training. You and I have to practise
rigid abstinence as part of the race, as a continuous necessity.
_They_ did not abstain only from bad things, they did not only
avoid criminal acts of sensuous indulgence; but they abstained from
many perfectly legitimate things. So for us it is not enough to say,
'I draw the line there, at this or that vice, and I will have nothing
to do with these.' You will never make a growing Christian if
abstinence from palpable sins only is your standard. You must 'lay
aside' every sin, of course, but also 'every _weight_' Many
things are 'weights' that are not 'sins'; and if we are to run fast
we must run light, and if we are to do any good in this world we have
to live by rigid control and abstain from much that is perfectly
legitimate, because, if we do not, we shall fail in accomplishing the
highest purposes for which we are here. Not only in regard to the
gross sensual indulgences which these men had to avoid, but in regard
to a great deal of the outgoings of our interests and our hearts, we
have to apply the knife very closely and cut to the quick, if we
would have leisure and sympathy and affection left for loftier
objects. It is a very easy thing to be a Christian in one aspect,
inasmuch as a Christian at bottom is a man that is t