ve said, natural; this
one, on the contrary, is official. This may raise a prejudice against
it. So many and such grave mistakes have been made through regarding
official appointment as the only warrant for Christian work, to the
prejudice of the antecedent qualifications of a genuine and
sympathetic manhood and a deep personal Christianity, without which it
is nothing, that there is a disposition to ignore this kind of motive
altogether. But St. Paul acknowledges it. Although he was always, no
doubt, far more of a man and a Christian than an official, yet, in
reply to opposition, he insists with great vehemence on his apostolic
rank; and evidently he felt that this imposed on him additional
obligations to be earnest and faithful in the work to which his manly
and Christian instincts prompted him.

* * * * *

It is, indeed, of great consequence to anyone who has become a
Christian, and who begins to feel stirring in his breast those
impulses to serve God and bless the world which are native to the
Christian spirit, to obtain a definite sphere to fill and a definite
work to do. Otherwise these God-inspired impulses, expressing
themselves in mere words and sentiments, gradually decay through want
of exercise, or they are dispersed over so many objects that nothing
is done. But, when a special task is obtained, the force of these
sentiments is concentrated upon it and transmuted into actual work.
The Christian man says: Here is my own task; if I do not accomplish
it, no one else can; this is my corner in the great labour-field,
which I, and no one else, have to make fruitful and beautiful; I shall
be answerable to the Judge of all at the last for the manner in which
the work assigned to me is done.

Such sentiments had a strong hold of the mind of St. Paul. One of his
commonest ways of thinking of his office was as a stewardship, which
he was administering, and for which by-and-by he would have to render
a reckoning. "And," says he, "it is required in stewards that a man be
found faithful."[54] Similarly, he thought of himself as a workman
with a certain portion of a temple to build; but the great Taskmaster
was coming round in the evening to inspect the work--ay, and even to
test it with fire; and, when that testing-time came, he desired to be
a workman not needing to be ashamed. All the work of his apostleship
appeared to him a curriculum which he had to cover before he could win
the pr