tations to steady work to do with exhortations to
increasing love? Not much, apparently; but may not the link be, 'Do not
suppose that your Christianity is to show itself only in emotions,
however sweet; the plain humdrum tasks of a working man's life are quite
as noble a field as the exalted heights of brotherly love.' A loving
heart is good, but a pair of diligent hands are as good. The
juxtaposition of these two commands preaches a lesson which we need
quite as much as the Thessalonians did. Possibly, too, as we see more
fully in the second Epistle, the new truths, which had cut them from
their old anchorage, had set some of them afloat on a sea of unquiet
expectation. So much of their old selves had been swept away, that it
would be hard for some to settle down to the old routine. That is a
common enough experience in all 'revivals,' and at Thessalonica it was
intensified by speculations about Christ's coming.

The 'quiet' which Paul would have us cultivate is not only external, but
the inward tranquillity of a spirit calm because fixed on God and filled
with love. The secret place of the Most High is ever still, and, if we
dwell there, our hearts will not be disturbed by any tumults without. To
'do our own business' is quite a different thing from selfish 'looking
on our own things,' for a great part of our business is to care for
others, and nothing dries up sympathy and practical help more surely
than a gossiping temper, which is perpetually buzzing about other
people's concerns, and knows everybody's circumstances and duties
better than its own. This restless generation, whose mental food is so
largely the newspaper, with its floods of small-talk about people, be
they politicians, ministers, or murderers, sorely needs these precepts.
We are all so busy that we have no time for quiet meditation, and so
much occupied with trivialities about others that we are strangers to
ourselves. Therefore religious life is low in many hearts.

The dignity of manual labour was a new doctrine to preach to Greeks, but
Paul lays stress on it repeatedly in his letters to Thessalonica.
Apparently most of the converts there were of the labouring class, and
some of them needed the lesson of Paul's example as well as his precept.
A Christian workman wielding chisel or trowel for Christ's sake will
impress 'them that are without.' Dignity depends, not on the nature, but
on the motive, of our work. 'A servant with this clause makes drudg