s
been suggested by some eminent scholars, 'placarded'--'Before whose eyes
Jesus Christ has been placarded.' The expression has acquired somewhat
ignoble associations from modern advertising, but that is no reason why
we should lose sight of its force. So, then, Paul says, 'In my
preaching, Christ was conspicuously set forth. It is like some
inexplicable enchantment that, having seen Him, you should turn away to
gaze on others.' It is insanity which evokes wonder, as well as sin
which deserves rebuke; and the fiery question of my text conveys both.

I. Keeping to the metaphor, I note first the placard which Paul had
displayed.

'Jesus Christ crucified has been conspicuously set forth before you,' he
says to these Galatians. Now, he is referring, of course, to his own
work of preaching the Gospel to them at the beginning. And the vivid
metaphor suggests very strikingly two things. We see in it the Apostle's
notion of what He had to do. His had been a very humble office, simply
to hang up a proclamation. The one virtue of a proclamation is that it
should be brief and plain. It must be authoritative, it must be urgent,
it must be 'writ large,' it must be easily intelligible. And he that
makes it public has nothing to do except to fasten it up, and make sure
that it is legible. If I might venture into modern phraseology, what
Paul means is that he was neither more nor less than a bill-sticker,
that he went out with the placards and fastened them up.

Ah! if we ministers universally acted up to the implications of this
metaphor, do you not think the pulpit would be more frequently a centre
of power than it is to-day? And if, instead of presenting our own
ingenuities and speculations, we were to realise the fact that we have
to hide ourselves behind the broad sheet that we fasten up, there would
be a new breath over many a moribund church, and we should hear less of
the often warrantable sarcasms about the inefficiency of the modern
pulpit.

But I turn from Paul's conception of the office to his statement of his
theme. '_Jesus_ was displayed amongst you.' If I might vary the metaphor
a little, the placard that Paul fastened up was like those that modern
advertising ingenuity displays upon all our walls. It was a
picture-placard, and on it was portrayed one sole figure--Jesus, the
Person. Christianity is Christ, and Christ is Christianity; and wherever
there is a pulpit or a book which deals rather with doctrines than with