t of
decline and a ministry of death. Surely it is a fundamental principle
that the framework of a man's life, his daily habits, should be set in
the measure of his own personal stature and power. What suits his
character and life, and ministers to his development, he is to embody in
his habits, as the best service which he can render to God and to his
fellow-men. To be strong, wise, self-controlled, is the best beginning,
the only true beginning of real service to mankind. The best work which
a man can work at, for the service of his fellows, is his life. To
regulate permanent habits on the wants and the weaknesses of others is
to deny this principle, and to exalt the influence of spasmodic effort
above the broad, grand ministry of life. Paul was far from such
illusions. Freedom was with him the fundamental condition of vital
progress; and if his sympathy with the weak and perplexed led him again
and again to veil his freedom for the moment, it was that he might help
the weak to strength, the perplexed to clearness of vision, the bondsmen
to liberty--strength, clearness, and freedom of which he offered
conspicuous examples in his own constant habits of life. "Be ye as I
am," was his appeal: free and strong; able to see the Lord's mark on all
things and creatures, and not the idol's. To live habitually as if he
saw the idol's mark would have seemed to him a base act of treason, a
shameful forsaking of that liberty which he had in Christ, and which he
was resolved to hold for himself and his brethren even unto death.

To generalize and formalize into laws of action the impulses and
purposes which inspire the spirit in its personal contact with the will,
the consciences, and the affections of its fellows, is in most cases to
rob charity of its life and grace of its power. It is to substitute law
for grace in our personal relations and dealings with mankind. Had Paul
laid down the rule,--There are weak consciences, which cannot get rid of
the savour of the idol; they shall rule our conduct; I will never eat
meat offered to idols, and I ordain the same to the Church,--the
development of mankind by Christianity would have been killed at the
very root. Scruples would have become the consecrated thing instead of
liberty, and Christianity would have made manifest the weakness of man,
instead of the power of God, to the world. No! his supreme concern was
that they might master their weakness, break their bonds, and grow from
bab