es to men. If this abstaining from flesh while the world stood would
have helped them to that progress, he loved them well enough to do it
without a pang of regret. But he evidently was eager to see them rise
out of the lower region which is haunted and tormented by such scruples.
He ignored them as far as possible, though he dealt with them in tender
charity, when, as in chap. x. 28, they were forced on his sight.

Something very parallel to this difficulty of the meat offered to idols
was the question about the theatre which was a sore perplexity to pious
but intelligent spirits a few years ago. There was something, which had
in it essentially no element of evil. But it was closely connected with
a world and a worldly life which those nurtured in the Church or brought
under its influence were sedulously taught to shun. Many who felt
themselves strong abstained. They saw no harm, and would get no harm,
but rather a positive good. But they denied themselves, that others of
weaker faith might not be in the way of harm, and that no sin or ruin of
a brother might by any chance be laid at their door. Whether the rule of
abstinence was wise I am not called here to consider. It was complicated
by moral considerations--which too were not absent in the case which the
apostle treats of here--which make it less easy to pronounce judgment in
a word. But it must always be remembered that a rule or law of
abstinence in such cases on the part of the strong consecrates the
scruple, associates evil permanently with that which has no essential
evil in it, and multiplies thereby the stumbling-blocks of mankind.

The case of actual vice, like drinking to excess, seems to me to fall
under quite another category; though it is constantly regarded as
settled by the text, as though it had been written, "Wherefore, if drink
make my brother to offend I will drink no wine while the world standeth,
lest I make my brother to offend." We have no call here to discuss and
pass judgment on a movement by which men of most unquestioned goodness,
and self-devotion to the best interests of others, think that they see a
means of largely helping the morally weak by removing a fatal temptation
from their path. We only say that it is a question well worthy of the
most careful consideration, how far in the long run and on a large scale
a permanent confession of weakness can be helpful to human development;
how far a habit of life confessedly built on the weaknes