lled peace, from the world around. He was to "hold out the word
of life"; confessing his blessed Lord as the life of his own soul, and
so commending Him to the souls of his fellows. He was to make this a
part of his very existence and its activities. As truly as it was to
be his habit to live a life of sweet and winning consistency, it was to
be his habit to offer (_epechein_) the water of life to the parched
hearts around him, the lamp of glory to the dark and bewildered whom he
encountered upon the difficult road. The truth and beauty of a _life_
possessed by Christ was to be the basis of his witnessing activities.
But the witness was to be articulate, not merely implied; he was to
"hold out _the word_ (_logon_) of life"; he was to seize occasion to
"give _a reason_ (_logon_) of the hope that was in him, with meekness
and fear" (1 Pet. iii. 15). To be, in his way, an evangelist was to be
one main function of his life. In benignant and gracious conduct he
was to be as a "luminary" (_phoster_), moving calm and bright in the
dark hemisphere of the world. But he was to be a voice as well as a
star. He was not only to shine; he was to speak.

Here is one of the passages, by the way, in which the Apostle assumes,
and stimulates, the "missionary consciousness" of the converts. It is
remarkable that neither he nor his brethren have much to say in the
Epistles about the duty of enterprises of evangelization, as laid upon
all believers. The stress of their appeals is directed above all
things on the supreme importance of holiness, at any cost, in common
life. But a passage like this shews us how entirely they take it for
granted all the time that the Churches would never concentrate
themselves upon merely their own Christian life; they would go out
continually, with the beauty of holiness and with "the word of life,"
to bring the wanderers in, and to extend the knowledge of the blessed
Name. So, and so only, would their Apostle feel, in his prison at
Rome, that his "running" (_edramon_) on the great circuit of his
evangelistic journeys, and his pastoral "toil" (_ekopiasa_) for the
souls of his converts, had not been thrown "into the void" (_eis to
kenon_).

So, and so only, would his life and death of sacrifice for them be
crowned with its perfect joy. Let him see his beloved converts living
and speaking as indeed the Lord's _witnesses_, and then with what
inward "gladness" (_chairein_), with what a call for "cong