do, for His good pleasure's sake." And then we have seen
this inner life expanding and shewing itself in the holy life without,
which shines as a star in the dark, and speaks like a voice from the
unseen. And then again we have watched the Apostle's martyr-joy as he
thinks of dying for his Philippians, if need be. Close upon all these
heights and depths now comes in this totally different passage about
Timotheus and Epaphroditus, with its quiet, practical allusions to
individual character, and to particular circumstances, and to personal
hopes and duties; its words of sympathy and sorrow; the dear friend's
agitated state of mind; his recent almost fatal illness; the mercy of
his recovery; the pleasurable thought of his restoration to the loving
circles at Philippi.

Nothing could be more completely different than this from the grand
dogmatic passage traversed a little while before, nor again from the
passages to follow in the next chapter, where the believer's inmost
secrets of acceptance and of life are in view, and his foresight of
glory. We are placed here not in the upper heaven, nor before the
judgment-throne, nor in the light of the resurrection-morning. We are
just in the "hired rooms" at Rome, and we see the Missionary seated
there, studying the characters of two of his brethren, and weighing the
reasons for asking them, at once or soon, to arrange for a certain
journey. He reviews the case, and then he puts down, through his
amanuensis, for the information of the Philippians, what he thinks of
these two men, and what he has planned about them.

All is perfectly human, viewed from one side. I or my reader may at
any time, in the course of life and duty, be called upon to write about
Christian friends and fellow-workers of our own in a tone neither less
nor more human and practical than that of this section. In any
collection of modern Christian letters we may find the like. I open at
this moment the precious volume of Henry Martyn's correspondence,
published (1844) as a companion to the Memoir. There I read as
follows, in a letter to Daniel Corrie, dated Shiraz, December 12, 1811:
"Your accounts of the progress of the kingdom of God among you are
truly refreshing. Tell dear H. and the men of both regiments that I
salute them much in the Lord, and make mention of them in my prayers.
May I continue to hear thus of their state; and if I am spared to see
them again, may we make it evident that we have gr