many to the study of themselves, this self-knowledge made
little or no impression on the masses. For their religion
had a disastrous influence over their lives ; the actions of
their gods being a stimulus to depravity. Men became,
like their objects of worship, sensual and debased, and
gloried in pleading the example of the gods examples we
should blush to describe. As the mind did not arrive at
truth, the conscience could not find repose. A veil lay upon
the other world, and they scoifed at a resurrection. As the
apostle was about to expatiate upon its certainty, they
rose in their levity and bade him desist they could not
tolerate the mention of it. When " the man, the best of
all his time, the most wise and just," stood on Mars-hill
and received sentence of death as "a setter forth of strange
gods," he is reported to have said " To die is one of two
things : for either the dead may be annihilated, and have
no sensation of anything whatever or, as it is said, there
is a certain change and passage of the soul from one place
to another. And if it is a privation of all sensation, as it
were a sleep in which the sleeper has no dream, death
would be a wonderful gain. For I think that if any one,
having selected a night in which he slept so soundly as
not to have had a dream, and having compared this night
with all the other nights and days of his life, should be
required on consideration to say how many days and
nights he had passed better and more pleasantly than this
night throughout his life, I think that not only a private
person, but even the great king himself, would find them
easy to number in comparison with other days and nights.
If, therefore, death is a thing of this kind, I say it is a



238 PAUL AT ATHENS.

gain ; for thus all futurity appears to be nothing more than
one night. But if, on the other hand, death is a removal
from hence to another place, and what is said be true, that
all the dead are there, what greater blessing can there be
than this, my judges? For if, on arriving at Hades,
released from these who pretend to be judges, one shall
find those who are true judges, and who are said to judge
there, Minos and Rhadamanthus, .JEacus and Triptolemus,
and such others of the demigods as were just during their
own life, would this be a sad removal? At what price
would you not estimate a conference with Orpheus and
Musseus, Hesiod and Homer ? I indeed should be willing
to die often if this be true." Thus doubt and fluctuation
seem to have disturbed the mind of the sage, though he is
depicted as arguing elsewhere the immortality of the soul as
boldly arid truly as unassisted reason ever could. But his
philosophy had fallen so dead, that the Athenians, with all
their love of news, declined to listen to a new appeal on
the subject from a bold and eloquent stranger. What was
speculation with Socrates is certainty with us. Our assur-
ance is, that the spirit at death is conveyed to the bright
spirit-world the throne of God in its centre, and the Lamb
the object of enraptured homage; that the true and the
good are there ; Abel and the martyrs ; Enoch and the ante-
diluvian witnesses; Abraham and the patriarchs; Aaron
and the spiritual priesthood ; David and the holy kingdom;
Elijah and the prophets ; the apostles and the early church;
the saints of all ages and countries all who have believed
on Christ, done His work, and borne His image. What a
glorious assembly to mingle with and enjoy, as we hold



THE FOLLY OF GRECIAN WISDOM. 239

fellowship and offer worship with them partakers all of
us of the " common salvation.' 7

But " the world by wisdom knew not God." Nay, in
those degenerate days there was such indifference produced
by this so-called wisdom, that "philosophers" did not
deign to listen to what was highest philosophy. Pride of
intellect has ever been the hardest barrier against the
truth : " Seest thou a man wise in his own conceit ? there
is more hope of a fool than of him." " Simplicity and
godly sincerity" were wanting at Athens, and the truth
was rejected. Yes, even Athens, of which Lucretius
sings

" Athens, of peerless name, to savage man
First taught the blessings of the cultured field,
His life remodelled, and with laws secured.
She, too, the soul's sweet solaces first oped
When erst the sage she reared, whose boundless breast
Swelled with all science, and whose lips promulged "

this Athens was indifferent to the noblest of blessings,
which had brought down the "hidden manna" from heaven,
with laws which are the expression of infinite love, and
joys which spring from the fellowship of the soul with its
Creator, as it becomes more intensely conscious of bearing
His image and possessing His love. Yes ; Athens, blinded
by its wisdom and its worldliness, saw no truth nor beauty
in the divine philosophy conveyed to it by a Jewish travel-
ler in whose glance

" There lurked that nameless spell
Which speaks, itself unspeakable."

May we not, in fine, fetch a lesson to ourselves ? Are
there no idols among us in this age of hero-worship ? We



240 PAUL AT ATHENS.

allude not to the strange fact, that some months in our
years are named from Eoman idols, and that all the days
of our week are named from Saxon idols. But is there
no pride of reason nursed by intellectual ascendancy? In
what does homage to force or genius, irrespective of the
end to which they have been applied, and in oblivion of
the One Giver, differ from idolatry or nature-worship
from that process which made a god of tutelar power, and
a goddess of patriotic wisdom ? Are there not those that
bow the knee to Mammon in the exchange, who would not
bow it to Jupiter in a temple ? Are there not many who
in boasted illumination cast aside the teaching of scripture,
or who, in the enjoyment of wealth and power, feel not
their need of it ? This age is a strange one. There are
open defenders of atheism, impugners of sabbatic obliga-
tion, and public revilers of Christianity, as if it were effete
and worthless denying God's existence and unhallowing
God's day. One has written a book to show that religion
is so feeble that it has had no influence on civilization ;
and another in a neighbouring nation, who is so proud
as to believe and call himself a combination of Aristotle
and Paul, proclaims that new gods should be introduced
and adored heroes and saints Moses and Homer, Con-
fucius and Shakspeare, Hercules and Frederick the Great.
It is one hypothesis that man is but an elevated monkey,
and that he and the universe around him are but develop-
ments out of the atoms of an ancient fire-mist ; and it is
another, quite in keeping, that the heavens, which of old
declared the glory of God, now declare only the glory
of Newton and Laplace. That God had become man,



MODERN PHILOSOPHY. 241

was once a faith to be gloried in, but with many the
proposition has been reversed, and their creed is, that
man has become God. Some maintain the grossest mate-
rialism that there is no spirit in man ; some, admitting
that they are the "offspring of God," refuse to call Him
Father, and unfilially style Him Nature ; and others deny
the responsibility of man for his belief even to that God
who presents him with evidence, and has conferred upon
him powers by which he can sift it and come to a right
conclusion. Are not "wise men after the flesh" dealing
with the gospel as the Epicureans and Stoics dealt with
Paul ? A resurrection to the one and the other sect was
impossible in theory, and undesirable in hope; for with
them the soul itself was supposed to sink into unconscious-
ness at death, either by being dissolved or being absorbed
into the great sum of existence. So it is that philosophic
minds still refuse the revelation of Christ, or strip it of all
that is distinctive and remedial, before they profess to
receive it. For some it is too simple, and for others too
mysterious ; one class objects that it takes too little notice
of man's present interests ; and another, that its morality
is too transcendental. Inspiration is pared down, and the
authority of scripture is lowered by this party ; and by that
party the truths of scripture are thought to be good enough
for the age which produced them, but deficient in breadth
and adaptation for the enlightened nineteenth century. By
such seekers after wisdom, the gospel is dismissed as quietly
and effectually as was its great apostle from Mars-hill.

O that all this wildness and passion were stilled by the
remembrance that He " hath appointed a day in which He

Q



242 PAUL AT ATHENS.

will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom
He hath ordained whereof He hath given assurance unto
all men in that He hath raised Him from the dead." Is
Christ risen ay or no ? The controversy turns on this
Is it fact or fable ? If His resurrection be a demonstrable
reality, then surely His voice must be listened to, and
His warnings pondered. His gospel has a claim which no
other form of truth presents it is God's immediate and
authentic revelation. It can be superseded by no dialec-
tics 7 and rung out by no poetical peal. The light of science
is unable to eclipse it, the treasures of art equal not its
"pearl of great price." Legislation dares not displace it, for
it gives law to the conscience, and without it civilization is
but a whited sepulchre. Freedom rests upon it as a solid
basis, because its disciples are not to be the "servants of
men ; " and national progress, true prosperity greatest
happiness to all are measured by its development. For it
gives nobility to the meanest, and the best of the graces to
the highest presents every one with an aim worthy of his
nature sanctifies every pursuit as a calling on which he
may "abide with God" sends a cheering influence through
all the relations of life relieves the poor and needy visits
the "fatherless and widows in their affliction " sets its
brightest jewel in the crown, and guards the purity of the
ermine breathes a just and generous spirit into legisla-
tion opens up a widening circle of spiritual brotherhood,
and blends earth with heaven : realizing the Saviour's natal
anthem "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace,
goodwill toward men." Such a religion can have no rival,
and admits of no substitute.



XL PAUL AT CORINTH.

ACTS xviii. 1 18. IST & 2xD EPISTLES TO THE CORINTHIANS.

ON leaving Athens, Paul set out for Corinth the capital
of Achaia, and the " city of the two seas." It lay about
forty-five miles west from Athens, on an isthmus with a
seaport on each side Lechaeum, about a mile distant, on
its western, and Cenchrea, about eight miles distant, on
its eastern shore. It was a thriving entrepot for the com-
merce between northern and southern Greece, and it had
been in other days a strong military post, the key of the
Peloponnesus. The famous isthmus was about three miles
and a-half in breadth at its narrowest point; and boats being
sometimes conveyed across it from the Ionian to the jiEgean
sea, it resembled in this respect those necks of land in Scot-
land called Tarbet from two words, meaning, " to draw
the boat." Thus in 1203 the Norwegians sailed up Loch
Long, dragged their boats over the isthmus of Tarbet,
under two miles in breadth, and launching them upon
Loch Lomond, slew and plundered the natives, who had
taken refuge on its islands, and had never dreamed of such
a stratagem. But the importance of Corinth as a military
station had almost ceased when it passed under the Roman
yoke. Its citadel, Acrocorinthus, two thousand feet high,
rising as abruptly as the rock of Dumbarton, and not



244 PAUL AT CORINTH.

unlike it, still remains a prominent feature in the land-
scape

" Yet she stands,

A fortress formed to freedom's hands ;
The whirlwind's wrath, the earthquake's shock,
Have left untouched her hoary rock,
The keystone of a land which still,
Though fallen, looks proudly on that hill;
The landmark to the double tide
That purpling rolls on either side,
As if their waters chafed to meet,
Yet pause and crouch beneath her feet."

Corinth was at this time the residence of the Koman
proconsul, and Gallic, the brother of Seneca, held the
office. In its "best days it had been depraved in the
extreme. Its obscene impurities had passed into a proverb,
and from its very name a word was coined to denote
wanton indulgence. The Isthmian games in its vicinity
brought crowds of dissolute strangers to it, and a thousand
priestesses or courtezans had been attached to the temple of
Venus. The basest passions were consecrated in this city
which has given to architecture its most florid order;
and the tub in which Diogenes kennelled in the principal
promenade, was a surly protest against surrounding pomp
and luxury. Many changes had passed over it, but its
immoral character was unaltered; it still delighted in
show and pleasure. The consul Mummius had burned it,
but Julius Caesar rebuilt it, and peopled it as a Roman
colony. The spoils of the city the work of the potter
and silversmith were prized at Rome, as far surpassing
anything that Italy could produce. If Athens was wholly
given to idolatry, Corinth was wholly given to lust and



IDOLATRY AND DISSIPATION OF CORINTH. 245

revel, and one of the famous of its abandoned women had
a splendid tomb in the outskirts. Nor had it been in
reality less idolatrous than Athens. Neptune was the
presiding deity of the maritime city; it had its sacred
fountain, where Bellerophon had captured the winged steed
Pegasus; temples and gods were abundant; chariots of
Phaethon and the Sun, with statues of Apollo and Venus.
In this gay and dissipated city Paul took up his resi-
dence with Aquila and Priscilla, Jews who had recently
been banished from Eome ; and being " of the same craft,
he wrought with them, for by their occupation they were
tent-makers." It was the custom of the Jews to teach
their children a trade, even though they should be destined
to a professional life. Tents were in great demand in
those days, for no one could travel without them, as indeed
is still the case in eastern countries. The traveller must
carry all accomodation along with him, as none can be had
or found on the road. Paul's native province of Cilicia had
a species of goats with long hair, out of which tent-cloth
called cilicium was woven, and it was easy and natural for
him to learn this occupation in his youth. This hair, or
the cloth made of it, must have been a common article of
commerce, so that Paul could exercise at Corinth the
craft which he had been taught when a boy in Tarsus ;
and he wrought with his own hands, not only because he
had claim as yet on no one for we cannot say that his host
and hostess were believers at this period but because both
here and at Thessalonica there were those who might
impugn his motives, and reckon him as seeking and
valuing a secular interest in his labours and his converts.



246 PAUL AT CORINTH.

He knew his right and could maintain it, but he waived it
from higher considerations. In the case of Corinth he is
unusually resolute, a proof that there was some reason
of unusual urgency: "Have I committed an offence in
abasing myself, that ye might be exalted, because I have
preached to you the gospel of God freely ? I robbed other
churches, taking wages of them, to do you service. And
when I was present with you, and wanted, I was charge-
able to no man: for that which was lacking to me the
brethren which came from Macedonia supplied ; and in all
things I have kept myself from being burdensome unto
you, and so will I keep myself. As the truth of Christ is
in me, no man shall stop me of this boasting in the region
of Achaia. Wherefore? because I love you not? God
knoweth. But what I do, that I will do, that I may cut
off occasion from them that desire occasion ; that wherein
they glory, they may be found even as we."

It is almost impossible for us to realize the apostle as a
tradesman dressed in an humble garb and handling the
implements of his calling, undistinguished in appearance
from the operatives round about him, either at their work
or at their meals. According to his own maxim, he must
have wrought with diligence ; not with reluctance, as if he
were self-degraded, not idling on pretence of preaching, but
"from the heart " doing the one thing which was his duty.
How amazing to think of that mighty mind which dis-
cussed the divine decrees and argued out a free justification,
busying itself with weaving, shaping, or stitching those
pieces of coarse haircloth. He who preached the "unsearch-
able riches of Christ," holds out his hand to receive the



THE TENT-MAKER. 247

wages which he has earned by his industry. He who felt
that, in his highest functions, it was " a small thing to be
judged of man's judgment," must submit to have his work
inspected and approved before he is paid for it. Christ's
servant, to arrest and commission whom He had left His
glory, to whom He had assigned such work and given such
promises and qualifications, is not heralded on his way, is
not greeted with applause, nor welcomed by the noble and
received into lordly mansions, but is obliged to board with
Jewish exiles, and eat his bread " in the sweat of his face."
We can with difficulty picture the fingers that wrote the
epistle to the Galatians plying a shuttle or handling
scissors and needles, and that for daily bread. What
thoughts were passing through that heart when he was at
his toil a heart at one with Christ, and embracing the
welfare of the world ! Its greatest benefactor, next to its
Saviour, might be found in a workshop ; found there from
no reverse, but from deliberate purpose the orator at
Athens a mechanic at Corinth ! And when the task of
the day was over, he would be found speaking to some
group, or meeting some anxious inquirers, or labouring to
remove the doubts and prejudices of some unbelievers.
And then on the Sabbath day what a change, as he rose
in power and zeal to address the synagogue or the church,
as an apostle of the Lord Jesus what an outflood of soul
as he reasoned or entreated, or spoke of the life of Christ
within him, or the constraining love that lay upon him !
Is this the tent-maker?

The preacher did in Corinth what he had done in every
town which he had previously visited he " reasoned in



248 PAUL AT CORINTH.

the synagogue, and persuaded the Jews and the Greeks"
Greeks, proselytes to the Jewish faith ; laboured to con-
vince them that Jesus was the Messiah the only Saviour
on whom they should at once and without hesitation
believe. Every available proof from the Old Testament
would be brought to bear upon them, as in Antioch,
Iconium, Thessalonica, and Berea.

He had been alone in Athens, and alone he had come
to Corinth, and for some time he had been evangelizing
there before Silas and Timothy joined him. When they
arrived, they found him painfully occupied in the word,
that being the truer reading, and not " in the spirit," as
our versionists took it. They found him absorbed in the
word in preaching it more than usually anxious about
his labour and the result of it. The " word " which
engrossed him was testifying to the Jews that Jesus was
Christ discussing and witnessing as to Christ Jesus. The
train of proof must have been the same as on former occa-
sions, showing how the oracles of the Old Testament were
all so minutely and wonderfully realized in the life and
career of the Son of Mary. It would seem as if, up to the
arrival of Silas and Timothy, the teaching of the apostle
had been more general, but that after their joining him, it
had become more pressing and pointed in its great and
solitary lesson that Jesus is the Christ. He had foreseen
the result, and had postponed it as long as he could j but
when he was joined by his colleagues, and was thus enabled
to look to and overtake the gentile field, he at once
became so earnest that matters were brought to a crisis.
The Athenians would not believe their own poets, and the



CONVERTS IN THE SYNAGOGUE. 249

Jews would not believe their own prophets. The unbe-
lieving Jews " opposed themselves and blasphemed " as in
other places, and the preacher used a symbolic warning
and farewell " shook his raiment, and said to them, Your
blood be on your own heads" this awful expression being
taken from Ezekiel. He had done his utmost, had left no
means unapplied, had been " instant in season and out of
season," and had brought to bear upon them every form of
argument which prophecy contained. Therefore he could
do no more ; the responsibility rested with themselves,
and he could only weep over their infatuation and ruin.
" I am clear," he adds no guilt attaches to me, in God's
strength I have done my duty u from henceforth I will
go unto the Gentiles ; " that is, to the Gentiles in that city,
or, if the comma be erased With a good conscience, and
having been rejected by you, I will go, or feel at perfect
liberty to go, to the Gentiles.

Accordingly the apostle left the synagogue, resorted
no more to it, but selected as his place of preaching the
house of a proselyte Justus in the immediate vicinity.
Whether the Jew Aquila was converted at this time, and
whether Paul ceased also to lodge with him, we know not.
But his labours had not been without fruit "the chief
ruler of the synagogue believed on the Lord with all his
house;" and "many of the Corinthians hearing" not
that Crispus had become a believer, but hearing the gos-
pejl "believed, and were baptized" probably by Silas
and Timothy; for the apostle himself, as he tells us,
baptized only Crispus, and Gaius, and the household of



250 PAUL AT CORINTH.

Stephanas; fearing lest it should be surmised that he
liked to make men Paulites as well as Christians.

It seems plain from the context that Paul now appre-
hended danger such danger as had assailed him at
Antioch, Thessalonica, and Berea. He may have either
seen the symptoms of it heard the low moaning of the
ocean before the storm or he may have ascertained that
his old enemies were again upon his track. Having missed
him in his fortnight's stay at Athens, they might dis-
cover him in Corinth ; and the fear of this danger may
have quickened his desire to revisit Macedonia, into which
he had been specially summoned. At all events, the apostle
had some grounds of alarm, some apprehensions of a con-
spiracy, which induced him to think of leaving the city.
There are moments when the bravest spirits quail from
reaction. Elijah, after confronting the power of the king-
dom, matching himself, unaided and alone, against the
national idolatry a single man against eight hundred
priests and prophets of Baal suddenly lost courage when
he heard of Jezebel's resentment, and for fear of one woman
"went for his life to Beersheba," and, lying under a broom
in the desert, sank into such despondency as to say " Now,
Lord, take away my life, for I am not better than my
fathers." The vision vouchsafed to Paul could not, at all
events, be unnecessary : the Lord Jesus, whom he served
and whom he preached appeared to him as at Jerusalem,
and said "Be not afraid, but speak, and hold not thy
peace." This charge implies that the apostle had some
misgivings, but he was at once reassured by the pledge



DIVINE PROTECTION. 251

" For I am with thee, and no man shall set on thee to
hurt thee; for I have much people in this city;" much
people not already converted, but to be certainly won over
to the gospel through Paul's preaching. "I am with thee"
a repetition of the original promise to the eleven ; and no
higher pledge could be offered. "I am with thee" I,
the almighty and all-present Living One a light to cheer
him and a shield to protect him, a power to clear up his
path and a blessing to crown his labours. " With thee ;"
not away when expected; not a periodical guard, absent
when needed but with him always and everywhere.
So that under this encouragement, and with these hopes,
" he continued a year and six months," and during all that
period was teaching the word of God among them not
any theories of his own, but the divine record of salvation
through the blood of Christ. The history in the Acts
does not contain any further account of the theme and
style of the apostle's preaching at Corinth ; but his two
epistles to this church afford us the requisite information.
He refers in these letters again and again to his subjects of
illustration, and to his feelings and circumstances.

And first, he fully and over again states his unvarying
theme to have been the cross of Christ "For I determined
not to know anything among you, save Jesus Christ,