be so continuously
carried on as in the other. But is there not a deep meaning to be
learned from the old expression--that celibacy is an _angelic_ state?
that it is preternatural, and not natural? that the goodness which is
induced by it is not, so to speak, the natural goodness of Humanity,
but such a goodness as God scarcely intended?

Who of us cannot recollect a period of his history when all his time
was devoted to the cause of Christ; when all his money was given to
the service of God; and when we were tempted to look down upon those
who were less ardent than ourselves, as if they were not Christians?
But now the difficulties of life have come upon us; we have become
involved in the trifles and the smallness of social domestic
existence; and these have made us less devoted perhaps, less
preternatural, less angelic--but more human, better fitted to enter
into the daily cares and small difficulties of our ordinary humanity.
And this has been represented to us by two great lives--one human, the
other divine--one, the life of John the Baptist, and the other, of
Jesus Christ. In both these cases is verified the saying, that "Wisdom
is justified of all her children." Those who are wisdom's
children--the truly wise--will recognise an even wisdom in both these
lives; they will see that there are cases in which a solitary life is
to be chosen for the sake of God; while there are other cases in which
a social life becomes our bounden duty. But it should be specially
observed here that _that_ Life which has been given to us as a
specimen of life for all, was a social, a human Life. Christ did not
refuse to mix with the common joys and common sorrows of Humanity. He
was present at the marriage-feast, and by the bier of the widow's son.
This of the two lives was the one which, because it was the most
human, was the most divine; the most rare, the most difficult, the
most natural--therefore, the most Christ-like.

II. Let us notice, in the second place, the principle upon which the
apostle founds this decision. It is given in the text--"This I say,
brethren, the time is short: it remaineth that both they that have
wives be as though they had none," "for the fashion of this world
passeth away." Now observe here, I pray you, the deep wisdom of this
apostolic decision. In point of fact it comes to this: Christianity is
a spirit, not a law; it is a set of principles, not a set of rules; it