ome to God, by being
himself a servant to all men, and pleasing all men, being a Jew to the
Jews, and a Greek to the Greeks, and all things to all men, if by any
means he might save some. Giving up, giving way, taking trouble, putting
himself out of the way, as we say here, all day long, to win people to
love him, and trust him, and see that he really cared for them, and
therefore to be ready to listen to him. From what one can see of St.
Paul's manners, from his own Epistles, he must have been the most perfect
gentleman; a gentle man, civil, obliging, delicate minded, careful to
hurt no one's feelings; and when he had (as he had often) to say rough
things and deal with rough men, doing it as tenderly and carefully as he
could, like his Master the Lord Jesus Christ, lest he should break the
bruised reed, or quench the smoking flax. Which of us can read the
Epistle to Philemon (which to my mind is the most civil, pleasant,
kindly, gentlemanlike speech which I know on earth), without saying to
ourselves, "Ah, if we had but St. Paul's manners, St. Paul's temper, St.
Paul's way of managing people, how few quarrels there would be in this
noisy troublesome world."

But I said that there was one greater than St. Paul who was not ashamed
to behave in the very same way, stooping to all, conciliating all. And
so there is--One whose shoes St. Paul was not worthy to stoop down and
unloose--and that is, the Lord Jesus Christ Himself--who ate and drank
with publicans and sinners, who went out into the highways and hedges, to
bring home into God's kingdom poor wretches whom men despised and cast
off. It was He who taught St. Paul to behave in the same way. May He
teach us to behave in the same way also! St. Paul learnt to discern
men's spirits, and feel for them, and understand them, and help them, and
comfort them, and at last to turn and change them whichever way he chose,
simply because he was full of the Spirit of Christ, who is the Spirit of
God, proceeding both from the Father and the Son.

For St. Paul says positively, that his reason for not pleasing himself,
but taking so much trouble to please other people, was because Christ
also pleased not Himself. "We that are strong," he says, "ought to bear
the infirmities of the weak, and not to please ourselves. Let every man
please his neighbour for his good unto edification, for even Christ
pleased not Himself," (Rom. xv. 1-3.) And again, "We have a High Priest
who can b