ed wrong, all guilty links with
the world of rebellion and self-love; "the sin which doth so easily
beset us," clinging so soon around the feet, like a net of fine but
stubborn meshes, till the runner gives up the hopeless effort and is
lost.[N]

[N] I cannot think possible the alternative (marginal) rendering of
[Greek: euperistaton] in the Revised Version--"_admired by many_." There
is example for the meaning in classical Greek, but the _idea_ is totally
out of keeping with the spirit of this passage.

I thus explain the "witnesses" to mean spectators, watchers, not
testifiers. The context seems to me to decide somewhat positively for
this explanation. It is an altogether pictorial context; the imagery of
the foot-race comes suddenly up, and in a moment raises before us the
vision of the stadium and its surroundings. The reader cannot see the
course with his inner eyes without also seeing those hosts of eager
lookers-on which made, on every such occasion, in the old world as now,
the life of the hour. In such a context nothing but explicit and
positive reasons to the contrary could give to the word "witnesses," and
to the word "cloud" in connexion with it, any other allusion. True,
these watchers are all, as a fact, evidential "witnesses" also,
testifiers to the infinite benefit and success of the race of faith. But
that thought lies almost hidden behind the other. It is as loving,
sympathetic, inspiring lookers-on that the old saints, from Abel
onwards, are here seen gathered, thronging and intent, around us as we
run.

The conception runs off of course into mystery, as every possible
conception about the unseen does, even when Scripture is most explicit
about unseen facts. We ask, and ask in vain, what is the medium through
which these observers watch us, the air and light, as it were, in which
their vision acts; what is their proximity to us all the while; to what
extent they are able to know the entire conditions of our race. But all
this leaves faith in peaceful possession of a fact of unspeakable
animation. It tells the discouraged or tired Christian, tempted to think
of the unseen as a dark void, that it is rather a bright and populous
world, in mysterious touch and continuity with this, and that our
forerunners, from those of the remotest past down to the last-called
beloved one who has passed out of our sight, know enough about us to
mark our advance and to prepare their welcome at the goal.

In that ric