hought of the time, we must next decide what is the
inherent truth taught to the people of that time by the book under
consideration. Much that is written must be simply the setting in
which alone that truth could reach them. This extraneous detail gives
vigor and color to the message but is not the message itself. The last
step and the hardest one to take, the one that to some minds seems
almost irreverent, is to decide the form that message must take to-day
to convey to our minds the same truth which the original message
conveyed to the people of its time. In so far as we succeed in taking
these three steps, we shall get the true message which this book
holds for us to-day.

When Paul in his first burning letter told the Corinthian congregation
that their women should be silent in their churches, he is not, it
seems to me, giving a message which in those terms applies to the
world to-day. If a woman has anything that is worth saying she has a
perfect right to say it in church. In any denomination in which
religious observance is not ecclesiastically formal she will be
allowed that privilege. By an interesting peculiarity of mind on our
part she may be permitted to do so upon Wednesday evenings, when our
early prejudice still prevents her speaking on Sunday. What is the
truth of the teaching of Paul in this matter? The Christians of
Corinthian times had already begun to suffer from persecution. They
were already despised and distrusted. Men had come to speak ill of
them. Paul's injunction concerning the silence of women in churches
was simply an injunction against their doing those things which in the
thought and habit of those times were associated generally with
looseness of character. Fine Corinthian women did not speak in public.
A woman who would consent to speak before a group of men of Corinth of
that day would by that fact have proclaimed herself a woman of loose
morals. Paul's injunction is that, in this desperate struggle
Christian women should do nothing which could possibly bring them into
disrepute. The lives of Christians must be above suspicion. This
message is certainly as true to-day as it was in the time of Paul and
Corinth. Whether or not a woman speaks in church to-day has no bearing
whatever upon the question. The question is how she speaks and what
she says. If her life gives force to her message and her message
contains God's truth she is entirely free to speak.

In similar fashion we have chan