ize of the Divine approval. This is his favourite figure of
speech, and he applies it in many directions.

For example, the athlete in the racecourse has to keep himself in
training and to put every muscle on the stretch. So St. Paul felt the
obligation to put every power he possessed into his work. "Give
thyself wholly to them," he says to a young fellow-labourer about his
duties; and what he preached he practised. "Stir up the grace of God
that is in thee," he says to the same friend again; and he called on
his own nature continually for the utmost exertion of its powers. He
was always growing; but the increment of his faculty and influence
went all to the same object.

An athlete in the games naturally laid aside every weight, divesting
himself of everything which might impede his running and rob him of
the prize. He dared not glance aside at any object which would take
his eye off the goal. So St. Paul sacrificed everything for the
Gospel's sake; he had but one end and no by-ends. He was often,
indeed, accused of aiming at some end of his own. With especial
persistency he was accused of avarice. It is very ludicrous now to
think of this great man having been supposed capable of so mean a
vice. But his motives were too high and pure to be intelligible to his
accusers, and they naturally attributed to him the motive which was
the strongest of which they were conscious themselves. But they only
brought out the true greatness of the man. He believed in the right of
preachers of the Gospel to live by the Gospel, and he looked forward
to the general recognition of this as soon as Christianity had
obtained a footing in the world. But he himself lived above all such
claims. He accepted support from his converts, indeed, and thanked God
for it, when he had good reason to think that his motives were
understood. But, where they were suspected or the success of the
Gospel seemed to be in any degree endangered by his acceptance of
money, he would not take a cent, but would rather sit up half the
night and work his fingers to the bone to earn his livelihood. There
is no sublimer scene in history than the great Apostle, who was
bearing the weight of Christianity on his shoulders and carrying the
future of the world beneath his robe, toiling with his hands for his
living by the side of Aquila and Priscilla, in order that he might
keep Christianity from being tarnished with the faintest suspicion of
mercenary motives.

Gentlemen