he subject will need to be omitted. My
aim has been, and will be, to speak of those sides most, if not only,
which are in special danger of neglect at the present day; and this
means of course the passing by of some large topics.

PAINS AND MEANS.

But contributions, however fragmentary, to the study of Consistency will
not be in vain. "A Minister's life is the life of his ministry," says
some one of other days with pithy force. "Happy those labourers of the
Church," says blessed Quesnel, the Jansenist (on Mark vi. 33), "the
sweet odour of whose lives draws the people to Jesus Christ." We all
recognize the beauty and truth of such sayings. We all admit the
fitness and duty of Consistency. But we must also recollect that in
order to our consistency there is needed more than an abstract
approbation; we must attend, we must reflect, we must examine ourselves,
we must discipline ourselves, as those who aim at an object at once
lovely and necessary. Above all, we must "order our steps in our Lord's
Word," [Ps. cxix. 133.] and we must maintain a living communion of
spirit with our Lord Himself, who is not only our Exemplar, our Law, and
our King, but also our Secret, our Strength, our Life.

CHAPTER V.

_THE DAILY WALK WITH OTHERS_ (ii.).

_If Jesus Christ thou serve, take heed,
Whate'er the hour may be;
His brethren are obliged indeed
By their nobility._

In the present chapter I follow the general principles of the last into
some further details. And I place before me as a sort of motto those
twice-repeated words of the Apostle, TAKE HEED UNTO THYSELF.

These words, it will be remembered, are addressed in both places to the
Christian Minister. [Acts xx. 28; 1 Tim. iv. 6.] At Miletus St Paul
gathers round him the Presbyters of Ephesus, and implores them to take
heed to themselves, and to the flock. A few years later he writes to
Timothy, commissioned (whether permanently or not) to be Pastor of
Pastors in that same Ephesus, and lays it on his soul to take heed to
himself, and to the doctrine. In each case the appeal to attend to
"self" comes first, as the vital preliminary to the other. And in each
case it takes the form of a solemn warning; not only "remember" but
"TAKE HEED."

TAKE HEED UNTO THYSELF.

I have already tried to emphasize the duty of "heed-taking," in several
directions. But I come in this chapter to some important matters which
seem specially to fall under such a heading; ma