And we are only thankful, that while man neglects his duty, God forgets not his purpose.

We have another lesson to learn from this; and that is, that Paul met with more success as a preacher of the Gospel in dissolute Corinth than in polished, cultivated, and aesthetic Athens. We read of a church consecrated in Corinth, but no church consecrated or gathered together in Athens. How can we account for this? The pride of learning is a greater barrier to the entrance of the truth than even profligacy and crime. Strange but true, in our Lord's day proud Pharisees treated the Gospel with contempt, publicans and sinners believed and entered into the kingdom of Heaven; so, in Paul's days, cultivated Athens looked down with a contemptuous sneer upon the babbler of Tarsus, whilst profligate Corinth listened, and bowed its heart, and believed. And what do we find still? If you want the greatest amount of living, vital, personal religion, do not go to the universities of Cambridge or of Oxford, or of Edinburgh or Aberdeen, but to some of those streets and sequestered lanes that the city missionary has penetrated; and you will find extracted from amidst the profligacy of London monuments of grace that you will look for in vain amidst the learned and cultivated universities of our native land. So true is it that publicans and sinners enter into the kingdom of Heaven, when cultivated and intellectual minds seem to stand aloof; or, in the language of Paul, writing to these very Corinthians, as if thinking of the great means of his success— "Not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble are called; but God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise;" he has chosen Corinth

to confound Athens; he has chosen the poor convert in Drury-lane to confound the learned professor of Hebrew in Oxford; "and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty." And for what purpose? "That no flesh should glory in his presence." But another explanation has been suggested of the wide difference between the reception of the Gospel in Athens and its reception in Corinth; it is this. I will not venture to say that it is the right one; if you will read the address made by Paul to the Athenian philosophers upon the Areopagus, or rather upon Mars' hill, you will find in that address-eloquent, masterly, persuasive—a seizing of the points admitted by philosophers, and turning these against their advocates and in favour of the Gospel of Christ; but in the whole of that accomplished discourse, you find very little of the distinguishing and peculiar doctrines of the Cross of Christ. But when you come to Corinth, you find that Paul's preaching there was of altogether a different stamp. And he seems almost to allude to some distinction of this kind, when he tells the Corinthians in the second chapter of his First Epistle, at the first verse-" And I, brethren, when I came to you, I came not with excellency of speech or of wisdom, declaring unto you the testimony of God. For I determined not to know anything among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified." Now, just mark the contrast in this epistle, and you can trace almost the evidence of this thought running through the mind of St. Paul. He tells you in the close of the previous chapter, that the world by wisdom knew not God; that God had chosen foolish men to confound the wise, weak men to confound the strong, base things and things

that are not to bring to nought things that are, that no flesh should glory in his presence." As if he had said, "That is my experience at Athens; I preached to them according to their own philosophy; I tried to show them that it was the basis of a sounder creed; and that their philosophy, instead of telling in their favour as Epicureans and Stoics, really told in our favour as Christians and believers in Christ Jesus. But," says the apostle, "I did not succeed; there were only two instances of conversion at Athens. But then," he says, "when I came to you, I came not with excellency of speech or of wisdom". -as if he had some lurking consciousness that he had done so among the Athenians; but he says, "I determined not to know anything among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified." May it not have been that he was permitted at Athens to approach the Athenian mind, through the porch of its own philosophy, in order to conduct it into the holy temple of Christ, and that he failed; but that when he approached the Corinthian mind at once through Christ and him crucified, his labours were crowned with triumphant success? I cannot help thinking that there is some foundation in this, especially when I connectwhich you should read at your leisure-the last half of the first chapter to the Corinthians with the first half of the second chapter to the Corinthians; and also the peculiar discourse that Paul preached at Athens contrasted with what he says, and taught, and preached, and pressed, upon the Corinthians. At all events, this is plain, whether this be true or not, that at Athens, where there was least of the Cross in the teaching of Paul-I will not say, nothing of the Cross, for that is impossible, but at Athens where there was least of the

Cross in the sermon of Paul-there were the fewest spoils for his Master; but in Corinth, where he says Christ crucified was the beginning, and the middle, and the end of his preaching, there a noble Christian Church was raised, and the largest number of believers, according to the purpose of God, were gathered within the pale

of the Christian Church.

What a lesson to us to feel !—that which is foolishness to the Greek, and a stumbling-block to the Jew, is the wisdom of God and the power of God. Let us not merely or chiefly teach the evidences of God, the proofs of immortality, the doctrines of natural religion; but approach the profligate Corinthian, the debased Hottentot, the superstitious Hindoo, the bigoted Romanist, with Christ and him crucified, as the truth that upsets all error, supersedes all philosophy, conquers with few words, and brings the greatest trophies of living religion into the kingdom of our God and of his Christ.

CHAPTER XIX.

EPHESUS-PAUL'S INQUIRY—APOSTLES PROBABLY NOT BAPTIZED— RECEPTION OF THE SPIRIT-SPECIAL MIRACLES -THE POPE'S BLUNDERS-DEMETRIUS AND HIS CRAFTSMEN-GREAT RIOT-PAUL DISSUADED FROM ENTERING THE THEATRE-THE WORD EKKAHEIA AND ITS MEANING.

PAUL, after having addressed an audience of philosophers at Athens, and next an audience of dissipated and sinful persons at Corinth, noted for its immorality and licentiousness, comes now to Ephesus, celebrated for its gross idolatry of Diana, the great goddess, whose image, as they thought, fell down from heaven.

Finding at Ephesus, the chief city of proconsular Asia, certain persons who professed to be disciples, he asked them, evidently perceiving they were not enlightened as Christians ought to be, "Have ye received the Holy Ghost since ye believed?" or rather, "Did ye receive the Holy Ghost when ye believed?" "And they said unto him, We did not so much as hear;" for it is not, "have not so much as heard," but "did not so much as hear whether there were any Holy Ghost." Their minds were evidently unenlightened on the most vital truths of Christianity; and Paul seeing that, asked them the question, "Unto what then were ye baptized?” What profession did you take upon you? What creed did you subscribe verbally, orally, or otherwise? And they answered "Unto John's baptism." Then Paul