What special and humiliating affliction is referred. to in the expression, thorn or stake in the flesh, cannot be known for certain. It has been thought that it was some affection of the eyesight, and there would seem to be some traces of such partial blindness; but as we cannot know for certain it is useless to speculate.

Whatever it was, it was something very trying, and perhaps humiliating. More important is it to notice, how his prayer for its removal was answered, for it was answered.

As the Lord Himself had prayed three times that the cup of suffering might pass from Him, and yet notwithstanding had to drink it to the dregs, so His tried and afflicted servant prayed three times that this thorn in the flesh might depart from him, and had still to bear it.

But in neither case was the prayer unheard or unanswered. Each time the Saviour had prayed that the cup might pass from Him, He had been careful to add the prayer, that His Father's will should be done. And that prayer was heard and answered, the Father's will was done; and as for Himself, an angel appeared and strengthened Him.

So with S. Paul, the answer came to him: My grace is sufficient for thee, for my power is made perfect in weakness" (2 Cor. xii. 9).

How sufficient we learn from what the Apostle says, "when I am weak, then I am strong." When I most feel my own weakness, then I am most strong, because I lean in my weakness upon Him that is mighty.

But we must now pass on to the Apostle's closing words.

Ch. xiii. 11: Finally, brethren, farewell. Be perfected, be comforted, be of the same mind, live in peace and

the God of love and peace shall be with you. Salute one another with a holy kiss.

All the saints salute you.

And then follow the words that are so familiar to us all, as the concluding prayer of our matins and evensong.

We repeat these words so often, that there is some risk of our not attaching any definite meaning to them.

It is well, perhaps, to be reminded that the communion or fellowship of the Holy Ghost is not something distinct and separate from the love of the Father and the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ; but is rather that power by which we are able to welcome the love of God, and receive the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. It is the special work of the Holy Spirit to reveal the Father and the Son: it is His office to take of the things of Christ and show them to us. It is by Him only that we can say that Jesus is the Christ; it is He alone that can teach us to say, Abba, Father.

Ch. xiii. 14: The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion [or fellowship] of the Holy Ghost, be with you all.

CHAPTER XIX.

THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS.

FTER writing the Second Epistle to the Corinthians at one of the cities of Macedonia, S. Paul, as we read in the Acts of the

Apostles, came into Greece, and no doubt, though the sacred historian does not mention it, made Corinth his headquarters. S. Luke gives us no details of his visit. We should like to have heard how the Corinthian Christians received their Apostle, whether his opponents submitted at once to his authority, whether, after all, he came unto them "with a rod, or in the spirit of meekness."

When S. Paul reached Corinth, it would seem that news had been received from the Churches of Galatia, of later date than any that had yet reached the Apostle, which filled him with dismay and righteous indignation.

The Galatians were a light-hearted, fickle, and impetuous people, of the same race, and apparently of much the same character, as the Gauls of Europe. They had received the Gospel from S. Paul with great readiness. Indeed they received him, as the Apostle himself tells us, as an angel of God, nay, even as Christ Himself. They were ready, if that had been possible, to pluck out their own eyes and give them to him.

But the same restless, impulsive character which

made them so ready to receive the Gospel, made them an easy prey to the same emissaries of Judaism who had sown their tares in other fields of S. Paul's labours. These Judaizing Christians claimed, and perhaps possessed, the authority of the leaders of the Church of Jerusalem. In Corinth the Greek feeling against Judaism prevented them from having their full swing: but in Galatia, among the less civilized and fickle Gauls, they had it all their own way.

These men began as usual by undermining S. Paul's authority, blackening his character, imputing to him the worst motives. He was no real Apostle. He had never seen the Lord, except in a vision real or pretended; what knowledge of Christ's truth he had he had derived from the Twelve, and this he had perverted and adulterated. He was an unscrupulous flatterer and hypocrite, becoming all things to all men. Who was this apostate Jew, this turncoat Pharisee, to set himself against James the Just, against Peter and John? Would they rather believe this sham Apostle than Abraham, the friend of God and Moses, who saw God face to face?

Then they attacked his doctrine. What right had he to say that the Law was abrogated, when Jesus Himself had said that He came not to destroy the Law but to fulfil it? Who was he that presumed to say that circumcision was of no importance?

Baptism, it is true, they might allow, might admit Gentiles into the outer courts of Christ's true Church; but if the Galatian converts wished to gain admission into the sanctuary, the holy place of Christ's Church, they must be circumcised, even as the Lord was circumcised.

This was the key to their position: and, accordingly, S. Paul attacked it with all the fervour and concentrated passion of his fiery nature.

His keen spiritual insight, naturally keen, but now keener by the Spirit of Christ in him, saw at a glance that the real issue of this controversy was not whether he, Paul, was equal in apostolic authority to the Twelve, or whether circumcision was necessary or useless, but whether the religion and Church of Christ was to be free or enslaved; whether the fountain of the Gospel was to flow freely for all, or whether it was to be choked up with the ashes of a dead Judaism.

These Judaizers were not merely hurting his reputation, not merely substituting another method of teaching for his: they were preaching another, a different Gospel, which was indeed no Gospel, no good tidings at all.

It was, then, to meet this pressing need, this vital danger, that S. Paul wrote this letter. Unlike his other Epistles, he wrote it with his own hand.

Its very opening, its very style, showed that there was something wrong. There are no expressions of affection, no thanksgiving to God on their behalf. He begins thus:-

Ch. i. 1: Paul, an apostle (not from men, neither through man, but through Jesus Christ, and God the Father, who raised Him from the dead), and all the brethren which are with me, unto the Churches of Galatia: Grace to you and peace from God the Father, and our Lord Jesus Christ, who gave Himself for our sins, that He might deliver us out of this present evil world, according to the will of our God and Father: to whom be the glory for ever and ever. Amen.

After this salutation the Apostle plunges into the midst of his subject, writing in short, broken, abrupt sentences, as a man speaks in great excitement:

Ch. i. 6: I marvel that ye are so quickly removing from Him that called you in the grace of Christ unto a different

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