necessities.

Ecstasy, longing, faith: these are the steps in this religion.

The personal religion which has been sketched thus far is essentially one of moods and feelings. For the alternation as well as the harmonizing of contrasts falls under the sphere of the emotional life. This is one of the reasons why St Paul's place in the history of religion is so important. He transferred the real life of religion to the feelings, discovered it in the feelings. Religion, according to St Paul, is fear and hope, possessing and seeking, rejoicing and longing, joy in communion with God, and yearning for God; and by surrendering ourselves to the divine influence which comes over us, we are saved-i.e. uplifted out of this world into God's presence. Hence an unbroken apostolic succession through St Augustine and St Bernard to Schleiermacher. Paul was the first clearly to experience and express for all time the two sets of feelings: sin and grace, strength and weakness; and thereby the inner meaning and depth of religion were immensely increased. The holy of holies is no longer placed in outer effects and consequences, but transferred to communion with God in the innermost heart. For this emotional life the significance of historical events is exceedingly limited. They are simply considered as means to create moods and to excite feelings. This is just what the Cross and Resurrection of Jesus were for St Paul. By this means the historical tradition and the unbroken continuity with the past are indeed preserved, but the true life of religion is in the present; it is the soul's communion with the living God. Knowledge of the historical fact is but the kindling spark.

The peculiar danger of this emotional form of religion has always consisted in its tendency to allow the field of the active life to lie fallow. Paul escaped this danger, thanks to his calling. As the consciousness of his apostolic calling was fully developed in him, and never for one moment forsook him, it imparted a zeal and a restless energy to him, which made every kind of luxuriating in dreams and visions and every form of idleness a physical impossibility. In this respect Paul became a hero of ethical selfdiscipline, and of entirely unselfish service to the brethren. He conceived of his especial calling as being at the same time typical. Hence the servile labour to which he compelled his hands, hence the bodily discipline carried to the verge of asceticism, hence his strict temperance and entire sincerity. Paul overcame all obstacles, especially those originating in his own temperament, in a wonderful manner, or used them as stepping-stones. He withstood, too, every temptation to pride, and every tendency to a domineering bearing. But above all he perfected love and self-sacrifice in his calling. He could endure and forgive; he sympathised in every man's afflictions, he collected money for his enemies. In certain cases he sacrificed the freedom of his conscience to his love. For the Jews' sake he was ready to be severed from the Christ. In his old age he took an unselfish delight in the progress of the Gospel in spite of the envy and the wrangling of his associates. Notwithstanding his longing for heaven, he preferred to remain on earth, so as to work and to suffer for the brethren. Each one of his letters to them is a proof of his love. Thus he strove with all his might

so that in his own life the panegyric of love passed from words into deeds; this he likewise demanded of every Christian as the visible proof of his belonging to Christ.

The peculiarity of St Paul's personal religion becomes still more manifest when it is contrasted with the essentially different form of Jesus' religion. This is the exact opposite of a religion of emotion. It may be objected that the relative insignificance of the subjective element in the case of Jesus, is due to the impossibility of extracting the true Jesus from His reporters. But to this we may reply: Had Jesus been a mystic, or in any other way pre-eminently a man of feeling, then this would have found expression in His words in spite of all additions or omissions of these reporters. But it is just a peculiarity of His that the inner life of His soul is rarely, or never, reflected in what He says, and that no value of its own is attached to the emotional life. His personal religion is altogether practical. He went about doing good, helping others, struggling for the right—a life concentrated in present tasks and aims, a religion that looked forward to ideals that were to be realized. All Jesus' actions are indeed prompted by feelingsi.e. by the childlike certainty of the love of God and by the deep seriousness with which the great future inspires Him. But these feelings do not constitute separate domains of their own, from which the road to action has subsequently to be discovered. On the contrary, whether consciously or unconsciously, they are the ever present substratum of all that He does. There is an entire absence here of the alternation between the sense of sin and of grace, as well as of that

between strength and weakness, at any rate in that degree with which St Paul is acquainted. True there are days in Jesus' life when He ascends to the mountain-heights of enthusiasm, and also there are others when He walks in the valley of disappointment and failure. But how entirely this change of mood recedes into the background behind the total impression left us by a life of constant and conscious progress! We can notice this even in the great moderation with which He judges men. He never considers them as either entirely beyond the reach of sin or as inextricably involved therein. Besides, the style of the sayings of Jesus is the expression of an altogether practical and temperate nature.

Both forms of personal religion are justifiable if they have but really been experienced. It is a consequence of the predominance of St Paul's theology, that his personal religion has likewise come to be regarded as the normal type, though, it is true, only after the excision of the really mystical element. But the deterioration of morality has been the regular and inevitable consequence of an exclusive emphasis of the emotional life. Our task to-day is again to bring into the foreground Jesus' own personal religion, and to hold this up as a word of warning to our age.

Paul has left a deeper impression upon history than any other of Jesus' disciples. He transplanted the young religion into the great world of civilization, created its first profound system of thought, and developed a new form of personal religion. In so doing he was the first to introduce Christianity into the world's history. The whole future development of the Gospel is determined by the form imparted to it

by St Paul. The measure of his worth lies in the fact that he came to be the greatest minister of the Gospel, and as such has often occupied its place. In more than one instance his work was of a transitory nature: but he himself, the man Paul, is one of the most inspiring and comforting characters in all history, one of those who are an unfailing source of courage and of joy to us a smaller breed of men.