to an idol, then Paul is as rigid and strict as they are.  That combination of willingness to go as far as possible, and inflexible determination not to go one step farther, of yieldingness wherever principle does not come in, and of iron fixedness wherever it does, is rare indeed, but should be aimed at by all Christians.  The morality of the Gospel would make more way in the world if its advocates always copied the ‘sweet reasonableness’ of Paul, which, as he tells us in this passage, he learned from Jesus.

As to the wrapping of general principles, they may all be reduced to one—­the duty of limiting Christian liberty by consideration for others.  In the two verses preceding the practical precepts, that duty is stated with reference entirely to the obligations flowing from our relationship to others.  We are all bound together by a mystical chain of solidarity.  Since every man is my neighbour, I am bound to think of him and not only of myself in deciding what I may do or refrain from doing.  I must abstain from lawful things if, by doing them, I should be likely to harm my neighbour’s building up of a strong character.  I can, or I believe that I can, pursue some course of conduct, engage in some enterprise, follow some line of life, without damage to myself, either in regard to worldly position, or in regard to my religious life.  Be it so, but I have to take some one else into account.  Will my example call out imitation in others, to whom it may be harmful or fatal to do as I can do with real or supposed impunity?  If so, I am guilty of something very like murder if I do not abstain.

’What harm is there in betting a shilling?  I can well afford to lose it, and I can keep myself from the feverish wish to risk more.’  Yes, and you are thereby helping to hold up that gambling habit which is ruining thousands.

’I can take alcohol in moderation, and it does me no harm, and I can go to a prayer-meeting after my dinner and temperate glass, and I am within my Christian liberty in doing so.’  Yes, and you take part thereby in the greatest curse that besets our country, and are, by countenancing the drink habit, guilty of the blood of souls.  How any Christian man can read these two verses and not abstain from all intoxicants is a mystery.  They cut clean through all the pleas for moderate drinking, and bring into play another set of principles which limit liberty by regard to others’ good.  Surely, if there was ever a subject to which these words apply, it is the use of alcohol, the proved cause of almost all the crime and poverty on both sides of the Atlantic.  To the Christians who plead their ‘liberty’ we can only say, ’Happy is he that condemneth not himself in that thing which he alloweth.’