for us to understand 'the ills we have.' What they are in our own generation is conspicuous enough. In part they are the normal evils of selfishness, and sensuality, and pride, and weakness; of divisions of races and classes, and personal uncharity. In part they are special: I will not make any general attempt to characterize them here. But it is probably true to say that, among other characteristics which our generation exhibits, is a lack of great enthusiasms and strong convictions and inspiring leaders. Literature, philosophy, and politics are alike lacking in a clear moral impulse. 'Causes' are at a discount. Men are disillusionized. It is a 'fin de siècle' by some better title than a chronological mistake. It is this characteristic of the moment that ought to give the Church its opportunity. At present she largely fails to take it because she lacks concentration within her own body. The true disciples, the faithful remnant, exist in every place, but they are lost in the crowd. They need to be drawn together if they are to make an impression. A vigorous faith, and the confident hope for humanity which a vigorous faith begets, were never better calculated than they are to-day to produce a right moral impression on the world, owing to the

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mere absence of rival enthusiasms. We can supply what is wanted if only everywhere we will cultivate sincerity and enthusiasm rather than numbers, and aim at forming strong centres of spiritual life, rather than a weak uniform diffusion of it.

DIVISION II. § 5. CHAPTERS V. 22-VI. 9.

The relation of husbands and wives: parents and children: masters and servants.

ST. PAUL mentions submission as required, in a sense, from all Christians towards all others'submitting yourselves one to another.' But it is plain that in any community, and most of all in a Christian community where order is a divine principle, some will be specially 'under authority': and accordingly St. Paul applies his general maxim to three classes in particular-wives towards their husbands, children towards their parents, slaves towards their masters. But in making these applications of the law of obedience, he enlarges his subject by including the counterbalancing principle of the duty of self-sacrificing love on the part of those in authority; so that he treats not one side of the relation only but both.

A. HUSBANDS AND WIVES. (V. 22-33.) Wives are to be subordinate to their husbands as to the Lord. Just as the divine fatherhood is the ground of all lower fatherhood, so the authority of the one great Head is the ground in all lower headships, and each in its place is to be accepted as the shadow of His. Thus the husband's headship over his wife is the shadow of Christ's headship over the church, and that explains of what sort the husband's authority should be. For Christ's rule is a rule for the advantage of the ruled. He rules the church as Himself its saviour or deliverer from bondage, and the word 'saviour' is full of associations of self-sacrificing love. So must it be with a Christian husband. But Christ is not merely a head to the church. He too is a husband. This idea of God as the husband of His peoplean idea which expressed both His choice of them, His love for them, and His jealous claim upon them—is familiar in the Old Testament. 'Thy Maker is thy husband.' 'I am a husband unto you, saith the Lord'. And it is probable, as Dr. Cheyne suggests, 'that the so-called Song of Solomon was admitted into the canon

1 Is. liv. 5; Jer. iii. 14.

on the ground that the bride of the poem symbolized the chosen people 1.' But in a Christian sense the idea gains a fresh meaning. 'We that are joined unto the Lord are of one spirit' with Him2. We are the 'members of his body'; and, as drawing our life from His manhood, we may be even said to be, like Eve from Adam, 'of his flesh and of his bones.' Christ then is, in this richness of meaning, the husband of the church.

St. Paul seems further to describe this relation of Christ to the church under the figure of three marriage customs. The husband first acquires the object of his affection as his bride by a dowry: then by a bath of purification the bride is prepared for the husband finally she is presented to him in bridal beauty. Accordingly Christ, because He loved the church, first 'gave himself for her'; and we may interpret this phrase in the light of another used by St. Paul in his speech to the Ephesian elders, where the church is spoken of as 'purchased' or

Prophecies of Isaiah, vol. ii, p. 188.

2

I Cor. vi. 17.

3 This, it is well known, was read in the Old Version. It has vanished (in submission to the verdict of the best MSS.) from the R. V. But there seems to me to be some force in Alford's plea for the originality of the words, as they stand in 'Western' and later texts.