CRITICAL NOTES
1 Corinthians 9:24.—His own salvation is at stake as well as that of his hearers. He must do all these things, not only as expedients which for his hearers’ sakes may make him a successful soul-winner, but because to do everything he can to ensure success is to discharge faithfully his “stewardship” (1 Corinthians 9:17), and is thus one condition of his final acceptance when he comes to the goal. The comma after “run” in the A. V., and, still more, the “even so run” in the R.V., makes it clear that the reading should not be carelessly taken to be, “Run so that ye may,” nor, “So run as that ye may.” “So” looks not forward to “that ye may obtain,” but backward, to the way racers run who know that they are competitors, the success of one of whom means the failure of all the others. This is not a maxim standing alone and meaning, “Do you run your Christian course in such a manner as to ensure that you will win the prize.” It is a picture gathering up the scene on which Paul and his hearers are gazing. “See the sustained straining, and the concentration of energy; see how nothing diverts attention from the Prize; see the fierce eagerness of competition; remember the long, self-denying training for that moment of supreme effort. That is the way to win your Crown. Run your course like that—so—thus—if you mean to attain.”
1 Corinthians 9:25.—Racing, boxing, wrestling, all kinds of athletic contests “for the mastery.” See the rendering. The Olympic games were in Paul’s time still celebrated, and survived the Isthmian, which, however, were more familiar to the Corinthians, and at the time were more important. Nero contended in them, with “an agony to succeed” (Stanley). Ten months’ preliminary training—dieting, etc.—was obligatory on every competitor. [The metaphor of the foot race is found not only in Philippians 3:12; Philippians 3:14; 2 Timothy 4:7-8 (Hebrews 12:1); but in briefer phrases— Acts 12:25; Acts 20:24; Galatians 2:2; Philippians 2:16; Galatians 5:2; 2 Thessalonians 3:1; perhaps Romans 9:15-16. (See Dean Howson, Metaphors of St. Paul.)] A corruptible crown.—At the Isthmus this was of Grecian pine leaves; because these were so valueless intrinsically, the more to be admired was the eagerness of the competitors.
1 Corinthians 9:26. Uncertainly.—With no definite goal, keeping to no particular track. Beating the air.—As if fighting a shadow, or merely “lunging about” for practice to the muscles. “It is no ‘practice,’ but the serious contest, I am engaged in.”
1 Corinthians 9:27.—See Homiletic Suggestions. Buffet for “keep under.” Lit., by derivation, “Give it a blow that bruises it under the eye—to keep it in its place, as servant, not master.
HOMILETIC ANALYSIS.— 1 Corinthians 9:23-27
The Minister’s Care for his Own Salvation.—We see him:
I. In Conflict. Then
II. Crowned. Or
III. Castaway.
I. In conflict.—
1. 1 Corinthians 9:23 is transitional. A new thought is introduced, out of which this paragraph grows. The preacher of the Gospel hopes to be, needs to be, a “partaker of the Gospel along with” those to whom he preaches it. He is himself vitally interested in its truth and its success. He may be an apostle; but he is first a sinner, lost and in bondage, and himself needing to hear the “joyful sound” of release and recovery. The trumpet of Jubilee which he is set to sound, proclaims an “acceptable year of the Lord,” in whose happy issues he too hopes to share. He has heard the Gospel, and is rejoicing in its salvation; but if he is to retain his status, he must be faithful to his duty as a preacher, set to “save as many souls as he can.” If he fail personally, he will be a failure officially; no man will succeed in the ministry who does not keep his personal life right. Conversely, if he fail officially, through neglect or unfaithfulness, he will fail personally, His unfaithfulness is sin. (See this and some after points expounded in Separate Homily, “An Apostle’s Peril,” 1 Corinthians 9:27.)
2. A racer, putting all his energies into the race; making no play of his ministry, but most serious and arduous and even exhausting labour. A boxer, matched with a busy, active, dangerous antagonist in his very “body”; finding here again that it is no play to deal with himself. His nature every moment waits to render him secure, and then in his security to gain an advantage over him. Indolence, love of ease and comfort, and even natural weariness, need to be watched, lest they deal deadly blows at his life. He must be ready to return rebuke for suggestion, blow for blow. [“Get thee behind Me, Satan!” said Christ to Peter, who had revolted against the idea of the shame and the bodily suffering of the cross. “Do not think of such a thing, Lord! That be far from Thee! Be propitious to Thyself (lit. Greek); be kinder to Thyself than that!” Had the Master just passed through conflict in anticipatory presence of the cross? And now, with mistaken kindness, His friend, Peter, makes the very suggestion, which, quite innocently, His own holy body may have been making. “Shun the pain!” (Matthew 16:22).] There are dangers of the couch, the arm-chair, the hospitable table, the glass, the pipe, the cycle, many (literal) body-dangers besetting, buffeting, the Christian “boxer.” [Make the very body come obediently “to heel.”] [As there are also dangers in the study,—of dilettante reading and work, known to, condemned by, nobody outside; dangers of success; dangers in days of what seems “failure”; dangers of the infection of the “secular” temper—for the minister may do his work in as thoroughly “secular” a spirit as any business man in the market or the shop.]
3. He is in constant training for his running. He must never suffer himself to get “out of condition.” Things allowable if he were not running a race, or if he were not in the ministry, and bound to “fulfil it” [Colossians 4:17; cf. the R.V. in Revelation 3:2: “No works of thine fulfilled before God; many things purposed, begun, half done, nearly finished, but “not fulfilled”], are not permissible to him. He must keep himself free, pure, not entangled nor self-ensnared, in the best order of body, mind, heart, to do his work and accomplish his “course.” [“Temperate in all things.” See Separate Homily.]
II. Crowned.—[Revelation 3:11 is a warning to an official life that its official “crown” may be given over to, passed on to, worn by, some other who has done more faithfully and effectually work which was allotted to the uncrowned man. Revelation 2:10 is the personal reward of the personal life. And notice] the “crown” of a successful, faithful life is “Life.” “Uncorruptness” in teaching (Titus 2:7, where notice the displaced reading, which was significant in its reiteration of idea), and in that love (Ephesians 6:24) which is the very element of the Christian walk, thus leads up to “life and incorruption” (2 Timothy 1:10). The purifying of the nature from all that belongs to “death” at last made complete; the life which sprang here from “incorruptible seed” at last developed into eternal, indefectible perfection of all its features and capacities; whatever of added happiness “Heaven” may include,—happiness ab extra, dependent upon surroundings, companionships, appointed employments; all this in perfection, with nothing of transitoriness to dim, even as a possibility, the enjoyment of the present; with no remotest possibility of an end, to cloud over as with the gradual closing in of an eternal Night, the Divine glory of the eternal Day of that world’s life;—this “Life” is Paul’s “crown.” The spiritual life here was all the work of Christ in the soul; and to His heart also that after-life which is the expansion, the fulness, the sequel as well as the successor of this, is the crown of this. Finis coronat opus Christi, et Pauli. [What crown is there of all for which men in the “natural” realm “strive for the mastery,” which is incorruptible? E.g. how much of the knowledge acquired by a lifetime of study and self-denying, enslaving labour is merely relative! It is modified, supplemented, made obsolete, almost before the man who won it and wore it is cold in his grave. Or, how distance of time dwindles and “corrupts” away the mere crown of fame and honour given by contemporaries, and not unworthily, to the majority of the famous people of any one century or nation! How unsatisfying the best reward of mere secular labours! How many a hot-browed athlete has found his crown begin to wither and perish almost as soon as it has been placed upon his head!] Or, unhappy alternative:
III. Castaway.—(See, again, below.) Of all the “lost,” is the rejection of any man more pathetically painful to imagine than that of the preacher, who has set others to run, who has directed their training and their running, who has enheartened them in their days of faintness or discouragement, who has seen them take the one last step which bears them in death over the line that marks the goal attained; and then himself presents himself to the Judge for “approval” and for crowning, only to be thrust away “reprobate” “castaway”?
SEPARATE HOMILIES
1 Corinthians 9:24-27. “Temperate in all things.”—(May be made the basis of a Temperance Sermon.)
I. Christian religion honours the body.—Only one that really does. Such religion as Corinthians knew took no account of it; bodily sins and lusts were reckoned things indifferent.
1. Some to-day make almost a religion of bodily exercise. Athletics the god which gets their best devotion. Read nothing else in the paper; can talk on no other topics. That an exaggeration. [Body not everything. Some giants very poor creatures in mind. Dwarfs have done great things. Two most wonderful figures in Europe at end of seventeenth century were two commanders of large armies: William III., an “asthmatic skeleton”; Luxembourg, “the princely hunchback” (Macaulay).] 2 As real an exaggeration to make teetotalism the only devotion, the only religion, the only remedy for human ill. [Easy to understand the “intemperance of temperance people”; not difficult to excuse, or even justify, it. Man who sees most of the wide extent, and dire results, of intemperance; lives in midst of its woe and wreck; finds all efforts, hopes, prayers, defeated by it; finds the thick moral induration of the drunkard-habit turn edge of keenest sword, or most pointed arrow; finds the work of years of painful recovery blighted by outburst of old, mad passion again; may be excused if he feel or speak with “undue” strength. May be forgiven his “madness” when he sees wife, child, friend, minister, dragged down to the slough of the sin and shame of drunkard-life. No doubt, too, if we could make drunken England into part of sober England, we should cut tap-root of nine-tenths of English ills, and solve many a social and economic problem. No doubt total abstinence the only remedy for large percentage of misery and sin; the most practical remedy, as things are to-day. Yet it is exaggeration.] It is not all. Some appeals to the intemperate are only less liable to become mischievous than drink itself. E.g. appeal too strongly to the saving of money effected; may cast out devil of drink by putting in covetousness. Appeal too exclusively to self-respect or strength of will; may make reclaimed drunkard a Pharisee in pride of self. May sometimes only have cured physical mischief by inoculating with moral poison—Be temperate even in your remedy fôr intemperance. True way of regarding question is to make it part of the Christian honour of the body, as an instrument through which Christ is to be served. Highest purpose of education is to make mind a fit instrument for serving Christ. And so too the body is His; He bought it; bought all of the man—body and soul. It is to be kept in best possible order for Him, and His use. Therefore, in mind and body,—temperate in all things.
II. What is temperance?—
1. See driver of ancient chariot, or modern four-in-hand; his strong bit; still more, his firm, skilled hand. That perfect control of his team is temperance. Man, boy, drives team of three bodily appetites; mettlesome horses, powerful, sometimes turbulent, in their strength; but they have their work to do. Temperance is having the team well in hand, making them do their work, but no more; do it, at the man’s will; or leave it alone, at his will. Horses must not be allowed to run away with chariot, with man. “Be temperate, lest team carry you over the precipice of ruin here and hereafter.”
2. See chorus on the orchestra, how built up of four classes, masses, of voice. Conductor makes each do its part, but no more. Too much bass, too much treble, equally spoil the music. If tenors (or even one voice) over-assert themselves, they spoil balance and harmony. Conductor makes each do its part, loud, soft, everything, as he will. Mind, body, pleasure, work, intellect, heart, will,—in the perfect harmony of Life, all take their part; no more, no less; nothing dwarfed or stunted; nothing exaggerated or over-grown. Be the conductor in full authority over your choir of gifts, powers, passions; make all temper to a happy balance and wholeness. Drunkard lets one voice out-shout the rest and ruin the music of the life.
3. Intemperance means not having oneself perfectly in hand, having something a man cannot say “no” to. [“Never so let yourself go that you cannot ‘pull up’ at will. Find cannot say ‘no’ easily? Then put foot down, say ‘no’ absolutely. Body wants to be master? Give it a buffet under the eye—that is Paul’s word—to keep it under. Make it know you will be master, the grace of God helping you. Body and mind are partners in business of life; neither is a sleeping partner; but not equal partners; body has some stake in concern, but must not have the management, especially in drinking. Mind—you—must be master. That is temperance.”] “In all things.” Rule for ancient athletes, and for Christians now, for everybody who wants even to win the prizes of life. Nothing really worthy in being a teetotaler, and yet an impure man; a hard worker, yet intemperate in relaxation after hard work. Not too much reading, music, sleep, anything. Every single thing in measure, all in balance.
III. In many things—not drinking only—this may mean total abstinence. As to drinking:
1. For every drunkard, or man or woman in danger, a necessity. Such must abstain, or they cannot be Christ’s.
2. For Christians it may become expedient (see Homily on 1 Corinthians 8:9-13). In England, in last century, may not have been. May not be on Continent to-day. Are things, however, coming, or are they come, to such a pass in England, that Christian people must stand clear of what is cursing England as never before?
3. For young people, safety. No guarantee “worth a rush” except conversion; even that sometimes overborne No strength but God’s in them absolutely to be trusted; but total abstinence a safeguard.
IV. If not, will not win the prize.—Happily public opinion is beginning to say intemperate people (in every sense) shall not. Also inevitable working of “natural law” forbids. Boys and men handicap themselves physically by any exaggerated or sinful excess. Success even in business means clear head, sober hand, healthy body. Highest work demands body and mind at their best. So Christ’s work demands it. Also if some intemperate men seem to “win,” they lose themselves and are cast away (cf. Luke 9:25; 1 Corinthians 9:27). [Our forefathers bore with intemperate Pitt, and too-convivial Scott, and the sinner Nelson. But, a little later, they would not give Byron his place in Westminster Abbey. To-day not all the witchery of their Shelley or our Swinburne must permit them to take first rank in our national devotion. Day coming when Christianised society will refuse, and say that neither an intemperate man nor an impure man shall lead the national life: “We won’t have it!”]
1 Corinthians 9:26. Christian Progress.—Compare the progress suggested by (a) Running with that suggested by (b) Growth. Four Contrasts.
I. (a) Progress, in the outward aspects of it: the life of action and of conflict, of speech, of work.—Every detail of life a step forward towards the goal or backward towards the starting-point, or out of the prescribed course altogether. (b) Progress in the inner life; in strength of character and of principle, greater simplicity and directness of motive; greater abundance in the fruits of grace, in loveliness and Christ-likeness. “Every detail a step.” Then how important every smallest detail. There is nothing which “does not matter.” Everything “matters.” And, further, why fear dying? It is but one more step, to be taken in the same strength as that next preceding and all preceding; the one step which carries the runner over the line which marks the goal attained; but, except for that, perhaps not intrinsically so difficult or so important as many another preceding. Let every detail of life have its right direction, and carry us forward.
II. (a) Progress in a definitely marked-out course.—The runner is kept right by rules and bounds imposed from without. (b) The thing that grows is kept right in its progressive development from within, according to the “law” of its very life. The plant or the body obeys the ideal of its kind or order. The oak, the moss, unfold themselves and assimilate and dispose into their structure new material, in obedience to the life within them. No need to watch or take pains that in pattern or kind the leaves shall grow those of the moss or the oak. So the new life in the soul has its ideal and its laws. It will naturally show a developing progress, the features characteristic of the Christ-life appearing of themselves. But the Racer is only kept right as he keeps within bounds prescribed; he may go wrong at any point. On this side stand God’s “Thou shalts”; on the other His “Thou shalt nots.” Within these lies the one, only path to the goal and the prize. If in his advance the racer has not submitted to the direction or the restraint of these, he runs “unlawfully” and “uncertainly.” He may not be surprised if he find himself, after all, “cast away” as the result of the Judge’s verdict. If all other indications of the course fail, the steps of Christ are the supreme summary of all direction. What He did, and, above all, the principles of His words and acts—these are His “steps.” They show the path in which alone progress can be made.
III. The progress of growth is solitary; that of running is in company.—The one palm will grow as well solitary in an oasis as in a grove of palms. No tree helps the next to grow. The children in a family grow hearty or weakly independently of each other. As there is a spiritual life which must be lived, and progress which must be made, alone. A man might be, if need were, a great saint in a great solitude. It would be one-sided sainthood. No Christian fellowship or united worship can do the work of the closet and the searched Word. But the progress of Running is progress in company; all the helpfulness of companionship and sympathy is brought into use. The runners in training for athletic contests will secure a friend to run by their side during the last “lap” of the course; by the fresh and unexhausted vigour of the friend to help themselves over the strain of the last portion of their path. The sloth or eagerness of one Christian’s progress will affect the pace of a fellow-runner. His steady pursuit of the prize may decide some feebler, wavering soul just feeling the first strain after the eagerness of the start is over, and beginning to wonder whether, after all, the prize is worth such an effort to win.
IV. Growth speaks of a steady, quiet progress; not to be measured from moment to moment, but palpable enough in accumulated results. We see that the plant has grown, or the body, but not the actual growing. Racing puts forward the continuous, eager, straining effort, and the concentration of it upon the one thing—the crown. Our life is no “walk-over” the course; no lounging parade towards the goal; but “racing,” with all the eagerness of competition, where the racers are companions, but not competitors. There is no turning aside to examine the beautiful sculptures and altars by the side of the course; no stopping to exchange greetings with the friends amongst the spectators. [“This one thing I do” (Philippians 3:13) is well illustrated by the last words shouted by the “coach” to the men in the trial eights on the river: “Now then, keep your eyes in the boat; look at the shoulder of the man in front of you; don’t think of anything but the time and the stroke.”] The racer’s progress is possessed by one idea: “The prize,” “the crown.” He sees nothing but that. From head to foot, from the finger-tip of his outstretched hand to the extremity of the foot, which barely touches the ground from one step to another as he strains along, and flies rather than runs—every inch of him, ever muscle in his frame, says, “The Crown!” Everything is made to bend to that; everything in life which will not help progress is discounted or dismissed; all must help to win the goal and the Judge’s award. The Christian man knows what he wants, and makes that the serious, ruling business of his life. [In Hebrews 12:1 are the added ideas of training away all superfluous “weight” every ounce which is not bone or muscle, which will help in running, and of stripping off all encumbering, “clinging” (= “easily besetting”) garments.] Look at the runners. So run, as they do, that ye may obtain. It is not never-ending progress leading to no definite issue; an endless seeking and never finding; an unending effort which attains to no prize. [Edward Irving exclaims, “Probation does not lead to probation, but to issues!” (Divine Judgments, vii.); to “crowning” or “cast away.”] “A great deal of trouble to make Christian progress!” Certainly. But see Proverbs 14:4: “Where no oxen are, the crib is clean; but,” etc. Nothing is easier than have a clean stable, and to escape the “trouble” of cleansing it; but the indolent man must be content to forego the “increase which is by the strength of the ox.”
1 Corinthians 9:27. An Apostle’s Peril.—Both words, that for “preach” and that for “castaway,” are, themselves or their cognates, so common in St. Paul that we need not overpress the derivational meaning of even the former, or necessarily regard them as saturated with suggestion springing from the imagery of a racer. The herald who has called others and induced them to enter for the prize, who has announced the conditions of the competition and even seemed to be joining in the race himself, comes to the judge’s seat for the crown. “No crown for you; you have not yourself submitted to the rules, have not contended ‘lawfully’ ” (2 Timothy 2:5). And he turns away from the judge’s seat filled with the beginnings of the disappointment of an eternal failure. Probable; suitable to the context; true; but not certainly to be got out of the words.
I. An official application of the words.—Pauls peril is from his body.—He “keeps his body under.” Must take this precisely for what he says: not the “flesh,” but the “body,”—a narrower and very definite source of danger. Sin in Gentile life ran most frequently into physical excess. All heathenism, all natural human life, gravitates sooner or later into indulgence of the three physical appetites. Mere human wisdom and morals have no sure reason why these should not be indulged; the tendency is always to treat bodily sins as venial, or even indifferent actions. Strangely enough, also, the same temperament which makes some men, some ministers, seem highly receptive of the Spirit’s enduement of power, appears to expose them to the assault of physical temptation. From high spiritual exaltation to bodily excess is not an uncommon fall. Paul seems to have been by temperament and by special grace in little peril in one particular direction. [1 Corinthians 7:7, as usually interpreted, but the inference is by no means so certain as is generally assumed]. And he may be in some degree identifying himself with his readers, and the “I” not be entirely personal, but rather representative. A real danger to a minister arises from the frequent association with women in the work of his life, whether as grateful and attached hearers, or busy helpers, or the objects of his labours. There are dangers at the hospitable tables of his congregation. Dangers of indolence fostered by the sedentary nature of his work in the study. Nowadays ministerial athletics may become a peril. Paul is in danger from his body; and, further, in two particulars in this very chapter does he give the body a check. “Paul’s refusal of maintenance, and the bodily toil resulting thereupon, and his refusal to eat meat which might injure a weak brother, were blows against the spiritual power of his own body, and tended to make the body more and more a servant of the spirit within” [Beet, in loco. We may add also]: All the physical dangers and suffering which he not only submitted to, but accepted and gloried in (2 Corinthians 4:10; 2 Corinthians 6:5; 2 Corinthians 11:23-27), as the accompaniments of his work for his Master, became, through his persistent, voluntary pursuit of a career which made him run the gauntlet of so many blows upon his body, really in effect his own buffetings of his body. All the exhausting physical toil of the modern ministry; long walks, wearying pastorising; the contact, so repugnant to all the training and instincts of a gentleman, with physical squalor, dirt, disorder, and disease in the fulfilment of his labours; unwelcome exposure to all weathers;—all may be sanctified into blows which “keep the body under.” Asceticism, ingeniously, gratuitously, inventively prescribed, is uncalled for. In the direct application of the possible figure (above), official defect, and condemnation of his official life and work, are most prominent. But not apart from personal unfaithfulness and failure, and a personal rejection. [He regards it as quite possible for a teacher to lose his life’s superstructure and building, whilst himself being saved because on the one foundation (1 Corinthians 3:14-15).] Personal unfaithfulness is by far the commonest cause of ministerial and official failure. Not the apostle only, but the man, has to take account of the liability to be at the last a “castaway.” So then:
II. An application of the principle to the personal life.—
1. Every Chris-tion may become a “castaway,” and miss the crown. [The thought, but not the same (original Greek) word, in Luke 9:25.] All safety is of God’s grace, with which the man must co-operate; [and the co-operation is in the strength of grace also]. The grace must go all the way, for the peril goes all the way. [To the last the Christian soldier is not on the parade-ground, but on the battle-field. He must hold himself ready for fighting or sudden attack at any moment. No “standing at ease”! Danger never far away.]
2. No man is exempt because of high honour, long service, or great success in the work of God; Paul had all these. Nor because of great gifts or grace at one time enjoyed; Paul had these. Through these, indeed, fatal temptation may reach the soul; e.g. if a man thus honoured and endowed become proud, self-satisfied, self-reliant to the exclusion of dependence upon God’s grace.
3. Each man should know his own liability, his own vulnerable point. Perhaps, safe everywhere else, he may, like Achilles, be in danger at the heel; the lowest part of his nature, that wherein he touches the earthly most nearly, may be the point of attack, rather than the heart or the exalted intellect.
4. Each man should “exercise” himself [Acts 24:16; the physical training of the combatant in the games]. Keeping himself well in hand; taking care that the spiritual is always the dominant element in his life. Yet the self-distrust, the watchfulness over oneself, the fear of the sad possibility of after all missing the prize, must not be so dwelt upon as to become a morbid dread, or a haunting terror, overshadowing with gloomy clouds the “joy of the Lord.” The case of a “castaway” is by God’s grace a very rare one, though a possible one. Moreover, dwell also upon the grace for the faithful, patient, successful running of the course until we say, “I have finished my course” (2 Timothy 4:7). [There is yet a Greater Runner than Paul Who is proposed for our contemplation (Hebrews 12:1-2): “Looking at (as well as unto) Jesus,” who has won His prize. Did He, may we not say, “keep under His” very “body”?] Leading up to the temple of Neptune at Corinth, close by the Isthmian race-ground, Pausanias the traveller saw two hundred statues of victors in the games, ranged in honourable array on either side of the path. What an inspiration to after-competitors! We, too, have our array of victors. Amongst the most distinguished stands the figure of Paul. No “castaway” after all! And the grace which kept him and crowned him may keep and crown any of us!
HOMILETIC SUGGESTIONS
1 Corinthians 9:24. Six Earnest Counsels on the Race of Life. (A Sermon to the Young.)
I. Trifle not; the business is earnest.
[“Each word we speak hath infinite effect;
Each soul we pass must go to heaven or hell;
And this our one chance through eternity;—
To drop and die like dead leaves on the brake,
Or like the meteor-stone …
Kindle the dry moors into a fruitful blaze.
Be earnest, earnest, earnest,—mad, if thou wilt!
Do what thou dost as if the stake were heaven
And that thy last deed ere the judgment day.” (Kingsley, Saint’s Tragedy.)]
II. Delay not; the opportunity is short.
III. Err not; the path is narrow. [“Narrow!” Yes; as the railway lines make a “narrow” track for the engine and its train. But the “narrow” grip of the rails upon the wheels is safety for the travellers. “Liberty” from their compulsion to keep the track is danger, disaster, ruin. Plenty of liberty to run forward, in the only safe direction, with all prudent speed.]
IV. Divide not your attention; the work is difficult. [“The children of this world are, in (for the aims and purposes of) their generation, wiser than the children of light.” The “Jack-of-all-trades” danger of some characters.]
V. Relax not your efforts; he only that endureth to the end shall be saved.
VI. Faint not; the prize is glorious.—[J. L., in part.]