250 ESSAYS SCIENTIFIC AND PHILOSOPHICAL. 



XIII. 



THE PRIDE OF INTELLECT. 1 



"Who is sufficient for these things." 2 COR. ii. 16. 



ST. PAUL is thinking of the Christian minister, and 

 of the greatness of the charge entrusted to him. 

 He is a steward, a messenger commissioned by 

 God to declare the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Whether 

 men will hear or whether they will forbear, his duty 

 is the same. Whether men are pleased or offended 

 at his words, he cannot but speak. And he may 

 not shrink from declaring the whole counsel of 

 God, though the inevitable result must be that to 

 some it is the savour of death unto death, and to 

 others the savour of life unto life. Is not such 

 a trust too high for man ? Will it not inevitably 

 tend to one of two results ? Either men conscious 

 of their own unfitness will shrink from the work, 

 like Moses when he asked, " Who am I that I 

 should go before Pharaoh ? " or else it will carry 

 with it a fatal sense of self-importance which will 

 be the ruin of the work. 



1 The "Pride" Sermon; preached before the University of 

 Oxford, on Sunday, November 24, 1889. 



