THE SABBATH. 



Paul was too outspoken to escape assault. All in- 

 sincerity or double-facedness-all humbug, in short- 

 was hateful to him; and even among his colleagues 

 he found scope for this feeling. Judged by our stand- 

 ard of manliness, Peter, in moral stature, fell far short of 

 In that supreme moment when his Master re- 

 quired of him "the durance of a granite ledge" Peter 

 proved unstable as water." He ate with the Gentiles 

 when no Judeo-Christian was present to observe him- 

 but when such appeared he withdrew himself, fearing 

 those which were of the circumcision. Paul charged 

 him openly with dissimulation. But Paul's quarrel 

 Peter was more than personal. Paul contended 

 r a principle, and was determined at all hazards to 

 shield his Gentile children in the Lord from the yoke 

 which their Jewish co-religionists would have imposed 

 upon them - If thou," he says to Peter, being a Jew, 

 livest after the manner of the Gentiles, and not as do the 

 Jews, why compellest thou the Gentiles to live as the 

 In the spirit of a liberal, not in name but in 

 deed, he overthrew the Judaic preferences for days de- 

 ferring at the same time to the claims of conscience. 

 Let him who desires a Sabbath," he virtually savs 

 enjoy it; but let him not impose it on his brother 

 who does not." The rift thus revealed in the apostolic 

 lute widened with time, and Christian love was not the 

 feeling which long animated the respective followers of 

 Peter and Paul. 



We who have been born into a settled state of things 

 can hardly realise the commotion out of which this tran- 

 quillity has emerged. We have, for example, the canon 

 Scripture already arranged for us. But to sift and 

 these writings from the mass of spurious docu- 

 ments afloat at the time of compilation was a work of 

 t labour, difficulty, and responsibility. The age was 



