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I. WHAT SORT OF RESULTS ST. PAUL EXPECTED TO FLOW FROM THE RECONCILING AND COMBINING POWER OF THE CHRISTIAN FAITH. Certainly slavery was repugnant to the spirit of Christianity, to the spirit of Him who had vindicated the rights of our human nature, and who had indefinitely enhanced its dignity by taking that nature upon Him at His incarnation. But the business of the apostles was of a higher and of a Diviner sort then that of inaugurating a violent social revolution. The revolt of Sparticus with all that had followed was still fresh in the memory of the world, and the apostles addressed themselves to the practical task of lodging the Christian faith and life in the minds and hearts of masters and slaves alike, confident that in time that faith would act as a powerful solvent upon the institution, by eating out its very spirit. The Christian master would feel that the slave was certainly as a man his equal, and possibly in the kingdom of the Redeemer his superior, and that he too, the while, had a Master in heaven. And the Christian slave would feel that the circumstances of this life mattered little if, through the Divine redemption, he were secure for the next; and he would see in his master's will, wherever he could, nothing less than the will of God. The apostles, then, would not anticipate the slow but certain action of the Christian principles upon society, the infiltration of the Christian spirit into the Imperial codes; the gradual legislation of the great Catholic councils; the work which, too long delayed, is associated in our latter days with the honoured names of Wilberforce and Clarkson. When Philemon received Onesimus, a great Christian enterprise of reconciling classes had indeed begun. What are we doing to further it?

II. HOW ENTIRELY, FOR THE TIME BEING, ST. PAUL'S INTEREST IS CONCENTRATED ON A SINGLE SOUL. He writes just as though there was no person in the world to think about except Onesimus, add relatively to Onesimus his master Philemon. Now, here is a lesson which is much needed, it seems, in our day. Our fashion is to think and speak of religion as an abstract influence, to forget that to be worth anything it must be a power reigning in the individual life. We talk grandly and vaguely about the tendencies of the age, about the dangers of the age, about the modern spirit, about a number of fine abstract phrases and conceptions, which just slightly, each one of them, stimulate the imagination, and which exact no sacrifice whatever from the will. We utter or we listen to these imposing abstractions at a public meeting, and we forget that they mean nothing — nothing whatever — apart from the life and experience of each separate soul. They are creations of our own thought; but souls, they are independent realities. The soul is there, whether we think about it or not. All the real good that is to be done in the Church or in the world must begin with individual characters, with single souls. Phrases die away upon the breeze — souls remain. They remain in their ignorance, in their perplexity, in their sorrows. They remain awaiting death, awaiting eternity. Many a teacher of two or three children, of a few pupils, who seem dull and irresponsive, and little likely to do their instructor credit — many a teacher is often tempted to wish that he had what is called a larger sphere of action, where he might control great issues, and become a leader or a fashioner of the thought of the lime. If any such one hears me, let him think of Paul, the aged apostle of the nations, working away as the dreary hours passed, working away on the dull brain and on the sluggish affections of the slave Onesimus. The world, it has been well said, is not saved by abstract ideas, however brilliant. The world is saved by the courageous individualising efforts of Christian love.

III. HOW A CHRISTIAN SHOULD LOOK AT THE EVENTS OF LIFE, at the commonplace and trivial events, as well as those which appear to be striking and important. Every such event has a purpose, whether we can trace it or not. It is a purpose which will be made plain in the eternal world, in the mysterious state of existence which awaits every one of us when we have passed the gate of death. To St. Paul, the future life was just as certain as the shining of the sun in the heavens, and therefore he writes quite naturally to Philemon: "Perhaps Onesimus was therefore parted from thee for a season, that thou mightest receive him forever." And yet observe the "perhaps"! St. Paul will not encourage us in a rash and presumptuous confidence when we endeavour to interpret in detail God's providences in this life by the light of the next. We may conjecture that such and such an event is permitted for such and such an end, which will be agreeable to the known will and attributes of God; we cannot know that it is so. Some well-meaning, but unthinking people, undertake to interpret a human life, just as they undertake the Revelation of St. John, with an easy reliance on their own insight, which nothing but ignorance of the real difficulties of the subject can possibly explain. St. Paul saw as far as most men into the purposes of God, and yet, when he would interpret God's purpose in respect of a given human life, he reverently adds "Perhaps" — "Perhaps he therefore was parted from thee for a season, that thou mightest receive him forever." St. Paul describes what took place, but in his own religious language. Onesimus had robbed Philemon and had fled from justice: St. Paul says, "He was parted from thee for a time." St. Paul sees a higher hand in what seemed to be only the act of Onesimus. If Onesimus robbed and fled from his master, God permitted him to do so, and this permission we are told was probably given in order to bring about the conversion of Onesimus to the Christian faith and his reunion with his master Philemon, first in this life at Colosse, and then forever in the life everlasting. Now, what is here remarkable is that even the misconduct of Onesimus seems to have been, according to St. Paul, permitted for a purpose which would be made plain in the future life. God knew what he was doing in permitting the misconduct of Onesimus. It was for Philemon to forget the petty and personal aspects of the case, to recognise God's hand and mind in it; to throw his thought upward and forward from the present to the future; upward from the lower world of sense and time, to the mighty world, with its immense proportions, of eternity. Observe this is a rule of thought. It is not for us men a rule of action. Never are we authorised to do evil that good may come, though we are bound to extract all the good we can out of the evil that may be done by others; and to trace God's hand in bringing good out of evil which He permits His creatures to work.

(Canon Liddon.)

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KJV: For perhaps he therefore departed for a season, that thou shouldest receive him for ever;

WEB: For perhaps he was therefore separated from you for a while, that you would have him forever,