we who belong to Christ shall also rise. Christ's resurrection is the pledge of the resurrection of his people; and Paul tells us that that resurrection is a resurrection to spiritual life. We are to have a spiritual body, by which I suppose he means not a body which is spirit, which is a contradiction of terms, but a body that is perfect, a body swift in movement as the light, and, notwithstanding, composed of material elements. The mystery of resurrection is not, by any means, solved, nor is it shown how the thing may be; but he tells us that God can and will work this wonder for his people.

Now, the apostle leaves his letter to produce its proper result. He goes on with his work. But his heart is deeply burdened; he longs to know the result of this instruction. Will this Corinthian church obey his teaching? Will it give up this party spirit? Will it harmonize its differences and accept his doctrine? All this rests like a burden upon his heart; and when the uproar occurs at Ephesus and drives him out, he goes to Troas, trying to get a little nearer to Corinth. In order to learn the news he sends Titus to Corinth to enforce his instructions. Learning nothing at Troas, he goes on to Macedonia. There Titus comes to him, bringing news that the Corinthians had received his letter as the very word of God; that they had excommunicated the incestuous person; that they had submitted themselves to his commands; and that the main sources of difficulty and trouble had been removed.

His deep anxiety was suddenly changed to overflowing joy. He sits down and writes the Second Epistle to the Corinthians at Philippi, about six months

after the first had been written. In that Second Epistle to the Corinthians the very heart of the apostle Paul pours itself out in gratitude and love, and in thanksgiving to God for what he had wrought in the church of Corinth. After the first part of the Second Epistle, devoted to this expression of gratitude, has been written, he passes on to urge them now, as a token of their thankfulness to God, to partake in a contribution which he is making up for the church at Jerusalem. He wishes to carry back to Jerusalem a last token of his regard for the mother church, from which all these churches through the world have sprung, and he wants to engage the members of the church at Corinth in the work of making up this collection.

Then he devotes the last portion of the Second Epistle to urging his claims upon those who still resist his authority, for there were some bitter Jews who still resisted him, and he warns them that when he comes to them, as he shortly will, he will show that he is strong in his personal presence as well as strong in his letters.

These two Epistles to the Corinthians are wonderful Epistles. They show the apostle's wisdom, but then they also show the apostle's heart. There is a gentleness and tenderness in them that is marvelous. I do not wonder that Lord Littleton called the apostle Paul the finest gentleman that ever lived.

Think of the church at Corinth. How the apostle trusted them, and what courtesy he showed them! He wants them sanctified in Christ Jesus. That was what they ought to be, that was their normal condition. Paul knew there were many good souls among them

that longed for nothing but the coming of God; and he groups them all together and speaks of them as Christians and sanctified in Christ Jesus.

It is a beautiful illustration of the way in which Christians ought to take people at their best, have a high consideration for them, make allowance for their failures, take it for granted that they intend to do well, and then urge them to be faithful to the gospel of Jesus Christ.

THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS

We study to-day the Epistle to the Galatians. Galatia constituted a large part of central Asia Minor. It had large cities-Pessinus, Ancyra, Tavium, and Iconium. At Pessinus there was the temple of the goddess Cybele, the most widely revered of all pagan divinities; and at Ancyra there was the temple of Augustus and Rome. But the Galatians, to whom the apostle wrote his Epistle, were not scattered through all that Roman Province of Galatia; they belonged to the region of the Gauls, in the northwestern part of Galatia. With Moffatt, in the "Encyclopedia Brittannica," II: 394, I hold to the North Galatian, rather than to the South Galatian, theory as to locality.1

It is very interesting to observe that Galati and Gauls are the same thing. Galati, Galli, Gauls are all one. It may surprise you at first to have these people in northwestern Asia Minor identified with the Gauls of France and the west bank of the Rhine; but so it is, and modern ethnological and genealogical research has brought this fact to light. This fact helps us very much to understand the Epistle which we are studying to-day.

In general we may say that the migration of nations has been from the east to the west. Wave after wave

1 Moffatt's words are: "The identification of Gal. 2: 1-10 with Acts 11: 28 f., and not with Acts 15. appears quite untenable, while a fair exegesis of Acts 16: 1-6 implies a distinction between such towns as Lystra, Derbe, and Iconium on the one hand, and the Galatian xúpa with Phrygia upon the other." Moffatt's view is also held by Schmiedel, in his article on Galatians, in the "Encyclopædia Biblica"; and by Gilbert, in his "Student's Life of Paul."

went westward from Central Asia, until at last each wave broke upon the coast of the ocean. Wave after wave went westward, but there were some refluent waves. There was occasionally a backward movement. Although the tide generally flowed from the east to the west, there was occasionally an ebb-tide; and such an ebb-tide in this advance of population gave rise to the settlement of this portion of Asia Minor by the Gauls. Repulsed perhaps by the chilly climate and almost impenetrable forests, some of these Gauls turned back from the west bank of the Rhine and marched in a southeasterly direction, probably in order that they might find a warmer climate and more fertile soil.

They were warlike and freedom-loving; they made their attempt to conquer Greece; and from Greece they were repulsed. Having been repulsed from Greece, they seem still to have pursued their march in a southeasterly direction until, invited by Nicomedes, King of Bithynia, in Asia Minor, they crossed the Hellespont, conquered the central portion of Asia Minor, and there took up their permanent abode.

These Gauls, half-barbarians as they were, were the scourge and terror of Asia Minor for almost half a century; but Greeks settled among them in so great numbers that the region began to be called GalloGræcia. And Jews settled among them, because this country was in direct line of the caravan route from the East to the West. The Jew had ever in mind the purpose of trade. The Greeks and the Jews gradually mixed with the original Gallic and barbarian population, until at last they became more quiet and civilized and more settled in their habits.