prominent thought, there is always room for the flesh to act. There is nothing like having Christ Himself for our object. This was what Paul knew and lived in, and wished them to know better. Service brings in room for the human mind and feelings and energy. We are in danger of being occupied unduly with that which we do or what we suffer. Behind it lurks also the dangers of comparison, and so of envy, self- seeking, and strife. How blessedly the Apostle in Philippians 1 laid before them his feeling in presence of a far deeper, wider and more painful experience, we have seen already. It appears there was something of this kind at worn among the Philippians. Accordingly he here intimates to them that there was something necessary to complete his joy. He would see them of the same mind, and this by having not the same notions but the same love, with union of soul minding one thing. His own spirit was enjoying Christ increasingly. The earth, and man upon it, was a very little thing before his eyes; the thoughts of heaven were everything to him, so that he could say, "To me to live is Christ." This made his heart sensitive on their account, because there was something short of Christ, some objects besides Him in them. He desires fullness of joy in them. The Spirit of God gives hearts, purified by faith, a common object, even Christ. What he had known in them made him the more alive to that which was defective in these saints. He therefore makes a great deal of what he might have withheld if writing to others. In an assembly where there was much that dishonoured God, it would be useless to notice every detail. Wisdom would apply the grace of Christ to the overwhelming evils that met one's eye; lesser things would remain to be disposed of afterward by the same power. But in writing to saints in a comparatively good state, even a little speck assumes importance in the mind of the Spirit. There was something they might do or remedy to fill the cup of the Apostle's joy. How gladly he would hear that they shone in unity of spirit! He owned and felt their love; would that they cultivated the same mutually! How could they be more like-minded? If the mind were set upon one thing, they would all have the same mind. God has one object for His saints, and that object is Christ. With Paul, every aim, every duty was subordinate to Him; as it is said in the next chapter, "this one thing I do"; so here he wished to produce this one, common mind in the Philippian saints. He then touches on that which they had to watch against. "Let nothing be done through strife or vainglory." It is humbling, but too true, that the principle of the grossest evil outside works even among the saints of God. The traces might be so faint that none but an apostle's eye could perceive them. But God enabled His servant to discern in them what was not of Christ. Hence he sets before them the dangers alike of opposing one another and of exalting self, strife, and vainglory. Oh! how apt they are to creep in and sully the service of God! The chapter before had shown some elsewhere taking advantage of the Apostle's bonds to preach Christ of envy and strife. And there he had triumphed by faith and could rejoice that, any how, Christ was preached. Now he warns the beloved Philippians against something similar in their midst. The principle was there, and he does not fail to lay it upon their heart.