The Birmingham age-herald., 1907-04-14

anee of restraining ourselves from indul- gences which. whether harmful or not in themselves, might make our example 8 stumbling block to others. The text is Corinthians vii, IS, If meat make my brother to offend. I will eat no flesh while the world standeth."
 Corinth, beautiful Corinth; Corinth with thy legends of ancient times; corinth the great business ganglia, or the nerve center of two continents, for there the merchantmen of Europe and Asia eN- changed their goods: Corinth with it's Acro-Corinthus rising 1900 feet high, crowned with a frowning fortress aptly called .the Gibraltar of the east" Co- rinth with it's great amphitheatres, where men fought with men and where the glad iators' blood mingled with the blood of the savage beasts slain in demoniac struggles; Corinth wits it's Posidonium, where the famous isthmian games took place, from which arena Paul feathered many of his gospel arrows to drive home his divine message Corinth with it's most famous temple of the old world looming above many heathen shrines-oh, Corinth beau- tiful Corinth, opulent Corinth, aesthetic Corinth no wonder Paul wanted to go and see thee and preach Jesus Christ within thy gates!
 The shrines and the idols must have been everywhere when Paul first went to Corinth They must have been as multitudinous as are the idols today in Benares. where temples line the sacred Ganges for miles. These Corinthian idols must have been on every hilltop and in every valley. They must have been in every street and in every home and by every fireside. Idols must have been crowding each other in old Corinth for elbow room, even as they did in Athens. Truly Corinth was the home of commerce and literature and art, but it was more than that It was one of the great ancient Meccas of idol worshipers.
 Now there was a very strange Cor inthian custom of idol worship which any man who has travelled in fhe far east can readily grasp, because there you have seen food placed upon the altars as sacri- flee to idols The Corinthian priests at stated times of the week would kill cat tie and sheep and lay certain parts of the dead bodies of these animals upon the altars of their idols There they were allowed to stay for some four or five hours. Of course that was not long enough time for the meat to spoil. Then this meat was taken off the altars and sold to the people Because this meat was placed upon the shrines of the idols it was looked upon with prejudice by many people and had to be sold in the Corinthian markets at very reduced rate. Now, Paul was a man Of great un- common common sense. He said prac- tcally this: ''Here I have to support my selft by tentmalSing. If buS my meat cheaper. I can live cheaper, because it will take me less time to earn a living, and I will be able to have more time to preach Jesus Christi" Then Paul again said: "Why should I not eat this meat which once lay upon the heather altars :? It is not tainted meat. I can buy 1t for half the price of other meat Yes, while I stay here in the Corinthian capital l will buy this meat and eat this meat, because it is good and wholesome and the cheap est of all meats"
 Narrow Minded Christians.
 But in that Corinthian capital there were lot of very narrow minded Christi ians. Their minds were so narrow and their souls were so bigoted that they were always ready to place the magnifying glass to their eye and focus 1t upon a nonessential atom and make it loom up before them as huge mountain of errors These narrow minded bigots had genius for splitting hairs. They could argue for days and weeks upon simple trival question, and they rose up in protest against Paul buying and eating the meat from off the heather altars.
 Why" I can hear them say, Paul if you eat that meat you are practically an idol worshiper. You are the same as one who bows in worship at the shrine of the licentious Venus. You are Just as bad as any of these idolatrous priests. Al right" says Paul. eff you look at it
 in that way, I will stop eating the sacri- ficial meat. I am not going to stop be- cause it is wrong for me to eat it. but I am going to stop because some of you futf ha1f fdI I,a | txflI not be a spiritual stumbling block to any man. Then Paul writes these words of my text: "Wherefore if meat make my brother to offend I will eat no flesh while the world standeth. lest I make my brother to offend" Oh, did you ever know a man to take a wiser stand for Christ than did Paul in that sentence ? Can we not be just as true and as faith ful in yielding in non-essentials for Cnrist's sake as was Paul when he yield ed to the scruples of the ancient Chris tians in old Corinth?
 Now let us try to analyze some of the characteristics of Pauls character which thi- decision indicates. In the first place, l would remind you that Paul was a gos- pei evangelist, who made every thought, every act, every desire of his body. mind and soul coinverge to the one purpose of preaching Jesus Christ to the world anu of bringing sinful men to bow at the cross of Christ. He was not a con- scienceless derelict upon the great sea of humanity to be driven about by every stormy wind and to be beaten off his course by every diverging current. When a principle was at stake you could not swerve Paul from his course There never was a gospel preacher who hewed closer to the straight line of truth than did this man Paul
 A Closer Look.
 Come, let us look a little closer at this resolve. Do you suppose Paul personally liked to eat this meat from off the heather altars? I think not. Would you have liked to eat it? No; you would no more have desired to eat that meat than you would like to eat the flesh of some animals killed in a Spanish bullfight. I had dear friend who some years ago went to the Mexican capital and saw some of these poor helpless animals slain by the matadores. He said that it was the most sickening sight of his life. For days and nights he could see the poor wound ed beasts, some of them with their en- trails dragging upon the ground, and he could hear the screams of the frightened horses ripped open by the merciess horns. Just outside of that arena he saw the butcher wagons standing. On his way back to the city hotel he saw these wagons rumbling past filled with the car- casses of the slain bulls. When he saw those wagons he said that he felt he was looking at the dead carts carrying away the decapitated corpses from the French gullotine during the tragic ascendency of a Robespierre, Marat and a Dan- ton. "Why, sickening was the sight" said he, that during all my stay in the Mexican capital l refused to eat beef for