Philip, who began so conspicuously, and so suddenly ceased to be the special instrument in the hands of the Spirit, kept plod, plod, plodding on, with no bitterness of heart. For twenty years he had no share in the development of Gentile Christianity, of which he had sowed the first seed, but had to do much less conspicuous work. He toiled away there in Caesarea patient, persevering, and contented, because he loved the work, and he loved the work because he loved Him that had set it. He seemed to be passed over by his Lord in His choice of instruments. It was he who was selected to be the first man that should preach to the heathen. But did you ever notice that Cornelius was not bid to apply to Philip, who was probably in Cæsarea at the time, but to send to Joppa for the Apostle Peter? Philip might have sulked, and said: "Why was I not chosen to do this work? I will speak no more in this Name.”

It did not fall to his lot to be the apostle to the Gentiles. One who came after him was preferred before him, and the Hellenist Saul was set to the task which might have seemed naturally to belong to the Hellenist Philip. He too might have said, "He must increase, but I must decrease." No doubt he did say it in spirit, with noble self-abnegation and freedom from jealousy. He cordially welcomed Paul to his house in Cæsarea twenty years afterwards, and rejoiced that one sows and another reaps; and so the division of labour is the multiplication of gladness.

A beautiful superiority to all the low thoughts that are apt to mar our persistency in unobtrusive and unrecognised work is set before us in this story. There are many temptations to day, dear brethren,

what with gossiping newspapers and other means of publicity for everything that is done, for men to say, "Well, if I cannot get any notice for my work I shall not do it."

Boys in the street will refuse to join in games, saying, "I shall not play unless I am captain, or have the big drum." And there are not wanting Christian men who lay down like conditions. "Play well thy part," whatever it is. Never mind the honour. Do the duty God appoints, and He that has the two mites of the widow in His treasury will never forget any of our works, and at the right time will tell them out before His Father, and before the holy angels.

VI.

The Martyrdom of James.

"HEROD killed James, the brother of John, with the sword."

ACTS xii. 2.

NE might have expected more than a clause to be spared, to tell the death of a chief man and the first martyr amongst the apostles. James, as we know, was one of the first group of

the apostles who were in especial close connection with Jesus Christ. He is associated in the Gospels with Peter and his brother John, and is always named before John, as if he were the more important of the two by reason of age or of other circumstances unknown to us. But yet we know next to nothing about him. In the Acts of the Apostles he is a mere lay figure; his name is only mentioned in the catalogue at the beginning, and here again in the brief notice of his death. This reticence and the merely incidental character of the notice of his martyrdom are sufficiently remarkable. I think the lessons of the fact, and of the, I was going to say, slight way in which the writer of this book refers to it, may perhaps be most pointedly brought out if we take four con

trasts-James and Stephen, James and Peter, James and John, James and James.

I.—First, then, James and Stephen.

sentence.

Look at the different scale on which the deaths of these two are told: the martyrdom of the one is beaten out over chapters, the martyrdom of the other is crammed into a corner of a And yet, of the two men, the one who is the less noticed filled the larger place officially, and the other was only a simple deacon and preacher of the Word. The fact that Stephen was the first Christian to follow his Lord in martyrdom is not sufficient to account for the extraordinary difference. The difference is to be sought for in another direction altogether. The Bible cares so little about the people whom it names because its true theme is the works of God, and not of man; and the reason why the Acts of the Apostles "kills off one of the first three apostles in this fashion is simply that, as the writer tells us, his theme is "all that Jesus" continued "to do and to teach" after He was taken up. Since it is Christ who is the true actor, it matters uncommonly little what becomes of James or of the other ten. This book is not the "Acts of the Apostles," but it is the Acts of Jesus Christ.

I might suggest, too, in like manner, that there is another contrast which I have not included in my four, between the scale on which the death of Jesus Christ is told by Luke, and that on which this death is narrated. What is the reason why so disproportionate a space of the Gospel is concerned with the last two days of our Lord's life on earth? What is the reason why years are leaped over in silence and

moments are spread out in detail, but that the death of a man is only a death, but the death of the Christ is the life of the world?

It is little needful that we should have poetical, emotional, picturesque descriptions of martyrdoms and the like in a book which is altogether devoted to tracking the footsteps of Christ in history; and which regards men as nothing more than the successive instruments of His purpose, and the depositories of His grace.

Another lesson which we may draw from the reticence in the one case, and the expansiveness in the other, that of the protomartyr of the Church, is that of a wise indifference to the utterly insignificant accident of posthumous memory or oblivion, of us and our deeds and sufferings. James sleeps none the less sweetly in his grave, or, rather, wakes none the less triumphantly in heaven, because his life and death are both so scantily narrated. If we "self-infold the large results" of faithful service, we need not trouble ourselves about its record on earth.

But another lesson which may be learned from this cursory notice of the apostle's martyrdom is-how small a thing death really is! Looked at from beside the Lord of life and death, which is the point of view of the author of this narrative," great death" dwindles to a very little thing. We need to revise our notions if we would understand how trivial it really is. To us it frowns like a black cliff blocking the upper end of our valley; but there is a path round its base, and though the throat of the pass be narrow, it has room for us to get through, and up to the sunny uplands beyond. From a mountain top the country below