such shall have trouble in the flesh:  but I spare you.”  That is, I will spare you this trouble, in recommending a single, solitary life.  You will observe that in these words he attributes no intrinsic merit or dignity to either celibacy or marriage.  The comparative advantages of these two states he decides with reference to two considerations; first of all with respect to their comparative power in raising the character of the individual, and afterwards with reference to the opportunities which each respectively gives for the service of God.

I. With respect to the single life, he tells us that he had his own proper gift from God; in other words, he was one of those rare characters who have the power of living without personal sympathy.  The feelings and affections of the Apostle Paul were of a strange and rare character—­tending to expansiveness rather than concentration.  Those sympathies which ordinary men expend upon a few, he extended to many.  The members of the churches which he had founded at Corinth, and Ephesus, and Colosse, and Philippi, were to him as children; and he threw upon them all that sympathy and affection which other men throw upon their own domestic circle.  To a man so trained and educated, the single life gave opportunities of serving God which the marriage state could not give.  St. Paul had risen at once to that philanthropy—­that expansive benevolence, which most other men only attain by slow degrees, and this was made, by God’s blessing, a means of serving his cause.  However we may sneer at the monastic system of the Church of Rome, it is unquestionable that many great works have been done by the monks which could not have been performed by men who had entered into the marriage relationship.  Such examples of heroic Christian effort as are seen in the lives of St. Bernard, of Francis Xavier, and many others, are scarcely ever to be found except in the single state.  The forlorn hope in battle, as well as in the cause of Christianity, must consist of men who have no domestic relationships to divide their devotion, who will leave no wife nor children to mourn over their loss.

Let this great truth bring its improvement to those who, either of their own choice, or by the force of circumstances, are destined hereafter to live a single life on earth; and, instead of yielding to that feeling so common among mankind—­the feeling of envy at another’s happiness—­instead of becoming gloomy, and bitter and censorious, let them remember what the Bible has to tell of the deep significance of the Virgin Mary’s life—­let them reflect upon the snares and difficulties from which they are saved—­let them consider how much more time and money they can give to God—­that they are called to the great work of serving Causes, of entering into public questions, while others spend their time and talents only upon themselves.  The state of single life, however we may be tempted to think lightly of it, is a state that has peculiar