the principle upon which the apostle founds this decision.  It is given in the text—­“This I say, brethren, the time is short:  it remaineth that both they that have wives be as though they had none,” “for the fashion of this world passeth away.”  Now observe here, I pray you, the deep wisdom of this apostolic decision.  In point of fact it comes to this:  Christianity is a spirit, not a law; it is a set of principles, not a set of rules; it is not a saying to us—­You shall do this, you shall not do that—­you shall use this particular dress, you shall not use that—­you shall lead, you shall not lead a married life—­Christianity consists of principles, but the application of those principles is left to every man’s individual conscience.  With respect not only to this particular case, but to all the questions which had been brought before him, the apostle applies the same principle; the cases upon which he decided were many and various, but the large, broad principle of his decision remains the same in all.  You may marry, and you have not sinned; you may remain unmarried, and you do not sin; if you are invited to a heathen feast, you may go, or you may abstain from going; you may remain a slave, or you may become free; in these things Christianity does not consist.  But what it does demand is this:  that whether married or unmarried, whether a slave or free, in sorrow or in joy, you are to live in a spirit higher and loftier than that of the world.

The apostle gives us in the text two motives for this Christian unworldliness.  The first motive which he lays down is this—­“The time is short.”  You will observe how frequently, in the course of his remarks upon the questions proposed to him, the apostle turns, as it were entirely away from the subject, as if worn-out and wearied by the comparatively trivial character of the questions—­as if this balancing of one earthly condition or advantage with another, were but a solemn trifling compared with eternal things.  And so here, he seems to turn away from the question before him, and speaks of the shortness of time.  “The time is short!”

Time is short in reference to two things.  First, it is short in reference to the person who regards it.  That mysterious thing Time is a matter of sensation, and not a reality; a modification merely of our own consciousness, and not actual existence; depending upon the flight of ideas—­long to one, short to another.  The span granted to the butterfly, the child of a single summer, may be long; that which is given to the cedar of Lebanon may be short.  The shortness of time, therefore is entirely relative—­belonging to us not to God.  Time is short in reference to existence, whether you look at it before or after.  Time past seems nothing; time to come always seems long.  We say this chiefly for the sake of the young.  To them fifty or sixty years seem a treasure inexhaustible.  But, my young brethren, ask the old man, trembling