The reference is to the old Grecian games--the Olympian, the Isthmian, the Nemean, and the Pythian. These festivals, we are informed, originated with Pelops, were brought to perfection by Hercules and Atreus, and restored by Iphitus when they had fallen into neglect. Very popular they were, celebrated with great pomp and ceremony, and made use of to mark memorable events and public eras--that of consuls at Rome, of archons at Athens, of priestesses at Argos. From Greece they passed to Italy; and were so much in vogue at the world's metropolis, that an ancient author speaks of them as not less important to the people than their bread. With these spectacles both St. Paul and his beloved Timothy must have been well acquainted, and in the writings of the former no metaphors are more frequent than those drawn from the Grecian games. "I have fought a good fight"--literally, striven a good strife, or agonized a good agony. The reference is to the athletic contests of the arena--wrestling, boxing, and fighting with swords. The apostle's life had been a perpetual struggle and conflict. He says he has "fought with beasts at Ephesus"--a metaphorical description doubtless of his fierce encounter there with the enemies of Christianity. Wherever he went, he met hosts of foes, marshalled under the banners of Jewish prejudice and pagan superstition. And the world assailed him with all its enginery of temptation and persecution; and the native corruption of his own heart caused him many a sore conflict, though in all these things he was more than conqueror through the victorious Captain of his salvation. As with St. Paul, so with all Christians; baptized into a warfare with the world, the flesh and the Devil; and signed with the sign of the cross in token of this consecration as Christ's servants and soldiers to their life's end. But this is "a good fight"--in a good cause, under a good captain, with good arms, good allies, good comrades, good supplies, good success, and good rewards--in all respects better than the patriot's battle for freedom, the crusader's conflict for the holy sepulchre, or any competition ever maintained in the arenas of Greece and Rome. "I have finished my course." The figure is changed. Seated with fifty or sixty thousand spectators in the Circus Maximus, we are looking down upon the _stadium_, where men stripped to the waist, with eyes fixed upon the goal, are rushing along for the prize. There goes St. Paul! "Swiftest and foremost of the race, He carries victory in his face, He triumphs while he runs!"