father's training and of the Rabbinical law, which thus made him in Corinth, as before in Thessalonica, thoroughly independent of all external circumstances, and able with his own hands to minister to his body's wants. And it was a fortunate thing too for the gospel's sake that he was able to do so. St. Paul never permits any one to think for a moment that the claim of Christ's ministry for a fitting support is a doubtful one. He expressly teaches again and again, as in 1 Cor. ix., that it is the Scriptural as well as rational duty of the people to contribute according to their means to the maintenance of Christ's public ministry. But there were certain circumstances at Thessalonica, and above all at Corinth, which made St. Paul waive his just claim and even cramp, limit, and confine his exertions, by imposing on himself the work of earning his daily food. Thessalonica and Corinth had immense Jewish populations. The Jews were notorious in that age as furnishing the greatest number of impostors, quack magicians and every other kind of agency which traded upon human credulity for the purposes of gain. St. Paul was determined that neither Jew nor Gentile in either place should be able to hinder the work of the gospel by accusing him of self-seeking or covetous purposes. For this purpose he united with Aquila and Priscilla in working at their common trade as tentmakers, employing the Sabbath days in debating after his usual fashion in the Jewish synagogues; and upon ordinary days improving the hours during which his hands laboured upon the coarse hair cloth of which tents were made, either in expounding to his fellow-workmen the glorious news which he proclaimed or else in meditating upon the trials of his converts in Macedonia, or perhaps, most of all, in that perpetual communion with God, that never-ceasing intercession for which he ever found room and time in the secret chambers of the soul. St. Paul's intercessions as we read of them in his Epistles were immense. Intercessory prayers for his individual converts are frequently mentioned by him. It would have been impossible for a man so hard pressed with labours of every kind temporal and spiritual to find place for them all in formal prayers if St. Paul did not cultivate the habit of ceaseless communion with his Father in heaven, perpetually bringing before God those cases and persons which lay dearest to his heart. This habit of secret prayer must be the explanation of St. Paul's widespread intercessions, and for this reason. He commends the same practice again and again to his converts. "Pray without ceasing" is his language to the Thessalonians (1 Thess. v. 17). Now this could not mean, prolong your private devotions to an inordinate length, because great numbers of his converts were slaves who were not masters of their time. But it does mean cultivate a perpetual sense of God's presence and of your own communion with Him, which will turn life and its busiest work into a season of refreshing