But contributions, however fragmentary, to the study of Consistency will not be in vain. "A Minister's life is the life of his ministry," says some one of other days with pithy force. "Happy those labourers of the Church," says blessed Quesnel, the Jansenist (on Mark vi. 33), "the sweet odour of whose lives draws the people to Jesus Christ." We all recognize the beauty and truth of such sayings. We all admit the fitness and duty of Consistency. But we must also recollect that in order to our consistency there is needed more than an abstract approbation; we must attend, we must reflect, we must examine ourselves, we must discipline ourselves, as those who aim at an object at once lovely and necessary. Above all, we must "order our steps in our Lord's Word," [Ps. cxix. 133.] and we must maintain a living communion of spirit with our Lord Himself, who is not only our Exemplar, our Law, and our King, but also our Secret, our Strength, our Life. CHAPTER V. _THE DAILY WALK WITH OTHERS_ (ii.). _If Jesus Christ thou serve, take heed, Whate'er the hour may be; His brethren are obliged indeed By their nobility._ In the present chapter I follow the general principles of the last into some further details. And I place before me as a sort of motto those twice-repeated words of the Apostle, TAKE HEED UNTO THYSELF. These words, it will be remembered, are addressed in both places to the Christian Minister. [Acts xx. 28; 1 Tim. iv. 6.] At Miletus St Paul gathers round him the Presbyters of Ephesus, and implores them to take heed to themselves, and to the flock. A few years later he writes to Timothy, commissioned (whether permanently or not) to be Pastor of Pastors in that same Ephesus, and lays it on his soul to take heed to himself, and to the doctrine. In each case the appeal to attend to "self" comes first, as the vital preliminary to the other. And in each case it takes the form of a solemn warning; not only "remember" but "TAKE HEED." TAKE HEED UNTO THYSELF. I have already tried to emphasize the duty of "heed-taking," in several directions. But I come in this chapter to some important matters which seem specially to fall under such a heading; matters in which the lack of prayerful heed may, and often does, work great and even fatal mischief in the lives of Clergymen. RELATIONS WITH WOMAN. i. Let me first say a little, in brotherly confidence and candour, about the young Clergyman's _relations with Woman_ in ordinary intercourse. It would be waste of words to talk about the delicacy of the subject; it is self-evident. And it is obvious also that in a book like this the subject can be treated only in the way of general suggestion; no vain attempt shall I make to state and discuss possible exceptional cases of social difficulty. But it is quite necessary to say something on this matter, for it is indeed a pressing and important thing in ministerial life.