For the first, and by far the least of the two, is St. Paul. Now St. Paul says this was the very plan by which he got influence over men, and persuaded and converted them, and brought them home to God, by being himself a servant to all men, and pleasing all men, being a Jew to the Jews, and a Greek to the Greeks, and all things to all men, if by any means he might save some. Giving up, giving way, taking trouble, putting himself out of the way, as we say here, all day long, to win people to love him, and trust him, and see that he really cared for them, and therefore to be ready to listen to him. From what one can see of St. Paul's manners, from his own Epistles, he must have been the most perfect gentleman; a gentle man, civil, obliging, delicate minded, careful to hurt no one's feelings; and when he had (as he had often) to say rough things and deal with rough men, doing it as tenderly and carefully as he could, like his Master the Lord Jesus Christ, lest he should break the bruised reed, or quench the smoking flax. Which of us can read the Epistle to Philemon (which to my mind is the most civil, pleasant, kindly, gentlemanlike speech which I know on earth), without saying to ourselves, "Ah, if we had but St. Paul's manners, St. Paul's temper, St. Paul's way of managing people, how few quarrels there would be in this noisy troublesome world." But I said that there was one greater than St. Paul who was not ashamed to behave in the very same way, stooping to all, conciliating all. And so there is--One whose shoes St. Paul was not worthy to stoop down and unloose--and that is, the Lord Jesus Christ Himself--who ate and drank with publicans and sinners, who went out into the highways and hedges, to bring home into God's kingdom poor wretches whom men despised and cast off. It was He who taught St. Paul to behave in the same way. May He teach us to behave in the same way also! St. Paul learnt to discern men's spirits, and feel for them, and understand them, and help them, and comfort them, and at last to turn and change them whichever way he chose, simply because he was full of the Spirit of Christ, who is the Spirit of God, proceeding both from the Father and the Son.