A gay life, with its late hours, and ceaseless round of excitement, and bodily fatigue, is no easy life, and not healthy for either body or mind. And as for amusements of a more manly kind-games, and sport, and the chase-some know no moderation in them, but pursue them as the main business of life, and work as hard at them as a man can work for his bread. Is the game worth the candle? Is this a right view of life? Are there no nobler aims? Is there no higher work for health and strength to do? Here is the example of a life spent far differently. Here is a woman, a most loveable and attractive woman, labouring hard but not for pleasure, not for amusement, not "to pass the time," not for admiration, not for self in any shape, but "in the Lord," and for the Lord. No pleasureseeker, male or female, strives harder than she strove. I daresay she went from house to house, and had much bodily weariness, and was often up late (sometimes all night), and was often exhausted and weakened by what she did. But in how different a cause, and with how different aims! She sought to please, not herself but her Lord. Humbly imitating Him, she "went about doing good." If she was tired, it was in His service. If she was up all night, it was by some sick-bed. Was not this a better use to make of God's gifts of time and strength? Was not this a life more worth the living?

Those who work for the Lord serve no hard Master. He does not set them to labours that are

too hard for them, or tax them beyond their strength. It is not right, especially for the young and tender, to squander their powers, and thus soon to disable themselves for service. Persis "laboured much," but not too much. Yet, on the other hand, let not all self-denial, and all fatigue of body and mind, be shrunk from. Labour is labour. We cannot in general sit still, and do the work of God, though that indeed is the very thing to which He calls some of His servants—and then He will find them some sitting work to do for Him, or even lying-down work. But most of us must work for Him actively; and work is not play. Let us not grudge spending time for Him in a different way from that in which inclination might lead us to spend it; let us not too readily say, "I cannot; " let us not mind being tired sometimes. If others tire themselves so much in seeking pleasure, shall we shrink from all fatigue in serving our Lord and doing good? After labour comes rest, even here. If we come in weary, then we may rest awhile; and the rest will be sweet; for, though we can never be satisfied with what we have done, far less proud of it, yet we may have the humble trust that our Lord accepts it as done in faith and gratitude and love, and that He does number us among His servants. The very thought is refreshing. How different from the jaded resting of the tired pleasure-hunter!

EUODIA AND SYNTYCHE.

UST a glimpse, and no more, is all that we get of these two; in half a score of words is contained all we are directly told of them yet a light shines for us here, though but for a moment.

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They were women, both of them; for the name of the first ought to stand as Euodia, not Euodias -a woman's name, not a man's. They were two Christian women, dwellers in the same place, and members of one church. They lived at Philippi, and were members of the church there, and not only so, but active workers in it.

St. Paul is writing to the Philippians; and in his letter we come upon these words, "Euodia I beseech, and Syntyche I beseech, to be of the same mind in the Lord; for that is how the words exactly stand. But, though they seem to occur suddenly, these words are not to be disjoined from those that go before: "Therefore, my brethren, dearly beloved and longed for, my joy and crown, so stand fast in the Lord, my dearly beloved."1 1 Phil. iv. I, 2.

Thus earnestly and affectionately does the Apostle, out of the fulness of his heart, exhort all the brethren -the male and female disciples-at Philippi: but, even as he writes, he remembers something he has heard about two of them; Euodia and Syntyche have had a difference, and are not on perfectly good terms. Now, they could not stand fast in the Lord against the powers of darkness, unless there were unity among themselves, and if even two of their number were at variance, the spirit of discord might quickly spread; so he breaks off in his exhortation, and turns to these two, as if he were speaking to them face to face, and addresses them in a kind of parenthesis: "Euodia I beseech [or exhort], and Syntyche I beseech [or exhort], that they be of the same mind in the Lord."

What was the matter between them? Was it through any fault in them, that they were not of one mind? Had temper failed? Had there been a breach of the law of love? Had unkind words been spoken? Or was it merely that on some point they could not see eye to eye? We do not know. All we know is that they were not of one mind, and that Paul, whom both reverenced and loved, besought and exhorted them to be so.

But who were they? And what was their history? We can but conjecture from what is said, and from the circumstances. Paul himself had introduced the Gospel at Philippi, as also at Thessalonica: now if, like his letters to the Thessalonians, this Epistle to the Philippians had been written soon after, we

might have supposed these two to have been of the number of those women, who, with Lydia, used to resort to the river-side for prayer, and, like her, to have been converted then and there by the preaching of Paul; but this letter was not written till ten or twelve years after that visit, so that we cannot be at all sure that they were converted then. Yet Paul had been at Philippi several times since, and always took a peculiar interest in that church: clearly he knew these two women personally, for (as we shall see presently) they had laboured with him in the Gospel; we may be almost sure that, if not at his first visit, yet at some time they had been brought to the knowledge of Christ by his means. This gave him a great hold on them.

Their names are not Jewish, but Greek. Either therefore they had been, like Lydia, Jewish proselytes, or they had been heathen women. They were workers in the church, and had laboured with Paul himself: this appears from the words that come just after the mention of them. In our translation the words stand thus, "And I intreat thee also, true yokefellow, help those women which laboured with me in the Gospel;" but more correctly they are, "help them [meaning women, for the word is feminine] who laboured with me, or, inasmuch as they laboured with me," and the writer evidently refers to those just before named. First he breaks off and addresses Euodia and Syntyche, and then, before returning to the general exhortation, he commends 2 Acts xvi. 13-15.