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.