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ENVIRONMENTAL ENGINEERING,
SIXTH EDITION

Environmental Engineering: Water, Wastewater, Soil and Groundwater Treatment and Remediation Sixth Edition
Edited by Nelson L. Nemerow, Franklin J. Agardy, Patrick Sullivan, and Joseph A. Salvato
Copyright © 2009 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. ISBN: 978-0-470-08303-1
ENVIRONMENTAL
ENGINEERING, SIXTH
EDITION
Water, Wastewater, Soil and
Groundwater Treatment
and Remediation

EDITED BY NELSON L. NEMEROW, FRANKLIN J. AGARDY,

PATRICK SULLIVAN, AND JOSEPH A. SALVATO

John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

This book is printed on acid-free paper.
Copyright  2009 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved.

Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey.

Published simultaneously in Canada

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any
form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise,
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data:

Environmental engineering. Water, wastewater, soil, and groundwater treatment
and remediation / edited by Franklin J. Agardy and Patrick Sullivan.—6th ed.
p. cm.
Selected and revised from earlier work: Environmental engineering /
[edited by] Joseph A. Salvato, Nelson L. Nemerow, Franklin J. Agardy. 5th ed. 2005.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-470-08303-1 (cloth)
1. Water—Purification. 2. Water treatment plants. 3. Sewage—Purification.
4. Sewage disposal plants. 5. Pollution. 6. Soil remediation. I. Agardy,
Franklin J. II. Sullivan, Patrick J., Ph.D. III.
Title: Water, wastewater, soil, and groundwater treatment and remediation.
TD430.E58 2009
628.1—dc22
2008032160

Printed in the United States of America

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
 Doctors Agardy and Sullivan would like to dedicate this sixth edition of
Environmental Engineering to Nelson L. Nemerow who passed away in
December of 2006. Dr. Nemerow was born on April 16, 1923 and spent
most of his productive years as an educator and prolific author. He spent
many years teaching at Syracuse University, the University of Miami, North
Carolina State, Florida International, and Florida Atlantic University. He
authored some 25 books dedicated to advancing the art of waste disposal
and utilization. His passion was waste minimization and the title of one of
his most recent publications, Zero Pollution for Industry, summed up more
than fifty years of teaching and consulting. A devoted husband and father,
he divided his time between residences in Florida and Southern California.
Nelson served in the United States Merchant Marine during World War II.
His commitment to excellence was second to none.
CONTENTS

PREFACE xiii
CONTRIBUTORS xv

CHAPTER 1 WATER SUPPLY 1

T. David Chinn
Introduction / 1
Groundwater Pollution Hazard / 3
Travel of Pollution through the Ground / 5
Disease Transmission / 10
Water Quantity and Quality / 10
Water Cycle and Geology / 10
Groundwater Flow / 13
Groundwater Classification / 16
Water Quality / 17
Sampling and Quality of Laboratory Data / 26
Sanitary Survey and Water Sampling / 30
Sampling Frequency / 33
Water Analyses / 36
Heterotrophic Plate Count—The Standard Plate Count / 37
Bacterial Examinations / 38
Biological Monitoring / 42
Virus Examination / 42
Protozoa and Helminths Examination / 43
Specific Pathogenic Organisms / 43
Physical Examinations / 44
Microscopic Examination / 46
Chemical Examinations / 48
Drinking Water Additives / 68
vii
viii CONTENTS

Water Quantity / 69
Water Conservation / 70
Water Reuse / 75
Source and Protection of Water Supply / 77
General / 77
Groundwater / 88
Dug Well / 88
Bored Well / 89
Driven and Jetted Well / 90
Drilled Well / 91
Well Development / 93
Grouting / 96
Well Contamination—Cause and Removal / 99
Spring / 101
Infiltration Gallery / 101
Cistern / 103
Domestic Well-Water Supplies—Special Problems / 105
Household Treatment Units (Point-of-Use and
Point-of-Entry) / 108
Desalination / 111
References / 118
Bibliography / 126

CHAPTER 2 WATER TREATMENT 133

T. David Chinn
Treatment of Water—Design and Operation Control / 133
Introduction / 133
Surface Water / 134
Treatment Required / 135
Disinfection / 136
Gas Chlorinator / 137
Testing for Residual Chlorine / 138
Chlorine Treatment for Operation and
Microbiological Control / 139
Distribution System Contamination / 145
Plain Sedimentation / 146
Microstraining / 146
Coagulation, Flocculation, and Settling / 147
Filtration / 149
 CONTENTS ix

Slow Sand Filter / 149

Rapid Sand (Granular Media) Filter / 151
Direct Filtration / 157
Pressure Sand Filter / 160
Diatomaceous Earth Filter / 160
Package Water Treatment Plant / 161
Water Treatment Plant Wastewater and Sludge / 162
Causes of Tastes and Odors / 162
Control of Microorganisms / 163
Zebra Mussel and Its Control / 169
Aquatic Weed Control / 169
Other Causes of Tastes and Odors / 170
Methods to Remove or Reduce Objectionable Tastes
and Odors / 172
Iron and Manganese Occurrence and Removal / 182
Corrosion Cause and Control / 187
Removal of Inorganic Chemicals / 197
Prevention and Removal of Organic Chemicals / 201
Water System Design Principles / 205
Water Quantity / 205
Design Period / 206
Watershed Runoff and Reservoir Design / 206
Intakes and Screens / 208
Pumping / 209
Distribution Storage Requirements / 210
Peak Demand Estimates / 213
Distribution System Design Standards / 217
Small Distribution Systems / 220
Fire Protection / 220
Cross-Connection Control / 222
Hydropneumatic Systems / 226
Pumps / 231
Displacement Pump / 231
Centrifugal Pump, Also Submersible and Turbine / 233
Jet Pump / 235
Air-Lift Pump / 235
Hydraulic Ram / 236
Pump and Well Protection / 237
Pump Power and Drive / 237
x CONTENTS

Automatic Pump Control / 239

Water Hammer / 239
Rural Water Conditions in the United States / 240
Design of a Household Water System / 242
Examples / 242
Design of Small Water Systems / 242
Design of a Camp Water System / 255
Water System Cost Estimates / 255
Cleaning and Disinfection / 257
Wells and Springs / 258
Pipelines / 260
Storage Reservoirs and Tanks / 261
Emergency Water Supply and Treatment / 262
Boiling / 263
Chlorination / 263
Iodine / 266
Filtration in an Emergency / 267
Bottled, Packaged, and Bulk Water / 267
References / 269
Bibliography / 278

CHAPTER 3 WASTEWATER TREATMENT AND DISPOSAL 283

John R. Kiefer
Disease Hazard / 283
Criteria for Proper Wastewater Disposal / 285
Definitions / 285
Small Wastewater Disposal Systems / 288
Wastewater Characteristics / 289
Soil Characteristics / 289
Soil Suitability / 290
Pollutant Travel from Septic Systems / 291
Soil Percolation Test / 291
Sewage Flow Estimates / 293
Septic Tank / 295
Care of Septic Tank and Subsurface Absorption
Systems / 299
Subsurface Soil Absorption Systems / 301
Absorption Field System / 301
 CONTENTS xi

Leaching Pit / 305

Cesspool / 305
Dry Well / 306
Small Wastewater Disposal Systems for Unsuitable
Soils or Sites / 308
General / 308
Modified Septic Tank Soil Absorption System / 308
Example / 309
Capillary Seepage Trench / 309
Raised Bed Absorption-Evapotranspiration System / 310
Septic Tank Sand Filter System / 312
Aerobic Sewage Treatment Unit / 315
Septic Tank Mound System / 315
Example 1 / 317
Electric Osmosis System / 318
Septic Tank Evapotranspiration System / 318
Example 2 / 320
Water Conservation / 321
Sewage Works Design—Small Treatment Plants / 322
Disinfection / 322
Physical-Chemical Treatment / 326
Sedimentation / 326
Coagulation/Flocculation / 326
Filtration / 327
Activated Carbon Adsorption / 328
Biological Treatment / 328
Wastewater Reuse / 334
Wastewater Aerosol Hazard / 335
Wastewater Disposal by Land Treatment / 336
Advanced Wastewater Treatment / 341
Typical Designs for Small Treatment Plants / 344
Standard-Rate Trickling Filter Plant with Imhoff Tank / 344
High-Rate Trickling Filter Plant with Imhoff Tank / 346
Intermittent Sand Filter Plant with Imhoff Tank or
Septic Tank / 347
Design of Large Treatment Plants / 347
Biosolids Treatment and Disposal / 352
Cost of Sewage Treatment / 357
xii CONTENTS

Industrial Wastes / 360

Hazardous and Toxic Liquid Wastes / 360
Pretreatment / 362
References / 363
Bibliography / 367

INDEX 371
PREFACE

As the global population grows and many developing countries modernize, the
importance of water supply and water treatment becomes a much greater factor
in the welfare of nations. In similar fashion, the need to address both domestic
and industrial wastes generated by these nations moves higher on the scale of
importance. Clearly, in today’s world the competition for water resources cou-
pled with the unfortunate commingling of wastewater discharges with freshwater
supplies creates additional pressure on treatment systems.
This volume attempts to address issues of water supply including the demand
for fresh water, the treatment technologies available to treat water, and the treat-
ment and disposal of community-generated wastewaters. The focus is the practi-
cality and appropriateness of treatment—in sufficient detail so that the practicing
public health official, water treatment engineer and plant operator, as well as
those in the domestic and industrial waste treatment professions, can address
their problems in a practical manner. The emphasis is on basic principles and
practicality.

Franklin J. Agardy
Patrick Sullivan
Nelson L. Nemerow

xiii
CONTRIBUTORS

T. DAVID CHINN Senior Vice President, HDR Engineering, Austin, Texas,

[email protected]
JOHN R. KIEFER Consulting Environmental Engineer, Greenbrae, California,
[email protected]

xv
CHAPTER 1

WATER SUPPLY
T. DAVID CHINN
Professional Engineer, Senior Vice President, HDR Engineering, Austin, Texas

INTRODUCTION

A primary requisite for good health is an adequate supply of water that is of

satisfactory sanitary quality. It is also important that the water be attractive and
palatable to induce its use; otherwise, consumers may decide to use water of
doubtful quality from a nearby unprotected stream, well, or spring. Where a
municipal water supply passes near a property, the owner of the property should
be urged to connect to it because such supplies are usually under competent
supervision.
When a municipal water supply is not available, the burden of developing
a safe water supply rests with the owner of the property. Frequently, private
supplies are so developed and operated that full protection against dangerous
or objectionable pollution is not afforded. Failure to provide satisfactory water
supplies in most instances must be charged either to negligence or ignorance
because it generally costs no more to provide a satisfactory installation that will
meet good health department standards.
The following definitions are given in the National Drinking Water Regulations
as amended through July, 2002:

Public water system means either a community or noncommunity system for

the provision to the public of water for human consumption through pipes
or other constructed conveyances, if such system has at least 15 service
connections, or regularly serves an average of at least 25 individuals daily
at least 60 days out of the year. Such a term includes (1) any collection,
treatment, storage, and distribution facilities under the control of the opera-
tor of such system and used primarily in connection with such system, and
Environmental Engineering: Water, Wastewater, Soil and Groundwater Treatment and Remediation Sixth Edition 1
Edited by Nelson L. Nemerow, Franklin J. Agardy, Patrick Sullivan, and Joseph A. Salvato
Copyright © 2009 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. ISBN: 978-0-470-08303-1
2 WATER SUPPLY

(2) any collection or pretreatment storage facilities not under such control
which are used primarily in connection with such system.
A community water system has at least 15 service connections used by
year-round residents, or regularly serves at least 25 year-round residents.
These water systems generally serve cities and towns. They may also
serve special residential communities, such as mobile home parks and
universities, which have their own drinking water supply.
A noncommunity water system is a public water system that is not a community
water system, and can be either a “transient noncommunity water sys-
tem” (TWS) or a “non-transient noncommunity water system” (NTNCWS).
TWSs typically serve travelers and other transients at locations such as
highway rest stops, restaurants, and public parks. The system serves at least
25 people a day for at least 60 days a year, but not the same 25 people. On
the other hand, NTNCWSs serve the same 25 persons for at least 6 months
per year, but not year round. Some common examples of NTNCWSs are
schools and factories (or other workplaces) that have their own supply of
drinking water and serve 25 of the same people each day.

In 2007 there were approximately 156,000 public water systems in the United
States serving water to a population of nearly 286 million Americans. There
were approximately 52,110 community water systems, of which 11,449 were sur-
face water supplies and 40,661 were groundwater supplies. There were 103,559
noncommunity water systems, of which 2557 were surface water supplies and
101,002 were groundwater supplies. Of the community water systems, 43,188 are
small systems that serve populations less than 3300; 4822 are medium systems
and serve populations between 3300 and 10,000; and 4100 are large systems
serving populations over 10,000. In terms of numbers, the small and very small
community and noncommunity water systems represent the greatest challenge to
regulators and consultants—both contributing to over 88 percent of the regulatory
violations in 2007.1
In addition to public water systems, the U.S. Geological Survey estimated that
43.5 million people were served by their own individual water supply systems
in 2000. These domestic systems are—for the most part—unregulated by either
state or county health departments.2
A survey made between 1975 and 1977 showed that 13 to 18 million people
in communities of 10,000 and under used individual wells with high contamina-
tion rates.3 The effectiveness of state and local well construction standards and
health department programs has a direct bearing on the extent and number of
contaminated home well-water supplies in specific areas.
A safe and adequate water supply for 2.4 billion people,4 about one-third of
the world’s population, is still a dream. The availability of any reasonably clean
water in the less-developed areas of the world just to wash and bathe would
go a long way toward the reduction of such scourges as scabies and other skin
diseases, yaws and trachoma, and high infant mortality. The lack of safe water
 INTRODUCTION 3

makes high incidences of shigellosis, amebiasis, schistosomiasis,∗ leptospirosis,

infectious hepatitis, giardiasis, typhoid, and paratyphoid fever commonplace.5
Ten million persons suffer from dracunculiasis or guinea worm disease in Africa
and parts of Asia.6 The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that some
3.4 million people die each year from water-borne diseases caused by microbially
contaminated water supplies or due to a lack of access to sanitation facilities.
Tragically, over one half of these deaths are children under the age of five years
old.7 Three-fourths of all illnesses in the developing world are associated with
inadequate water and sanitation.8 It is believed that the provision of safe water
supplies, accompanied by a program of proper excreta disposal and birth control,
could vastly improve the living conditions of millions of people in developing
countries of the world.9 In 1982, an estimated 46 percent of the population of
Latin America and the Caribbean had access to piped water supply and 22 percent
had access to acceptable types of sewage disposal.10
The diseases associated with the consumption of contaminated water are dis-
cussed in Chapter 1 of Environmental Engineering, Sixth Edition: Prevention
and Response to Water-, Food-, Soil,- and Air-Borne Disease and Illness and
summarized in Table 1.4 of that volume.

Groundwater Pollution Hazard

Table 1.1 shows a classification of sources and causes of groundwater pollution.

The 20 million residential cesspool and septic tank soil absorption systems alone
discharge about 400 billion gallons of sewage per day into the ground, which in
some instances may contribute to groundwater pollution. This is in addition to
sewage from restaurants, hotels, motels, resorts, office buildings, factories, and
other establishments not on public sewers.11 The contribution from industrial and
other sources shown in Table 1.1 is unknown. It is being inventoried by the EPA,
and is estimated at 900 billion gal/year,12 the EPA, with state participation, is
also developing a groundwater protection strategy. Included in the strategy is the
classification of all groundwater and protection of existing and potential drinking
water sources and “ecologically vital” waters.
Groundwater pollution problems have been found in many states. Primar-
ily, the main cause is organic chemicals, such as trichloroethylene, 1,1,1-
trichloroethane, benzene, perchlorate, gasoline (and gasoline additives such as
MTBE), pesticides and soil fumigants, disease-causing organisms, and nitrates.
Other sources are industrial and municipal landfills; ponds, pits, and lagoons;
waste oils and highway deicing compounds; leaking underground storage tanks
and pipelines; accidental spills; illegal dumping; and abandoned oil and gas
wells. With 146 million people in the United States dependent on groundwater

∗
Two hundred million cases of schistosomiasis worldwide were estimated in 2004, spread mostly
through water contact (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention).
4 WATER SUPPLY

TABLE 1.1 Classification of Sources and Causes of Groundwater Pollution Used

in Determining Level and Kind of Regulatory Control

Wastes Nonwastes
a b
Category I Category II Category IIIc Category IVd

Land application of Surface Buried product Saltwater

wastewater: spray impoundments: storage tanks and intrusion:
irrigation, waste-holding pipelines seawater
infiltration– ponds, lagoons, encroachment,
percolation basins, and pits upward coning
overland flow of saline
groundwater
Subsurface soil Landfills and other Stockpiles: highway River infiltration
absorption excavations: deicing stockpiles,
systems: septic landfills for ore stockpiles
systems industrial wastes,
sanitary landfills
for municipal solid
wastes, municipal
landfills
Waste disposal wells Water and Application of Improperly
and brine injection wastewater highway deicing constructed or
wells treatment plant salts abandoned
sludges, other wells
excavations (e.g.,
mass burial of
livestock)
Drainage wells and — Product storage Farming
sumps ponds practices (e.g.,
dryland
farming)
Recharge wells Animal feedlots Agricultural
activities:
fertilizers and
pesticides,
irrigation return
flows
Leaky sanitary sewer Accidental spills
lines Acid mine
drainage Mine
spoil pipes and
tailings
a
Systems, facilities, or activities designed to discharge waste or wastewaters (residuals) to the land
and groundwaters.
b
Systems, facilities, or activities that may discharge wastes or wastewaters to the land and ground-
waters.
c Systems, facilities, or activities that may discharge or cause a discharge of contaminants that are

not wastes to the land and groundwaters.

d Causes of groundwater pollution that are not discharges.

Source: The Report to Congress, Waste Disposal Practices and Their Effects on Ground Water, Exec-
utive Summary, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Washington, DC, January 1977, p. 39.
 TRAVEL OF POLLUTION THROUGH THE GROUND 5

sources for drinking water,∗ these resources must be protected from physical,
chemical, radiological, and microbiological contamination.
Whereas surface water travels at velocities of feet per second, groundwater
moves at velocities that range from less than a fraction of a foot per day to
several feet per day. Groundwater organic and inorganic chemical contamination
may persist for decades or longer and, because of the generally slow rate of move-
ment of groundwater, may go undetected for many years. Factors that influence
the movement of groundwater include the type of geological formation and its
permeability, the rainfall and the infiltration, and the hydraulic gradient. The slow
uniform rate of flow, usually in an elongated plume, provides little opportunity
for mixing and dilution, and the usual absence of air in groundwater to decom-
pose or break down the contaminants add to the long-lasting problem usually
created. By contrast, dilution, microbial activity, surface tension and attraction to
soil particles, and soil adsorptive characteristics might exist that could modify,
immobilize, or attenuate the pollutant travel. More attention must be given to the
prevention of ground-water pollution and to wellhead protection.

TRAVEL OF POLLUTION THROUGH THE GROUND

Identification of the source of well pollution and tracing the migration of the
incriminating contaminant are usually not simple operations. The identification
of a contaminant plume and its extent can be truly complex. Comprehensive
hydrogeological studies and proper placement and construction of an adequate
number of monitoring wells are necessary.
Geophysical methods to identify and investigate the extent and characteristics
of groundwater pollution include geomagnetics, electromagnetics, electrical resis-
tivity, ground-probing radar, and photoionization meters.13 Geomagnetics uses
an instrument producing a magnetic field to identify and locate buried metals
and subsurface materials that are not in their natural or undisturbed state. Elec-
tromagnetics equipment measures the difference in conductivity between buried
materials such as the boundaries of contaminated plumes or landfills saturated
with leachate and uncontaminated materials. Electrical resistivity measures the
resistance a material offers to the passage of an electric current between electric
probes, which can be interpreted to identify or determine rock, clay and other
materials, porosity, and groundwater limits. Ground-probing radar uses radar
energy to penetrate and measure reflection from the water table and subsurface
materials. The reflection from the materials varies with depth and the nature of
the material, such as sandy soils versus saturated clays. Photoionization meters
are used to detect the presence of specific volatile organic compounds such as
gasoline, and methane in a landfill, through the use of shallow boreholes. Other
detection methods are remote imagery and aerial photography, including infrared.

∗
Ninety-eight percent of the rural population in the United States and 32 percent of the population
served by municipal water systems use groundwater (U.S. Geological Survey, 2000).
6 WATER SUPPLY

Sampling for contaminants must be carefully designed and performed. Errors

can be introduced: Sampling from an unrepresentative water level in a well, con-
tamination of sampling equipment, and incorrect analysis procedure are some
potential sources of error. The characteristics of a pollutant, the subsurface for-
mation, the hydraulic conductivity of the aquifer affected, groundwater slope,
rainfall variations, and the presence of geological fractures, faults, and channels
make determination of pollution travel and its sampling difficult. Geophysical
techniques can help, and great care must be used in determining the number,
spacing, location, and depths of sampling wells and screen entry levels. As a rule,
monitoring wells and borings will be required to confirm and sample subsurface
contamination.
Since the character of soil and rock, quantity of rain, depth of groundwater, rate
of groundwater flow, amount and type of pollution, absorption, adsorption, bio-
logical degradation, chemical changes, and other factors usually beyond control
are variable, one cannot say with certainty through what thickness or distance
sewage or other pollutants must pass to be purified. Microbiological pollution
travels a short distance through sandy loam or clay, but it will travel indefi-
nite distances through coarse sand and gravel, fissured rock, dried-out cracked
clay, or solution channels in limestone. Acidic conditions and lack of organics
and certain elements such as iron, manganese, aluminum, and calcium in soil
increase the potential of pollution travel. Chemical pollution can travel great
distances.
The Public Health Service (PHS) conducted experiments at Fort Caswell,
North Carolina, in a sandy soil with groundwater moving slowly through it. The
sewage organisms (coliform bacteria) traveled 232 feet, and chemical pollution
as indicated by uranin dye traveled 450 feet.14 The chemical pollution moved
in the direction of the groundwater flow largely in the upper portion of the
groundwater and persisted for 2-1/2 years. The pollution band did not fan out
but became narrower as it moved away from the pollution source. It should be
noted that in these tests there was a small draft on the experimental wells and
that the soil was a sand of 0.14 mm effective size and 1.8 uniformity coefficient.
It should also be noted that, whereas petroleum products tend to float on the
surface, halogenated solvents gradually migrate downward.
Studies of pollution travel were made by the University of California using
twenty-three 6-inch observation wells and a 12-inch gravel-packed recharge well.
Diluted primary sewage was pumped through the 12-inch recharge well into a
confined aquifer having an average thickness of 4.4 feet approximately 95 feet
below ground surface. The aquifer was described as pea gravel and sand having
a permeability of 1900 gal/ft2 /day. Its average effective size was 0.56 mm and
uniformity coefficient was 6.9. The medium effective size of the aquifer material
from 18 wells was 0.36 mm. The maximum distance of pollution travel was 100
feet in the direction of groundwater flow and 63 feet in other directions. It was
found that the travel of pollution was affected not by the groundwater velocity
but by the organic mat that built up and filtered out organisms, thereby preventing
them from entering the aquifer. The extent of the pollution then regressed as the
organisms died away and as pollution was filtered out.15
 TRAVEL OF POLLUTION THROUGH THE GROUND 7

Butler, Orlob, and McGauhey16 made a study of the literature and reported the
results of field studies to obtain more information about the underground travel of
harmful bacteria and toxic chemicals. The work of other investigators indicated that
pollution from dry-pit privies did not extend more than 1 to 5 feet in dry or slightly
moist fine soils. However, when pollution was introduced into the underground
water, test organisms (Balantidium coli ) traveled to wells up to 232 feet away.17
Chemical pollution was observed to travel 300 to 450 feet, although chromate was
reported to have traveled 1,000 feet in 3 years, and other chemical pollution 3 to
5 miles. Leachings from a garbage dump in groundwater reached wells 1,476 feet
away, and a 15-year-old dump continued to pollute wells 2,000 feet away. Studies
in the Dutch East Indies (Indonesia) report the survival of coliform organisms in
soil 2 years after contamination and their extension to a depth of 9 to 13 feet, in
decreasing numbers, but increasing again as groundwater was approached. The
studies of Butler et al. tend to confirm previous reports and have led the authors
to conclude “that the removal of bacteria from liquid percolating through a given
depth of soil is inversely proportional to the particle size of the soil.”18
Knowledge concerning viruses in groundwater is limited, but better methodol-
ogy for the detection of viruses is improving this situation. Keswick and Gerba19
reviewed the literature and found 9 instances in which viruses were isolated
from drinking water wells and 15 instances in which viruses were isolated from
beneath land treatment sites. Sand and gravel did not prevent the travel of viruses
long distances in groundwater. However, fine loamy sand over coarse sand and
gravel effectively removed viruses. Soil composition, including the presence of
clay, is very important in virus removal, as it is in bacteria removal. The move-
ment of viruses through soil and in groundwater requires further study. Helminth
eggs and protozoa cysts do not travel great distances through most soils because
of their greater size but can travel considerable distances through macropores
and crevices. However, nitrate travel in groundwater may be a major inorganic
chemical hazard. In addition, organic chemicals are increasingly being found
in groundwater. See (1) “Removal of Gasoline, Fuel Oil, and Other Organ-
ics in an Aquifer”; (2) “Prevention and Removal of Organic Chemicals”; and
(3) “Synthetic Organic Chemicals Removal” in Chapter 2.
When pumping from a deep well, the direction of groundwater flow around
the well within the radius of influence, not necessarily circular, will be toward
the well. Since the level of the water in the well will probably be 25 to 150 feet,
more or less, below the ground surface, the drawdown cone created by pumping
may exert an attractive influence on groundwater, perhaps as far as 100 to 2,000
feet or more away from the well, because of the hydraulic gradient, regardless of
the elevation of the top of the well. The radius of the drawdown cone or circle of
influence may be 100 to 300 feet or more for fine sand, 600 to 1,000 feet for coarse
sand, and 1,000 to 2,000 feet for gravel. See Figure 1.1. In other words, distances
and elevations of sewage disposal systems and other sources of pollution must
be considered relative to the hydraulic gradient and elevation of the water level
in the well, while it is being pumped. It must also be recognized that pollution
can travel in three dimensions in all or part of the aquifer’s vertical thickness,
dependent on the contaminant viscosity and density, the formation transmissivity,
8 WATER SUPPLY

FIGURE 1.1 A geologic section showing groundwater terms. (Source: Rural Water Sup-
ply, New York State Department of Health, Albany, 1966.)

and the groundwater flow. Liquids lighter than water, such as gasoline, tend to
collect above the groundwater table. Liquids heavier or more dense tend to pass
through the groundwater and accumulate above an impermeable layer.
A World Health Organization (WHO) report reminds us that, in nature, atmo-
spheric oxygen breaks down accessible organic matter and that topsoil (loam)
contains organisms that can effectively oxidize organic matter.20 However, these
benefits are lost if wastes are discharged directly into the groundwater by way
of sink holes, pits, or wells or if a subsurface absorption system is water-logged.
From the investigations made, it is apparent that the safe distance between
a well and a sewage or industrial waste disposal system is dependent on many
variables, including chemical, physical, and biological processes.∗ These four
factors should be considered in arriving at a satisfactory answer:

1. The amount of sand, clay, organic (humus) matter, and loam in the soil,
the soil structure and texture, the effective size and uniformity coefficient,
groundwater level, and unsaturated soil depth largely determine the ability
of the soil to remove microbiological pollution deposited in the soil.
2. The volume, strength, type, and dispersion of the polluting material, rainfall
intensity and infiltration, and distance, elevation, and time for pollution to
travel with relation to the groundwater level and flow and soil penetrated are
important. Also important is the volume of water pumped and well drawdown.

∗
A summary of the distances of travel of underground pollution is also given in Task Group
Report, “Underground Waste Disposal and Control,” J. Am. Water Works Assoc., 49, (October 1957):
1334– 1341.
 TRAVEL OF POLLUTION THROUGH THE GROUND 9

3. The well construction, tightness of the pump line casing connection, depth
of well and well casing, geological formations penetrated, and sealing of
the annular space have a very major bearing on whether a well might be
polluted by sewage, chemical spills or wastes, and surface water.
4. The well recharge (wellhead) area, geology, and land use possibly permit
groundwater pollution. Local land-use and watershed control is essential to
protect and prevent pollution of well-water supplies.

Considerable professional judgment is needed to select a proper location for

a well. The limiting distances given in Table 1.2 for private dwellings should

TABLE 1.2 Minimum Separation Distances (feet) from On-Site Wastewater

Sources

Sources To Well or To Stream, Lake, To Property Line

Suction Linea or Water Course or Dwelling

House sewer 25 if cast iron 25 —

(water-tight pipe or equal,
joints) 50 otherwise
Septic tank 50 50 10
Effluent line to 50 50 10
distribution box
Distribution box 100 100 20
Absorption field 100b 100 20
Seepage pit or 150b (more in 100 20
cesspool coarse gravel)
Dry well (roof and 50 25 20
footing)
Fill or built-up 100 100 20
system
Evapotranspiration– 100 50 20
absorption system
Sanitary privy pit 100 50 20
Privy, water-tight 50 50 10
vault
Septic privy or aqua 50 50 10
privy
a Water service and sewer lines may be in the same trench if cast-iron sewer with water-tight joints
is laid at all points 12 in. below water service pipe; or sewer may be on dropped shelf at one side
at least 12 in. below water service pipe, provided that sewer pipe is laid below frost with tight and
root-proof joints and is not subject to settling, superimposed loads, or vibration. Water service lines
under pressure shall not pass closer than 10 ft of a septic tank, absorption tile field, leaching pit,
privy, or any other part of a sewage disposal system.
b
Sewage disposal systems located of necessity upgrade or in the general path of drainage to a well
should be spaced 200 ft or more away and not in the direct line of drainage. Wells require a minimum
20 ft of casing extended and sealed into an impervious stratum. If subsoil is coarse sand or gravel, do
not use seepage pit; use absorption field with 12 in. medium sand on bottom of trench. Also require
oversize drill hole and grouted well to a safe depth. See Table 1.15.
10 WATER SUPPLY

be used as a guide. Experience has shown them to be reasonable and effective

in most instances when coupled with a sanitary survey of the drainage area and
proper interpretation of available hydrologic and geologic data and good well
construction, location, and protection.21 See Figure 1.1 for groundwater terms.
Well location and construction for public and private water systems should follow
regulatory standards. See “Source and Protection of Water Supply” later in this
chapter.

Disease Transmission
Water, to act as a vehicle for the spread of a specific disease, must be con-
taminated with the associated disease organism or hazardous chemical. Disease
organisms can survive for days to years, depending on their form (cyst, ova) and
environment (moisture, competitors, temperature, soil, and acidity) and the treat-
ment given the wastewater. All sewage-contaminated waters must be presumed to
be potentially dangerous. Other impurities, such as inorganic and organic chem-
icals and heavy concentrations of decaying organic matter, may also find their
way into a water supply, making the water hazardous, unattractive, or otherwise
unsuitable for domestic use unless adequately treated. The inorganic and organic
chemicals causing illness include mercury, lead, chromium, nitrates, asbestos,
polychlorinated biphenyl (PCB), polybrominated biphenyl (PBB), mirex, Kepone
vinyl chloride, trichloroethylene, benzene, and others.
Communicable and noninfectious diseases that may be spread by water are
discussed in Table 1.4 in Chapter 1 of Environmental Engineering, Sixth Edition:
Prevention and Response to Water-, Food-, Soil,- and Air-Borne Disease and
Illness.

WATER QUANTITY AND QUALITY

Water Cycle and Geology

The movement of water can be best illustrated by the hydrologic, or water, cycle
shown in Figure 1.2. Using the clouds and atmospheric vapors as a starting point,
moisture condenses out under the proper conditions to form rain, snow, sleet, hail,
frost, fog, or dew. Part of the precipitation is evaporated while falling; some of it
reaches vegetation foliage, the ground, and other surfaces. Moisture intercepted
by surfaces is evaporated back into the atmosphere. Part of the water reach-
ing the ground surface runs off to streams, lakes, swamps, or oceans whence
it evaporates; part infiltrates the ground and percolates down to replenish the
groundwater storage, which also supplies lakes, streams, and oceans by under-
ground flow. Groundwater in the soil helps to nourish vegetation through the
root system. It travels up the plant and comes out as transpiration from the leaf
structure and then evaporates into the atmosphere. In its cyclical movement, part
of the water is temporarily retained by the earth, plants, and animals to sustain
life. The average annual precipitation in the United States is about 30 inches, of
which 72 percent evaporates from water and land surfaces and transpires from
 WATER QUANTITY AND QUALITY 11

FIGURE 1.2 Figure hydrologic or (water) cycle. The oceans hold 317,000,000 mi3 of
water. Ninety-seven percent of the Earth’s water is salt water; 3 percent of the Earth’s
fresh water is groundwater, snow and ice, fresh water on land, and atmospheric water
vapor; 85 percent of the fresh water is in polar ice caps and glaciers. Total precipitation
equals total evaporation plus transpiration. Precipitation on land equals 24,000 mi3 /year.
Evaporation from the oceans equals 80,000 mi3 /year. Evaporation from lakes, streams,
and soil and transpiration from vegetation equal 15,000 mi3 .
12 WATER SUPPLY

plants and 28 percent contributes to the groundwater recharge and stream flow.22
See also “Septic Tank Evapotranspiration System,” in Chapter 3.
The volume of fresh water in the hydrosphere has been estimated to be
8,400,000 mi3 with 5,845,000 mi3 in ice sheets and glaciers, 2,526,000 mi3 in
groundwater, 21,830 mi3 in lakes and reservoirs, 3,095 mi3 in vapors in the atmo-
sphere, and 509 mi3 in river water.23
When speaking of water, we are concerned primarily with surface water and
groundwater, although rainwater and saline water are also considered. In falling
through the atmosphere, rain picks up dust particles, plant seeds, bacteria, dis-
solved gases, ionizing radiation, and chemical substances such as sulfur, nitrogen,
oxygen, carbon dioxide, and ammonia. Hence, rainwater is not pure water as one
might think. It is, however, very soft. Water in streams, lakes, reservoirs, and
swamps is known as surface water. Water reaching the ground and flowing over
the surface carries anything it can move or dissolve. This may include waste
matter, bacteria, silt, soil, vegetation, and microscopic plants and animals and
other naturally occurring organic matter. The water accumulates in streams or
lakes. Sewage, industrial wastes, and surface and groundwater will cumulate,
contribute to the flow, and be acted on by natural agencies. On the one hand,
water reaching lakes or reservoirs permit bacteria, suspended matter, and other
impurities to settle out. On the other hand, microscopic as well as macroscopic
plant and animal life grow and die, thereby removing and contributing impurities
in the cycle of life.
Part of the water reaching and flowing over the ground infiltrates and percolates
down to form and recharge the groundwater, also called underground water.
In percolating through the ground, water will dissolve materials to an extent
dependent on the type and composition of the strata through which the water has
passed and the quality (acidity) and quantity of water. Groundwater will therefore
usually contain more dissolved minerals than surface water. The strata penetrated
may be unconsolidated, such as sand, clay, and gravel, or consolidated, such as
sandstone, granite, and limestone. A brief explanation of the classification and
characteristics of formations is given next.
Igneous rocks are those formed by the cooling and hardening of molten rock
masses. The rocks are crystalline and contain quartz, feldspar, mica, hornblende,
pyroxene, and olivene. Igneous rocks are not usually good sources of water,
although basalts are exceptions. Small quantities of water are available in frac-
tures and faults. Examples are granite, dioxite, gabbro, basalt, and syenite.
Sedimentary formations are those resulting from the deposition, accumula-
tion, and subsequent consolidation of materials weathered and eroded from older
rocks by water, ice, or wind and the remains of plants, animals, or material pre-
cipitated out of solution. Sand and gravel, clay, silt, chalk, limestone, fossils,
gypsum, salt, peat, shale, conglomerates, loess, and sandstone are examples of
sedimentary formations. Deposits of sand and gravel generally yield large quan-
tities of water. Sandstones, shales, and certain limestones may yield abundant
groundwater, although results may be erratic, depending on bedding planes and
joints, density, porosity, and permeability of the rock.
Exploring the Variety of Random
Documents with Different Content
to compel men to honesty and justice. Can any one say it has been
so successful that it must be looked to as the great means of
regenerating society, of bringing society into that healthy and ideal
state which statesmen work for, and for which the people
inarticulately sigh? Does not St. James come nearer the mark when
he says, "Whence come wars and fightings? Come they not hence,
even of the lusts that war in your members?"—i.e., from the restless
ambitions, and appetites, and longings of men who seek their all in
this world? And if that is their source, it is to that we must apply the
remedy. Law is necessary for restraining the expressions of a vicious
nature, but law is insufficient to remove the possibility of these
expressions by healing the nature. This can only be done by the
diffusion of unworldliness and unselfishness. And it is Christians who
are responsible for diffusing this unworldly spirit, and who must
diffuse it, not by talk and advice, but by practice and example, by
themselves showing what unselfishness is, rebuking covetousness by
yielding to its demands, shaming all wrong-doing by refusing to
retaliate while they expose its guilt.
While therefore it is a mistake to suppose that all the laws which are
to rule in the perfected kingdom of God can find immediate and
unmodified expression in this present world, it is our part to find for
them an introduction into the world in every case in which it is
possible to apply them. Those laws which are to be our sole rule
when we are perfect cannot always be immediately applied now. For
example, we all believe that ultimately love will be the only motive,
that all service of God and of one another will eventually spring
solely from our desire to serve because we love. And because this is
so, some persons have thought that love should be the only motive
now, and that obedience which is procured by fear is useless; that
preachers ought to appeal only to the highest parts of man's nature,
and not at all to those which are lower, and that parents should
never threaten punishment nor enforce obedience. But the
testimony of one of the most genial and successful of preachers is
that "of all the persons to whom his ministry had been efficacious
only one had received the first effectual impressions from the gentle
and attractive aspects of religion, all the rest from the awful and
alarming ones—the appeals to fear." Take, again, the testimony of
one of the wisest and most successful of our schoolmasters. "I can't
rule my boys," he says, "by the law of love. If they were angels or
professors, I might; but as they are only boys, I find it necessary to
make them fear me first, and then take my chance of their love
afterwards. By this plan I find that I generally get both; by reversing
the process I should in most cases get neither." And God, though
slow to anger and not easily provoked, scourgeth every son whom
He receiveth, not dealing with us now as He will deal with us when
perfect love has cast out its preparative fear. So, in regard to the
matter before us, there must be an aiming and striving towards the
perfect state in which there shall be no going to law, no settling of
matters by appeal to anything outside the heart of the persons
interested. But while we aim at this, and seek to give it prevalence,
we shall also be occasionally forced back upon the severer and more
external means of self-defence. The members of Christ's Church are
those on whom the burden falls of giving prevalence to these
Christian principles. It is incumbent upon them to show, even at cost
to themselves, that there are higher, better, and more enduring
principles than law, and the customs of trade, and the ways of the
world. And however difficult it may be theoretically to hold the
balance between justice and mercy, between worldly sharpness and
Christian meekness, we all know that there are some who practically
exhibit a large measure of this Christian temper, who prefer to take
wrong and to suffer quietly rather than to expose the wickedness of
others, or to resent their unjust claims, or to complain of their unfair
usage. And whatever the most worldly of us may think of such
conduct, however we may smile at it as weak, there is no one of us
but also pays his tribute of respect to those who suffer wrong, loss,
detraction, with a meek and cheerful patience; and whatever be the
lot of such sufferers in a world where men are too busy in pushing
their worldly prospects to understand those who are not of this
world, we have no doubt in what esteem they will be held and what
reward they will receive in a world where the Lamb is on the throne,
and meek self-sacrifice is honestly worshipped as the highest quality
whether in God or in man.
Paul knows that the Christian conscience is with him when he
declares that men should rather suffer wrong than bring reproach on
the Christian name: "Know ye not that wrong-doers shall not inherit
the kingdom of God? Be not deceived; neither covetous, nor
drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners shall inherit the kingdom of
God." And yet how little do men seem to take to heart the great fact
that they are travelling forward to a state in which nothing
uncongenial to the Spirit of Christ can possibly find place. Do they
think of the future at all? Do they believe that a state of things ruled
by the Spirit of Christ is to follow this? And what preparation do they
make? Is it not the height of folly to suppose that the selfishness
and greed, the indolence and frivolity, the dreamy unreality and
worldliness, which we suffer to grow upon us here, will give us
entrance into the kingdom of God? The seaman who means to
winter in the Arctic circle might as reasonably go with a single
month's provisions and clothes suited to the tropics. There is a
reason and a law in things; and if we are not assimilated to the Spirit
of Christ now, we can have no part in His kingdom. If now our
interest, and pursuits, and pleasures are all found in what gratifies
selfishness and worldliness, it is impossible we can find a place in
that kingdom which is all unselfishness and unworldliness. "Be not
deceived." The spiritual world is a reality, and the godliness and
Christlikeness that compose it must also be realities. Put away from
you the fatuous idea that things will somehow come all right, and
that your character will adapt itself to changed surroundings. It is
not so; nothing that defiles can find entrance into the kingdom of
God, but only those who are "sanctified in the name of the Lord
Jesus and by the Spirit of our God."
 FORNICATION.

"All things are lawful unto me, but all things are not expedient:
all things are lawful for me, but I will not be brought under the
power of any. Meats for the belly, and the belly for meats: but
God shall destroy both it and them. Now the body is not for
fornication, but for the Lord; and the Lord for the body. And
God hath both raised up the Lord, and will also raise up us by
His own power. Know ye not that your bodies are the members
of Christ? shall I then take the members of Christ, and make
them the members of an harlot? God forbid. What? know ye not
that he which is joined to an harlot is one body? for two, saith
he, shall be one flesh. But he that is joined unto the Lord is one
spirit. Flee fornication. Every sin that a man doeth is without the
body; but he that committeth fornication sinneth against his
own body. What? know ye not that your body is the temple of
the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye
are not your own? For ye are bought with a price: therefore
glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God's."—1
Cor. vi. 12-20.
 X.
FORNICATION.
In remonstrating with the Corinthians for their litigiousness, Paul was
forcibly reminded how imperfectly his converts understood the moral
requirements of the kingdom of God. Apparently, too, he had reason
to believe that they were not only content to remain on a low moral
plane, but actually quoted some of his own favourite sayings in
defence of immoral practices. After warning them therefore that only
those who were sanctified could belong to the kingdom of God and
specifying certain common kinds of wrong-doing which must for ever
be excluded from that kingdom, he goes on to explain how they had
misapprehended him if they thought that any principle of his could
give colour to immorality. The Corinthians had apparently learned to
argue that if, as Paul had so often and emphatically told them, all
things were lawful to them, then this commonest of Greek
indulgences was lawful; if abstaining from the meat which had been
killed in a heathen temple was a matter of moral indifference which
Christians might or might not practise, as they pleased, then this
other common accompaniment of idolatry was also a matter of
indifference and not in itself wrong.
To understand this Corinthian obliquity of moral vision it must be
borne in mind that licentious rites were a common accompaniment
of pagan worship, and especially in Corinth idolatry might have been
briefly described as the performance of Balaam's instructions to the
Israelites: the eating of things sacrificed to idols and the committing
of fornication. The temples were often scenes of revelry and
debauchery such as happily have become incredible to a modern
mind. But not at once could men emerging from a religion so
slenderly connected with morality apprehend what Christianity
required of them. When they abandoned the temple-worship, were
they also to abstain from eating the flesh offered for sale in the open
market, and which had first been sacrificed to an idol? Might they
not by partaking of such flesh become partakers in the sin of
idolatry? To this Paul replied, Do not too scrupulously inquire into the
previous history of your dinner; the meat has no moral taint; all
things are lawful for you. This was reasonable; but then how about
the other accompaniment of idolatry? Was it also a thing of
indifference? Can we apply the same reasoning to it? It was this
insinuation which called forth the emphatic condemnation which Paul
utters in this paragraph.
The great principle of Christian liberty, "All things are lawful for me,"
Paul now sees he must guard against abuse by adding, "But all
things are not expedient." The law and its modification are fully
explained in a subsequent passage of the Epistle (viii.; x. 23, etc.).
Here it may be enough to say that Paul seeks to impress on his
readers that the question of duty is not answered by simply
ascertaining what is lawful; we must also ask whether the practice or
act contemplated is expedient. Though it may be impossible to prove
that this or that practice is wrong in every case, we have still to ask,
Does it advance what is good in us; is its bearing on society good or
evil; will it in present circumstances and in the instance we
contemplate give rise to misunderstandings and evil thoughts? The
Christian is a law to himself; he has an internal guide that sets him
above external rules. Very true; but that guide leads all those who
possess it to a higher life than the law leads to, and proves its
presence by teaching a man to consider, not how much indulgence
he may enjoy without transgressing the letter of the law, but how he
can most advantageously use his time and best forward what is
highest in himself and in others.
Again, "all things are lawful for me;" all things are in my power. Yes,
but for that very reason "I will not be brought under the power of
any." "The reasonable use of my liberty cannot go the length of
involving my own loss of it."[5] I am free from the law; I will not on
that account become the slave of indulgence. As Carlyle puts it,
"enjoying things which are pleasant—that is not the evil; it is the
reducing of our moral self to slavery by them that is. Let a man
assert withal that he is king over his habitudes; that he could and
would shake them off on cause shown: this is an excellent law."
There are several practices and habits which no one would call
immoral or sinful, but which enslave a man quite as much as worse
habits. He is no longer a free man; he is uneasy and restless, and
cannot settle to his work until he obeys the craving he has created.
And it is the very lawfulness of these indulgences which has
ensnared him. Had they been sinful, the Christian man would not
have indulged in them; but being in his power, they have now
assumed power over him. They have power to compel him to waste
his time, his money, sometimes even his health. He alone attains the
true dignity and freedom of the Christian man who can say, with
Paul, "I know both how to be full and to be hungry, both to abound
and to suffer need;" "All things are in my power, but I will not be
brought under the power of any."
Paul then proceeds more explicitly to apply these principles to the
matter in hand. The Corinthians argued that if meats were morally
indifferent, a man being morally neither the better nor the worse for
eating food which had been offered in an idol's temple, so also a
man was neither better nor worse for fornication. To expose the
error of this reasoning Paul draws a remarkable distinction between
the digestive, nutritive organs of the body and the body as a whole.
Paul believed that the body was an essential part of human nature,
and that in the future life the natural body would give place to the
spiritual body. He believed also that the spiritual body was connected
with, and had its birthplace in, the natural body, so that the body we
now wear is to be represented by that finer and more spiritual
organism we are hereafter to be clothed in. The connection of that
future body with the physical world and its dependence on material
things we cannot understand; but in some way inconceivable by us it
is to carry on the identity of our present body, and thereby it reflects
a sacredness and significance on this body. The body of the full-
grown man or of the white-bearded patriarch is very different from
that of the babe in its mother's arms, but there is a continuity that
links them together and gives them identity. So the future body may
be very different from and yet the same as the present. At the same
time, the organs which merely serve for the maintenance of our
present natural body will be unnecessary and out of place in the
future body, which is spiritual in its origin and in its maintenance.
Paul therefore distinguishes between the organs of nutrition and that
body which is part of our permanent individuality, and which by
some unimaginable process is to flower into an everlasting body. The
digestive organs of the body have their use and their destiny, and
the body as a whole has its use and destiny. These two differ from
one another; and if you are to argue from the one to the other, you
must keep in view this distinction. "Meats for the belly and the belly
for meats; and God shall destroy both it and them: but the body is
for the Lord, and the Lord for the body, and God shall raise up the
one as He has raised up the other." The organs of nutrition have a
present use; they are made for meats, and have a natural
correspondence with meats. Any meat which the digestive organs
approve is allowable. The conscience has to do with meat only
through these organs. It must listen to their representations; and if
they approve of certain qualities and quantities of food, the
conscience confirms this decision: approves when the man uses the
food best for these organs; disapproves when he uses consciously
and self-indulgently what is bad for them. "Meats for the belly and
the belly for meats"—they claim each other as their mutual, God-
appointed counterparts. By eating you are not perverting your bodily
organs to a use not intended for them; you are putting them to the
use God meant them to serve.
Besides, these organs form no part of the future spiritual body. They
pass away with the meats for which they were made. God shall
destroy both the meats that are requisite for life in this world, and
the organs needful for deriving sustenance from them. They serve a
temporary purpose, like the houses we live in and the clothes we
wear; and as we are not morally better because we live in a stone
house, and not in a brick one, or because we wear woollens, and not
cotton—so long as we do what is best to keep us in life—so neither
is there any moral difference in meats—a remarkable conclusion for
a Jew to come to, whose religion had taught him to hold so many
forms of food in abhorrence.
But the body as a whole—for what is it made? These organs of
nutrition fulfil their function when they lead you to eat such meat as
sustains you in life; when does the body fulfil its function? What is
its object and end? For what purpose have we a body? Paul is never
afraid to suggest the largest questions, neither is he afraid to give
his answer. "The body," he says, "is for the Lord, and the Lord for
the body." Here also there is a mutual correspondence and fitness.
"The body is for the Lord." Paul was addressing Christians, and this
no Christian would be disposed to deny. Every Christian is conscious
that the body would not fulfil its end and purpose unless it were
consecrated to the Lord and informed by His Spirit. The organism by
which we come into contact with the world outside ourselves is not
the unwieldy, hindering, irredeemable partner of the spirit, but is
designed to be the vehicle of spiritual faculties and the efficient
agent of our Lord's purposes. It must not be looked upon with
resentment, pity, or contempt, but rather as essential to our human
nature and to the fulfilment of the Lord's design as the Saviour of
the world and the Head of humanity. It was through the body of the
Lord that the great facts of our redemption were accomplished. It
was the instrument of the incarnation and of the manifestation of
God among men, of the death and the resurrection by which we are
saved. And as in His own body Christ was incarnate among men, so
now it is by means of the bodily existence and energies of His
people on earth that He extends His influence.
The body then is for the Lord. He finds in it His needed instrument;
without it He cannot accomplish His will. And the Lord is for the
body. Without Him the body cannot develop into all it is intended to
be. It has a great future as well as the soul. Our adoption as God's
children is, in Paul's view, incomplete until the body also is redeemed
and has fought its way through sickness, base uses, death, and
dissolution into likeness to the glorified body of Christ. This body
which we now identify with ourselves, and apart from which it is
difficult to conceive of ourselves, is not the mere temporary lodging
of the soul, which in a few years must be abandoned; but it is
destined to preserve its identity through all coming changes, so that
it will be recognisable still as our body. But this cannot be believed,
far less accomplished, save by faith in the fact that God has raised
up the Lord Jesus and will with Him raise us also. Otherwise the
future of the body seems brief and calamitous. Death seems plainly
to say, There is an end of all that is physical. Yes, replies the
resurrection of the Lord, in death there is an end of this natural
body; but death disengages the spiritual body from the natural, and
clothes the spirit in a more fitting garb. Understand this we cannot,
any more than we understand why a large mass draws to itself
smaller masses; but believe it we can in presence of Christ's
resurrection.
The Lord then is for the body, because in the Lord the body has a
future opened to it and present connections and uses which prepare
it for that future. It is the Spirit of Christ who is, within us, the
earnest of that future, and who forms us for it, inclining us while in
the body and by means of it to sow to the Spirit and thus to reap life
everlasting. Without Christ we cannot have this Spirit, nor the
spiritual body He forms. The only future of the body we dare to look
at without a shudder is the future it has in the Lord. God has sent
Christ to secure for the body redemption from the fate which
naturally awaits it, and apart from Christ it has no outlook but the
worst. The Lord is for the body, and as well might we try to sustain
the body now without food as to have any endurable future for it
without the Lord.
But if the body is thus closely united to Christ in its present use and
in its destiny, if its proper function and fit development can only be
realized by a true fellowship with Christ, then the inference is self-
evident that it must be carefully guarded from such uses and
impurities as involve rupture with Christ. "Know ye not that your
bodies are the members of Christ? Shall I then take the members of
Christ and make them the members of an harlot? God forbid." The
Christian is one spirit with Christ. There is a real community of
spiritual life between them. It is the spirit which possessed Christ
which now possesses the Christian. He has the same aims, the same
motives, the same view of life, the same hope, as his Lord. It is in
Christ he seeks to live, and he has no stronger desire than to be
used for His purposes. That Christ would use him as He used the
members of His own body while on earth, that there might be the
same direct influence and moving power of the Lord's Spirit, the
same ready and instinctive response to the Lord's will, the same
solidarity between himself and the Lord as between Christ's body
and Christ's Spirit—this is the Christian's desire. To have his body a
member of Christ—this is his happiness. To be one in will with Him
who has brought by His own goodness the light of heaven into the
darkness of earth, to learn to know Him and to love Him by serving
Him and by measuring His love with all the needs of earth—this is
his life. To be so united to Christ in all that is deepest in his nature
that he knows he can never be separated from Him, but must go
forward to the happy destiny which his Lord already enjoys—this is
the Christian's joy; and it is made possible to every man.
Possible to every man is this personal union to Christ, but to be
united thus in one Spirit to Christ and at the same time to be united
to impurity is for ever impossible. To be one with Christ in spirit and
at the same time to be one in body with what is spiritually defiled is
impossible, and the very idea is monstrous. Devotedness to Christ is
possible, but it is incompatible with any act which means that we
become one in body with what is morally polluted. If the Christian is
as truly a member of Christ's body as were the hands and eyes of
the body He wore on earth, then the mind shrinks, as from
blasphemy, from following out the thought of Paul. And if any
frivolous Corinthian still objected that such acts went no deeper than
the eating of food ceremonially unclean, that they belonged to the
body that was to be destroyed, Paul says, It is not so; these acts are
full of the deepest moral significance: they were intended by God to
be the expression of inward union, and they have that significance
whether you shut your eyes to it or not.
And this is what Paul means when he goes on to say, "Every sin that
a man doeth is without the body; but he that committeth fornication
sinneth against his own body." He does not mean that this is the
only sin committed by the body, for of many other sins the body is
the agent, as in murder, lying, blasphemy, robbery, and thieving.
Neither does he mean that this is the only sin to which bodily
appetite instigates, for gluttony and drunkenness equally take their
rise in bodily appetite. But he means that this is the only sin in which
the present connection of the body with Christ and its future destiny
in Him are directly sinned against. This is the only sin, he means,
which by its very nature alienates the body from Christ, its proper
Partner. Other sins indirectly involve separation from Christ; this
explicitly and directly transfers allegiance, and sunders our union
with Him. By this sin a man detaches himself from Christ; he
professes to be united to what is incompatible with Christ.
These weighty reasonings and warm admonitions, into which Paul
throws his whole energy, are concluded by the statement of a
twofold truth which is of much wider application than to the matter
in hand: "Ye are bought with a price to be the temple of the Holy
Ghost." We are bought with a price, and are no longer our own. The
realities underlying these words are gladly owned in every Christian
consciousness. God has caused us to recognise how truly we are His
by showing us that He has grudged nothing which can restore us
fully to Him. He has bought us, not with any of those prices the
wealthy can pay without sacrifice and without profound interest and
feeling, but with that price which is coined and issued by love, which
carries in it the token and pledge of love, and which therefore wins
us wholly. In our relations with God we have never to do with any
merely formal transaction performed for the sake of keeping up
appearances, saving the proprieties or satisfying the letter of law,
but always with what is necessary in the nature of things, with what
is real, with the very God of truth, the centre and source of all
reality. God has made us His own, has won our hearts and wills to
Himself, by manifesting His love in ways that touch and move us,
and for purposes absolutely needful. God means that our attachment
to Him should be real and permanent, and He has based it on the
most reasonable grounds. He means that we should be His, not only
because we are His creatures or because He has an indefeasible
right to our service as the source of our life; but He means that our
hearts should be His, and that we should be drawn to live and labour
for His ends, convinced in our reason that this is our happiness and
attracted by His love to serve Him. He means this; and accordingly
He has bought us, has given us reason to become His, has made
such advances as ought to win us has not grudged to show His
earnest desire for our love by Himself making sacrifices and
declaring that He loves us. It is a thought the humble heart can
scarcely endure that it is loved by God, that it has been counted so
precious in God's sight that Divine love and sacrifice should have
been spent on its restoration. It is a thought that overwhelms the
believing heart, but, believed in, it wins the soul eternally to God.
We are not our own; we belong to Him who has loved us most; and
His love will be satisfied when we suffer Him to dwell in us, so that
we shall be His temples, and shall glorify Him in body and in spirit.
God claims our body as well as our spirit; He has a purpose for our
body as well as for our spirit. Our body is to glorify Him in the future
and now: in the future, by exhibiting how the Divine wisdom has
triumphed over all that threatens the body, and has used all the
present bodily experiences for preparing a permanent spiritual
embodiment of all human faculties and joys; and now, by putting
itself at the disposal of God for the accomplishment of His will. We
glorify God by allowing Him to fulfil His purpose of love in creating
us. What that purpose is we cannot wholly know; but trusting
ourselves to His love, we can, by obeying Him, have it more and
more accomplished in us. And it is the consciousness that we are
God's temples which constantly incites us to live worthily of Him. To
say that we are temples of God is not to use a figure of speech. It is
the temple of stone that is the figure; the true dwelling-place of God
is man. In nothing can God reveal Himself as He can in man.
Through nothing else can He express so much of what is truly
Divine. It is not a building of stone which forms a fit temple for God;
it is not even the heaven of heavens. In material nature only a small
part of God can be seen and known. It is in man, able to choose
what is morally good, able to resist temptation, to make sacrifices
for worthy ends, to determine his own character; it is in man, whose
own will is his law, and who is not the mere mechanical agent of
another's will, that God finds a worthy temple for Himself. Through
you God can express and reveal what is best in Himself. Your love is
sustained by His, and reveals His. Your approval of what is pure and
hatred of impurity has its source in His holiness, and by transforming
you into His own image He discloses Himself as truly dwelling and
living within you. Where is God to be found and to be known if not
in men? Where can His presence and Divine goodness and reality be
more distinctly manifest than in Christ and those who are in any
degree like Him? It is in men that the unseen Divine Spirit manifests
His nature and His work. But if so, what a profanation is it when we
take this body, which is built to be His temple, and put it to uses
which it were blasphemous to associate with God! Let us rather find
our joy in realizing the ideal set before us by Paul, in keeping
ourselves pure as God's temples and in glorifying Him in our body
and in our spirit.

MARRIAGE.

"Now concerning the things whereof ye wrote unto me: It is

good for a man not to touch a woman. Nevertheless, to avoid
fornication, let every man have his own wife, and let every
woman have her own husband. Let the husband render unto
the wife due benevolence: and likewise also the wife unto the
husband. The wife hath not power of her own body, but the
husband, and likewise also the husband hath not power of his
own body, but the wife. Defraud ye not one the other, except it
be with consent for a time, that ye may give yourselves to
fasting and prayer; and come together again, that Satan tempt
you not for your incontinency. But I speak this by permission,
and not of commandment. For I would that all men were even
as I myself. But every man hath his proper gift of God one after
this manner, and another after that. I say therefore to the
unmarried and widows, It is good for them if they abide even as
I. But if they cannot contain, let them marry: for it is better to
marry than to burn. And unto the married I command, yet not I,
but the Lord, Let not the wife depart from her husband: but and
if she depart, let her remain unmarried, or be reconciled to her
husband: and let not the husband put away his wife. But to the
rest speak I, not the Lord: If any brother hath a wife that
believeth not, and she be pleased to dwell with him, let him not
put her away. And the woman which hath an husband that
believeth not, and if he be pleased to dwell with her, let her not
leave him. For the unbelieving husband is sanctified by the wife,
and the unbelieving wife is sanctified by the husband: else were
your children unclean; but now are they holy. But if the
unbelieving depart, let him depart. A brother or a sister is not
under bondage in such cases: but God hath called us to peace.
For what knowest thou, O wife, whether thou shalt save thy
husband? or how knowest thou, O man, whether thou shalt
save thy wife? But as God hath distributed to every man, as the
Lord hath called every one, so let him walk. And so ordain I in
all churches. Is any man called being circumcised? let him not
become uncircumcised. Is any called in uncircumcision? let him
not be circumcised. Circumcision is nothing, and uncircumcision
is nothing, but the keeping of the commandments of God. Let
every man abide in the same calling wherein he was called. Art
thou called being a servant? care not for it: but if thou mayest
be made free, use it rather. For he that is called in the Lord,
being a servant, is the Lord's freeman: likewise also he that is
called, being free, is Christ's servant. Ye are bought with a price;
be not ye the servants of men. Brethren, let every man, wherein
he is called, therein abide with God. Now concerning virgins I
have no commandment of the Lord: yet I give my judgment, as
one that hath obtained mercy of the Lord to be faithful. I
suppose therefore that this is good for the present distress, I
say, that it is good for a man so to be. Art thou bound unto a
wife? seek not to be loosed. Art thou loosed from a wife? seek
not a wife. But and if thou marry, thou hast not sinned; and if a
virgin marry, she hath not sinned. Nevertheless such shall have
trouble in the flesh: but I spare you. But this I say, brethren, the
time is short: it remaineth, that both they that have wives be as
though they had none; and they that weep, as though they
wept not; and they that rejoice, as though they rejoiced not;
and they that buy, as though they possessed not; and they that
use this world, as not abusing it: for the fashion of this world
passeth away. But I would have you without carefulness. He
that is unmarried careth for the things that belong to the Lord,
how he may please the Lord: but he that is married careth for
the things that are of the world, how he may please his wife.
There is difference also between a wife and a virgin. The
unmarried woman careth for the things of the Lord, that she
may be holy both in body and in spirit: but she that is married
careth for the things of the world, how she may please her
husband. And this I speak for your own profit; not that I may
cast a snare upon you, but for that which is comely, and that ye
may attend upon the Lord without distraction. But if any man
think that he behaveth himself uncomely toward his virgin, if
she pass the flower of her age, and need so require, let him do
what he will, he sinneth not: let them marry. Nevertheless he
that standeth stedfast in his heart, having no necessity, but hath
power over his own will, and hath so decreed in his heart that
he will keep his virgin, doeth well. So then he that giveth her in
marriage doeth well; but he that giveth her not in marriage
doeth better. The wife is bound by the law as long as her
husband liveth; but if her husband be dead, she is at liberty to
be married to whom she will; only in the Lord. But she is
happier if she so abide, after my judgment: and I think also that
I have the Spirit of God."—1 Cor. vii. 1-40.
 XI.
MARRIAGE.
There are two preliminary considerations which throw some light on
this much-contested passage. First, Paul had to speak about
marriage as he found it, as it existed among those to whom he
wished to be of service. Hence he makes no allusion to that which
among ourselves is the main argument for, or at least the one only
justifying motive to, marriage, viz., love. Marriage is treated here
from a lower point of view than it would have been had this letter
been originally written for Englishmen. The Church to which it was
addressed was composite. Jews, Greeks, and Romans, in what
proportions it is not easy to say, brought their peculiar and national
usages into it. In the marriages of the Jews and Greeks, love had, as
a rule, little to do. The marriage was arranged by the parents of the
contracting parties.
"Faces strange and tongues unknown
Make us by a bid their own,"
is the remonstrance of the Greek maiden against the unnatural
custom which prevailed of allowing no intimacy, and scarcely any
real acquaintance, prior to marriage. The lack of warmth and
personal interest which characterizes the Greek plays arises mainly
from the circumstance that among the Greeks there was absolutely
no such thing as that love prior to marriage on which even our best
works of fiction uniformly depend for their interest. Among the
Romans there was none of this Eastern seclusion of women, and but
for other causes marriage among this section of the Corinthian
population might have served as an example to the rest.
Secondly, it is to be considered that not only had Paul to speak of
marriage as he found it, but also that he was here only giving
answers to some special questions, and not discussing the whole
subject in all its bearings. There might be other points which to his
mind seemed equally important; but his advice not having been
asked about these, he passes them by. He introduces the subject in
a manner fitted to remind us that he has no intention of
propounding his views on marriage in a complete and systematic
form: "Now concerning the things whereof ye wrote unto me." There
had arisen in the Corinthian Church certain scruples about marriage;
and as the Church was composed of persons who would naturally
take very different views on the subject, these scruples might not be
easily removed. Among the Jews it was believed that marriage was a
duty, "so much so that he who at the age of twenty had not married
was considered to have sinned." Among the Gentiles the tendency to
celibacy was so strong that it was considered necessary to
counteract it by legal enactment. In a community previously
disposed to take such opposite views of marriage difficulties were
sure to arise. Those who were predisposed to disparage the married
state would throw contempt upon it as a mere concession to the
flesh; they apparently even urged that, Christians being new
creatures, their whole previous relationships were dissolved. To Paul
therefore appeal is made.
The questions referred to Paul resolve themselves into two: whether
the unmarried are to marry, and whether the married are to
continue to live together.
In reply to the former question, whether the unmarried are to marry,
he first states the duty of unmarried persons themselves (in vers. 2,
7-9); and afterwards (in vers. 25-39) he explains the duty of parents
to their unmarried daughters.
I. First then we have Paul's counsel to the unmarried. This is
summed up in the words, "I say therefore to the unmarried and
widows, It is good for them if they abide even as I;" that is to say, if
they remain unmarried, Paul being probably the only unmarried
Apostle. But if any man's temperament be such that he cannot settle
undistractedly to his work without marrying; if he is restless and ill at
ease, and full of natural cravings which make him think much of
marriage, and make him feel sure he would be less distracted in
married life—then, says Paul, let such an one by all means marry.
But do not misunderstand me, he says; this is permission I am
giving you, not commandment. I do not say you must or ought to
marry; I say you may, and in certain circumstances ought. Those
among you who say a man sins if he do not marry, talk nonsense.
Those among you who feel a quiet superiority because you are
married, and think of unmarried people as undergraduates who have
not attained a degree equal to yours, are much mistaken if you
suppose that I am of your mind. When I say, "Let every man have
his own wife, and let every woman have her own husband," I do not
mean that every man who wishes to come as near perfection as
possible must go and marry, but what I speak I speak by way of
permission; I permit every man to marry who deliberately believes
he will be the better of marrying. So far from thinking that every
man ought to marry, or that married men have somehow the
advantage over single men, I think the very opposite, and would
that all men were even as I myself, only I know that to many men it
is not so easy as it is to me to live unmarried; and therefore I do not
advise them to a single life.
But this advice of Paul's proceeds, not from any ascetic tendency,
but from the practical bias of his mind. He had no idea that marriage
was a morally inferior condition; on the contrary, he saw in it the
most perfect symbol of the union of Christ and the Church. But he
thought that unmarried men were likely to be most available for the
work of Christ; and therefore he could not but wish it possible,
though he knew it was not possible, that all unmarried men should
remain unmarried.
His reason for thinking that unmarried men would be more efficient
in the service of Christ is given in the thirty-second and thirty-third
verses: "He that is unmarried careth for the things that belong to the
Lord, how he may please the Lord; but he that is married careth for
the things that are of the world, how he may please his wife," an
opinion quite similar to that which Lord Bacon pronounced when he
said, "Certainly the best works, and of greatest merit for the public,
have proceeded from the unmarried or childless men, who both in
affection and means have married and endowed the public." Given
two men with equal desire to serve Christ, but the one married and
the other unmarried, it is obvious that the unmarried man has more
means and opportunities of service than he who has a large family
to support. No doubt a good wife may stimulate a man to liberality,
and may greatly increase his tenderness towards deserving objects
of charity; but the fact remains that he who has seven or ten
mouths to fill cannot have so much to give away as if he had but
himself to support. Then, again, however alike in sentiment husband
and wife may be, there are sacrifices which a married man may not
make. With the unmarried man there need be no other consideration
than this: How can I best serve Christ? With the married man there
must always be other considerations. He cannot ignore or forswear
the ties with which he has bound himself; he cannot act as if he had
only himself to consider. The unmarried man has life and the world
before him, and may choose the most ideal and perfect style of life
he pleases. He may seek to realize, as many in recent times have
realized, the exact apostolic idea of how it is best to spend a human
life. He may choose to devote himself to the elevation of some one
class of the community, or he is free to go to the ends of the earth
to preach the Gospel. He has no one thing to consider but how he
may please the Lord. But the married man has limited his range of
choice, and has cut himself off from some at least of the most
influential ways of doing good in the world. It is therefore to the
unmarried that the State looks for the manning of the army and
navy; it is to the unmarried that society looks for the nursing of the
sick and for the filling of posts of danger; and it is on the unmarried
that the Church depends for a large part of her work, from teaching
in Sunday-schools to occupying unhealthy and precarious outposts in
the mission field.
But while Paul makes no scruple of saying that for many purposes
the unmarried man is the more available, he says also, Beware how
you individually think yourself a hero, and able to forego marriage.
Beware lest, by choosing a part which you are not fit for, you give
Satan an advantage over you, and expose yourself to constant
temptation, and pass through life distracted by needless deprivation.
"Far be it from me," says Paul, "to cast a snare upon you," to invite
or encourage you into a position against which your nature would
unceasingly rebel, to prompt you to attempt that for which you are
constitutionally unfit, and thereby to make your life a chronic
temptation. "Every man hath his proper gift of God, one after this
manner, another after that." And if any man fancies that, because
there are advantages in being unmarried, therefore that is the best
state for him, or if, on the other hand, any man fancies that,
because most men seem to find great happiness in marriage, he also
needs marriage to complete his happiness, both of these men leave
out of account that which is chiefly to be taken into account, viz., the
special temperament, calling, and opportunities of each.
The common-sense and wise counsel of this chapter are sometimes
half jestingly put aside by the idle remark that Paul, being himself
unmarried, takes a biassed view of the subject. But the chief merit
of the whole passage is that Paul positively and expressly declines to
judge others by himself, or himself by others. What is good for one
man in this respect is not good, he says, for another; every man
must ascertain for himself what is best for him. And this is precisely
what is lacking in popular feeling and talk about marriage. People
start in life, and are encouraged to start in life, on the understanding
that their happiness cannot be complete till they are married; that
they are in some sense incomplete and unsatisfactory members of
society until they marry. Now, on the contrary, people should be
taught not to follow one another like sheep, nor to suppose that
they will infallibly find happiness where others have found it. They
should be taught to consider their own make and bent, and not to
take for granted that the cravings they feel for an indefinite addition
to their happiness will be satisfied by marriage. They should be
taught that marriage is but one out of many paths to happiness, that
it is possible celibacy may be the straightest path to happiness for
them, and that many persons are so constituted that they are likely
to be much more useful unmarried than married. They should,
above all, be taught that human life is very wide and multifarious,
and that, to effect His ends, God needs persons of all kinds and
conditions, so that to prejudge the direction in which our usefulness
and happiness are to run is to shut God out of our life. There can be
no doubt that the opposite way of speaking of marriage as the great
settlement in life has introduced much misery and uselessness into
the lives of thousands.
It is this then which not only signally illustrates the judicial balance
of the Apostle's mind, but at the same time gives us the key to the
whole chapter. The capacity for celibacy is a gift of God to him who
possesses it, a gift which may be of eminent service, but to which no
moral value can be attached. There are many such diversities of gifts
among men, gifts of immense value, but which may belong to bad
as well as to good men. For example, two men travel together; the
one can go without food for twelve hours, the other cannot, but if
you repair his strength every five hours, he can go through as much
fatigue as the other. This power of abstinence is a valuable gift, and
has frequently enabled men in certain circumstances to save life or
perform other important service. But no one would dream of arguing
that because a man possessed this gift, he was therefore a better
man than his less enduring friend. Unfortunately, so simple a
distinction has not been kept in view. In the most powerful Church in
the world celibacy is regarded as a virtue in itself, so that men with
no natural gift for it have been encouraged to aim at it, with what
results we need not say.
But while there is no virtue in remaining unmarried, there is virtue in
remaining unmarried for the sake of serving Christ better. Some
persons are kept single by mere selfishness; having been
accustomed to orderly and quiet ways, they shrink from having their
personal peace broken in upon by the claims of children. Some
shrink from being tied down to any definite settlement in life; they
like to feel unencumbered, and free to shift their tent at short notice.
Some dread responsibility and the little and great anxieties of family
life. A few have the feeling of the miser, and prefer the possibility of
many conceivable marriages to the actuality of one. For such
persons to make a virtue of their celibacy is absurd. But all honour
to those who recognise that they are called to some duty they could
not discharge if married! All honour to that eldest son of an
orphaned family who sees that it is not for him to please himself, but
to work for those who have none to look to but him! There are here
and there persons who from the highest motives decline marriage:
persons conscious of some hereditary weakness, physical or mental;
persons who, on a deliberate survey of human life, have seemed to
themselves to recognise that they are called to a kind of service with
which marriage is incompatible. We may be thankful that in our own
country and time there are men and women of sufficiently heroic
mould to exemplify the wisdom of the Apostle's counsel. Such
devotion is not for every one. There are persons of a soft and
domestic temperament who need the supports and comforts of
home-life, and nothing can be more cruel and ill-advised than to
encourage such persons to turn their life into a channel in which it
was never intended to run. But it is equally to be lamented that,
where there are women quite capable of a life of self-devotion to
some noble work, they should be discouraged from such a life by the
false, and foolish, and petty notions of society, and should be taught
to believe that the only way in which they can serve their Lord is by
caring for the affairs of a single household. No calling is nobler or
more worthy of a Christian woman than marriage; but it is not the
only calling. There are other callings as noble, and there are callings
in which many women will find a much wider field for doing good.
II. St. Paul's counsel to the married. Some of the Corinthians seem
to have thought that, because they were new creatures in Christ,
their old relations should be abandoned; and they put to Paul the
question whether a believing man who had an unbelieving wife
ought not to forsake her. Paul had shrewdness enough to see that if
a Christian might separate from an unbelieving wife on the sole
ground that he was a Christian, this easy mode of divorce might lead
to a large and most unwelcome influx of pretended Christians into
the Church. He therefore lays down the law that the power of
separation is to rest with the unbelieving, and not with the believing,
partner. If the unbelieving wife wishes to separate from her Christian
husband, let her do so; but the change from heathenism to
Christianity was no reason for sundering the marriage union. It
frequently happened in the early ages of the Church that when a
man was converted to the Christian faith in middle life, and judged
he could serve God better without the encumbrance of a family, he
forsook his wife and children and betook himself to a monastery.
This directly contravened the law here laid down to abide in the
vocation wherein God's call had found him.
The principle, "Let every man abide in the same calling wherein he
was called," is of wide application. The slave who heard God's call to
him to become His child was not to think he must resent being a
slave and assert his Christian liberty by requiring emancipation from
earthly servitude. On the contrary, he must be content with the
inward possession of the freedom Christ had given him, and must
show his liberty by the willingness and spontaneity of his submission
to all his outward conditions. It is not externals that make a
Christian; and if God's grace has found a man in unlikely
circumstances, that is the best evidence he can have that he will find
opportunity of serving God in those circumstances, if there be no sin
in them. It throws great light on the relation which we as Christians
hold to the institutions of our country, and generally to outward
things, when we understand that Christianity does not begin by
making external changes, but begins within and gradually finds its
way outwards, modifying and rectifying all it meets.
But the principle to which Paul chiefly trusts, he enounces in the
twenty-ninth verse: "This I say, brethren, the time is short: it
remaineth that both they that have wives be as though they had
none, and they that weep as though they wept not; ... for the
fashion of this world passeth away." The forms in which human life
is now moulded, the kind of business we are now engaged in, the
pleasures we enjoy, even the relationships we hold to one another,
pass away. There are no doubt relationships which time cannot
dissolve, marriages so fit and uniting spirits so essentially kindred
that no change can dissolve them, affections so pure and clinging
that if the future does not renew them, it loses a large part of its
charm for us. But whatever is temporary in our relation to the
present world it is foolish so to set our heart on, that death may
seem to end all our joy and all our usefulness. We may resent being
asked to be moderate and self-restrained in our devotedness to this
or that pursuit, but the fact is that the time is short and that the
fashion of this world passeth away; and it is surely the part of
wisdom to accommodate one's self to fact. In this life we now lead,
and underneath all its activities, and forms, and relationships, we
have opportunity of laying hold on what is permanent; and if,
instead of penetrating through the outward things to the eternal
significance and relations they bear, we give ourselves wholly to
them, we abuse the world, and pervert it to an end for which it was
not intended. The man who is sent abroad for five years would
consider it folly to accumulate a large collection of the luxuries of
life, furniture, and paintings, and encumbrances; how many times
five years do we expect to live, that we should be much concerned
to amass goods which we cannot remove to another world? This
world is a means, and not an end; and those use it best who use it
in relation to what is to be. They use it not less vigorously, but more
wisely, not despising the mould which fashions them to their eternal
form, but ever bearing in mind that the mould is to be broken and
that what is fashioned by it alone remains. It is the thought of our
great future which alone gives us sufficient courage and wisdom to
deal with present things intensely and in earnest. For, as a heathen
long ago saw and said, "if God make so much of creatures in whom
there is nothing permanent, He is like women who sow the seeds of
plants within the soil enclosed in an oyster-shell." The very intensity
of our interests and affections reminds us that we cannot root
ourselves in this present life, but need a larger room.
 LIBERTY AND LOVE.

"Now as touching things offered unto idols, we know that we all

have knowledge. Knowledge puffeth up, but charity edifieth.
And if any man think that he knoweth anything, he knoweth
nothing yet as he ought to know. But if any man love God, the
same is known of him. As concerning therefore the eating of
those things that are offered in sacrifice unto idols, we know
that an idol is nothing in the world, and that there is none other
God but one. For though there be that are called gods, whether
in heaven or in earth, (as there be gods many, and lords many,)
but to us there is but one God, the Father, of whom are all
things, and we in Him; and one Lord Jesus Christ, by whom are
all things, and we by Him. Howbeit there is not in every man
that knowledge: for some with conscience of the idol unto this
hour eat it as a thing offered unto an idol; and their conscience
being weak is defiled. But meat commendeth us not to God: for
neither, if we eat, are we the better; neither, if we eat not, are
we the worse. But take heed lest by any means this liberty of
yours become a stumbling-block to them that are weak. For if
any man see thee which hast knowledge sit at meat in the idol's
temple, shall not the conscience of him which is weak be
emboldened to eat those things which are offered to idols; and
through thy knowledge shall the weak brother perish, for whom
Christ died? But when ye sin so against the brethren, and
wound their weak conscience, ye sin against Christ. Wherefore,
if meat make my brother to offend, I will eat no flesh while the
world standeth, lest I make my brother to offend."—1 Cor. viii.
1-13.
"All things are lawful for me, but all things are not expedient: all
things are lawful for me, but all things edify not. Let no man
seek his own, but every man another's wealth. Whatsoever is
sold in the shambles, that eat, asking no question for
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