If we meet with trouble, it is for the sake of your consolation and salvation; and, if we find consolation, it is for the sake of the consolation that you will experience when you are called to endure the very sufferings that we ourselves are enduring;

I could get no peace of mind because I failed to find Titus, my Brother; so I took leave of the people there, and went on to Macedonia.

Sure that, when we have put it on, we shall never be found discarnate.

Never do we put an obstacle in any one's way, that no fault may be found with our ministry.

And with many an appeal to us for permission, they showed their love, and contributed their share towards the fund for their fellow-Christians.

What we are specially guarding against is that any fault should be found with us in regard to our administration of this charitable fund;

We are also sending with them another of our Brothers, whose earnestness we have many a time proved in many ways, and whom we now find made even more earnest by his great confidence in you.

With reference, indeed, to the Fund for your fellow-Christians, it is quite superfluous for me to say anything to you.

Otherwise, if any Macedonians were to come with me, and find you unprepared, we--to say nothing of you--should feel ashamed of our present confidence.

I implore you not to drive me to "show my boldness," when I do come, by the confident tone which I expect to have to adopt towards some of you, who are expecting to find us influenced in our conduct by earthly motives.

For I am afraid that perhaps, when I come, I may find that you are not what I want you to be, and, on the other hand, that you may find that I am what you do not want me to be. I am afraid that I may find quarreling, jealousy, ill-feeling, rivalry, slandering, back-biting, self-assertion, and disorder.