The life and work of St. Paul

A MABTYBDOM AND A BETBIBUTION. 171
The necessity for such a name marks clearly the success which attended
the mission work of these early Evangelists. They could not have tilled a
soil which was more likely to be fruitful. "With what a burst of joy must
the more large-hearted even of the Jews have hailed the proclamation of a
Gospel which made them no longer a hated colony living at drawn daggers
with the heathen life that surrounded them ! How ardently must the Gentile
whose heart had once been touched, whose eyes had once been enlightened;
have exulted in the divine illumination, the illimitable hope ! How must his
heart have been stirred by the emotions which marked the outpouring of
the Spirit and accompanied the grace of ! baptism How with the new life
tingling through the dry bones of the valley
of vision must he have turned
away with abhorrence for his former self, and a divine pity for his former
companions from the poisoned grapes of Heathendom, to pluck the fair
fruits which grow upon the Tree of Life in the Paradise of God ! How, in
one word, must his heart have thrilled, his soul have dilated, at high words
like these :
" Such things were some of you ; but ye washed yourselves, but
ye are sanctified, but ye are justified, by the name of the Lord Jesus, and by
the Spirit of our God." l
CHAPTER XVII.
A MABTTBDOM AND A BETBIBTJTION.
"
great Apostle ! rightly now
Thou readest all thy Saviour meant,
What time His grave yet gentle brow
In sweet reproof on th.ee was bent." KEBLB.
THUS it was that at Antioch the Church of Christ was enlarged, and the
views of its members indefinitely widened. For a whole year and it may
well have been the happiest year in the life of Saul he worked here with his
beloved companion. The calm and conciliatory tact of Barnabas tempered
and was inspirited by the fervour of Saul. Each contributed his own high
gifts to clear away the myriad obstacles which still impeded the free flow of
the river of God's grace. In the glory and delight of a ministry so richly
successful, it is far from impossible that Saul may have enjoyed that
rapturous revelation which he describes in the Epistle to the Corinthians,
during which he was caught up into Paradise as far as the third heaven, 2 and
heard unspeakable words which man neither could nor ought to utter. It
was one of those ecstasies which the Jews themselves regarded as the
1 1 Cor. VI. 11. Taura riftt J/re oAX' anskovyaurdt, K.r.A.
2 The "third heaven" is called "Zevul" by Bashi (cf. Ckagiffah, f. 12, 2). In such
visions the soul " hath no eyea to see, nor ears to hear, yet sees and hears, and is all eye,
all ear." St. Teresa, in deseribing.her visions as indescribable, says, "The restless little
butterfly of the memory has its wings burnt now, and it cannot fly." { Vi/da, xvili. 18.)