The life and work of St. Paul

256 THE LIFE AND WORK O* ST. PAUL.
God overruled evil for good. Henceforth they were engaged in two spheres
of mission action instead of one, and henceforth also the bearing and the views
of Paul were more free and vigorous, lees shackled by associations, less liable
to reaction. Hitherto his position in the Church of Jerusalem had depended
much upon the countenance of Barnabas. Henceforth he had to stand alone,
to depend solely on himself and hia own Apostolic dignity, and to rely on no
favourable reception for his views, except such as ho won by the force of right
and reason, and by the large benefits which accrued to the Church of Jerusalem
from the alms which ho collected from Gentile Churches.
And Mark also profited by the difference of which he was the unhappy
cause. If the lenient partiality of one Apostle still kept open for him the
missionary career, the stern judgment of the other must have helped to make
him a more earnest man. All that we henceforth know of him shows alike
his great gifts and his self-denying energy. In his Gospel he has reflected
for us with admirable vividness the knowledge and experience of his friend
and master St. Peter, to whom, in his later years, he stood in the samo
relation that Timothy occupied towards St. Paul. 1 But even St. Paul saw
good cause not only to modify his unfavourable opinion,
but to invite him
again as a fellow-labourer. 1 He urges the Colossians to give him a kindly
welcome, 3 and even writes to Timothy an express request that he would bring
him to Borne to solace his last imprisonment, because he had found him that
which he had once failed to be "profitable to him for ministry."*
CHAPTER XXIV
ti t^n-t ttit n*v*i *v.M.
BEGINNING OP THE SECOND MISSIONARY JOURNEY: PAUL
IN GALATIA.
" Come, let us get up early to the vineyards ; let us see if the vines flourish."
CANT. vii. 12.
THE significant silence as to any public sympathy for Barnabas and Mark,
together with the prominent mention of it in the case of Paul, seems to show
that the Church of Antioch in general considered that St. Paul was in the
right. Another indication of the same fact is that Silas consented to become
his companion. Hitherto Silas had been so closely identified with the Church
of Jerusalem that ho had been one of the emissaries chosen to confirm the-
genuineness of the circular letter, and in the last notice of him which occursin
Scripture we find him still in the company of St. Peter, who sends him.
from Babylon with a letter to some of the very Churches which he had visited
with St. Paul. 5 His adhesion to the principles of St. Paul, iu spite of the
1 Pet. v. 13. Philem. 24.
Col. iv. 10. 2 Tim. ir. 11, l Scoria*
1 Pet. T. 12. The identity cannot, however, be regarded as certain.