The life and work of St. Paul

368 THE LIFE A.ND WORK OF ST. PATTL,
persecuted, slandered, made as it were the dung and fiHh of all the world.1 Nay,
more, he was in jeopardy not only every day, but every hour ; humanly speaking,
he had fought with wild beasts in the great voluptuous Ionic city; he was
living every day a living death. He tells us that he was branded like some
8 that ho was
"
being Mlied
guilty slave with the stigmata of the Lord Jesus ;
all the day long; 3 that ho was "in deaths oft;" * that he was constantly
carrying about with >nm the deadness of the crucified Christ; 6 his life aa
endless mortification, his story an inscription on a cross. What wonder if,
amid these afflictions, there were times when the heroic soul gave way? What,
wonder if he speaks of tears, and trembling, and desolation of heart, and
nttor restlessness ; of being pressed out of measure, above strength, despair-
ing of life itself,6 tried almost beyond tho extreme of human endurance
without fightings, within fears ? What wonder if ho is driven to declare
that if this is all the life belonging to our hopo in Christ, he would be of
all men the most miserable ? T And yet, in the strength of the Saviour, how
triumphantly he stemmed the overwhelming tide of these afflictions ; in the
panoply of God how dauntlessly ha continued to fling himself into the
Indomitable
never-ending battle of a warfare which had no discharge. 8
spirit ! fiung down to earth, chained like a captive to the chariot-wheels of his
Lord's triumph, 9 haled as it wore from city to city, amid bonds and afflictions, 10
as a deplorable spectacle, amid the incenso which breathed through the streets
in token of tho victor's might he yet thanks God that he is thus a captive,
and glories in his many infirmities. Incomparable and heroic soul ! many
eaiute of God have toiled, and suffered, and travelled, and preached, and been
execrated, and tortured, and imprisoned, and martyred, in the cause of Christ.
Singly they towor above tho vulgar herd of selfish and comfortable men ; but
yet the collective labours of sonio of their greatest would not equal, nor would
their collective sufferings furnish a parallel to those of Paul, and very few of
them have been what he was
practical worker for his Lord.
a great original thinker, as well as a devoted
But of this period we learn from the Acts only one closing scene, 11 and it
is doubtful whether even this is painted for us in colours half so terrible as tho
reality. Certain it is that somo of the allusions which we have been noticing
must bear reference to this crowning peril, and that, accustomed though ho was
to the daily aspect of danger in its worst forms, this particular danger and
tho circumstances attending it, which are rather hinted at than detailed, had
mado a most intense impression upon the Apostle's mind.
At the close of about two years, his restless fervour made him feel that ha
could stay no longor in the school of Tyrannus. He formed the plau of
starting after Pentecost, and visiting once more the churches of Macedonia
1 1 Coiv iv. 818 ; 2 Cor. iv. 8, 9.
z
Gal. vi. 17.
* Rom. viii. 36.
* 2 Cor. 3d. 23.
2 Cor. i. 8.
7 1 Cor. xv. 19.
8 See Greg. Naz. Oral. ii. 3S
2 Cor. ii. 1416.
40.
* 2 Cor. iv. 10. 10 Acts xx. 23.
11 There are further hinti in the farewell speech to the Epherian elders (Act* xx. 1885).