The life and work of St. Paul

688 THE LIFE AND WORK OF ST. PAWL.
a missionary we might compare him to Xavier, as a practical organiser to St.
Gregory, as a fervent lover of souls to Whitefield, and to many other saints
of God in many other of his endowments ; but no saint of God has ever
attained the same heights in so many capacities, or received the gifts of the
Spirit in so rich an outpouring, or borne in his mortal body such evident
brand-marks of the Lord. In his lifetime he was no whit behind the very
chiefest of the Apostles, and he towers above the very greatest of all the
saints
Lord.
who have since striven to follow the example of his devotion to his
"
God buries his workmen, but carries on their work." It is not for any
earthly rewards that God'a heroes have sought not even for the reward of
hoping in the posthumous success of the cause to which they have sacrificed
their lives. All questions of success or failure they have been content to leave
in the hands of God. Their one desire has been to be utterly true to the best
that they have known ; their prayers have all been simplified to this alone
" Teach me to do the thing that pleaseth Thee, for Thou art my God ; let
Thy loving Spirit lead me into the land of righteousness." That God has
seemed to be careless of their individual happiness they would be the last to
complain ; though He slay them, yet do they trust in Him. Failure was to
St. Paul a word unknown. He knew that to fail or seem to fail in the
cause of God, was to succeed beyond the dreams of earthly ambition.
His faith had never wavered amid life's severest trials, nor his hope grown
dim amid its most bitter disappointments ; and when he passed from the
dungeon and the martyrdom to his crown of righteousness, he left the life
which ho had sown to be quickened by the power of God in the soil of the
world's history, where it shall continue to bear fruit until the end of time,
amid the ever-deepening gratitude of generations yet unborn. One who had
lived with him, and knew his thoughts and hopes, and had himself preached
the faith of Christ in days when to bo a Christian was to suffer as a Christian,
has written of God's heroes in words which St. Paul would have endorsed,
and in which he would have delighted, " These all died in faith, not having
received the promises, but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded
of them, and embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and
pilgrims on the earth. For they that say such things declare plainly that they
seek a country ; and truly, if they had been mindful of that country whence
they came out, they might have had opportunity to have returned. But now
they desire a better country, that is, an heavenly ; wherefore God is not
ashamed to be called their God, for He hath prepared for them a city."