tious of honor, perhaps, but of honor in action rather than in talk; somewhat awkwardly disposed to dancing, and the accomplishments of the drawing-room, which even now he shirks in order to go earth-stopping with Tom and Jack, who used to set him on Topsail's back in days gone by. In short, I shall be content to find him with all the faults of a vigorous constitution of soul and body, which time and good counsel may direct into a channel of action that will find room for all, and turn all to good. One must begin life with all the strength of life, subject to all danger of its abuse: strength itself, even of evil, is a kind of virtue; whereas weakness is the one radical and incurable evil, growing worse instead of better every year of life.'

"And this is your education,' said Euphranor, 'for all boys indiscriminately, without regard to any particular genius they may show.'

6

"But without injury to it, I hope,' said I; for instance, should it lie toward any of those ologies which we thought Sir Lancelot's free intercourse with nature especially opened to him, or even toward looking into Plato and Digby for qualities he already unconsciously possesses. But,' I continued, seeing no sign of self-consciousness in Euphranor's own earnest face, if Sir Lancelot not only has a genius, (as I suppose all men have some,) but is a genius,- big with Epic, Lyrical, or Parliamentary inspiration, I do not meddle with him, he will take his own course in spite of me. What I have to turn out is, not a genius, but a YOUNG GENTLEMAN, qualified at least for the common professions, or trades, if you like it. Or if he have means and inclination to live independently on his estate, may, in spite of his genius, turn into a very good husband, father, neighbor, and magistrate. No mean vocation, in my opinion, who really believe that healthy, courageous good humor, and activity of soul, do radiate a more happy atmosphere throughout a little circle, and, through that, imperceptibly to the world, than cart-loads of poems, sermons, and essays, by dyspeptic divines, authors, and universal philanthropists, whose fine feelings and bad stomachs generally make them tyrants in their own families, and whose books go to draw others into a like unhappy condition with

Here we take leave of our racy interlocutors. We had noted a number of points for some closing reflections by way of improvement, some for criticism and objection, and some for commendation and enforcement. But we forbear; and we presume that our readers will be as grateful to us for this self-denying omission, as we trust they will be for our bountiful quotations from so fresh and independent a thinker.

G. P.

ART. V. THE APOSTLE PAUL.

ST. PAUL, though chosen last, is the first in rank of the "glorious company of the Apostles." The Twelve, striving among themselves who should be the greatest, little thought that a native of Tarsus, a city of an insignificant province of Asia Minor, would bear off the palm from the children of the Holy Land. They were appointed to a general office, but he was singled out for a peculiar mission, for which neither the zeal of Peter nor the love of John was adequate. To overstep the limits of Palestine, and carry the Gospel to the vast Gentile world, required a rare combination of gifts, and in Paul that combination was found. The chosen one must be born as it were between Judaism and Gentilism, that' he might not be too much tyrannized over by either system. He must be conversant, too, with the old, that he might better measure and appreciate the new. was a Greek by nativity, a Roman by citizenship, and a Jew by religion. Versed in Gentile lore, and taught at the feet of Gamaliel, he was prepared to see, when his eyes were opened, the perfection of the truth as it is in Jesus. With a profound sense of duty inwrought by the Jewish faith, with the culture of a Grecian city, and under the shield of that magic citizenship by which Rome was then opening privileges to the traveller who possessed it over the habitable globe, Paul was furnished in a remarkable manner for his work, by birth, education, and position.

Paul

In considering also the "final causes" of the selection of Paul by that Infinite Intelligence, who adapts now an insect to its element of air or water, and now a planet to its orbit, we discern much of fitness and foresight. There is a great work to be done, and a mighty workman is chosen for its execution. The original nature of Paul fitted him to perform a sublime mission. Without question he is the leading intellect among the sacred writers. He had a too sharply defining imagination for a poet, too logical an understanding for a psalmist, and too impassioned a nature for a philosopher; but he nevertheless combined in himself much of all these characters. His illustrations are often beautiful,

his soul is constantly attuned to praise, and by single flashes of thought he compasses results which others attain by long processes of argumentation. Whatever there might be of ruggedness of outline in the forms in which he presented his thoughts, those thoughts themselves burned with an inextinguishable fire of conviction. He was no quoter nor second-hand repeater. Whatever might go into his mind came out personal and Pauline. Wide in his outlook, yet distinct in his aim; indomitable of will, but flexible when that will must bend or break; profound in his thought, but practical in its application; zealous in temperament, yet imbued with a charity that would clasp the world in his embrace; loving controversy, but loving the truth better than victory; highly intellectual, yet always paying allegiance to the supremacy of the moral powers, the Apostle presented an ample range of contrasts in his genius and character. The intense earnestness of his mind, in whatever direction it moved, and whatever posture it took, is seen in every sentence. Culture had not quenched the generous flame of native ardor. Inspiration had not dulled the energies of a spirit which concentrated the forces of a hundred wills in a single breast, and which heaved with the affections as of a hundred hearts. His whole being pulsates with life. Every faculty is in a high state of vitality. If we complain of imperfections, they are not the imperfections of deficiency, but of superabundance. If his page be dark, it is "dark with excess of light." When he enters upon his theme, the windows of heaven are opened and the fountains of the great deep are broken up. It is as the wise man said, "Lo, my brook became a river, and my river became a sea." the flood of emotions and thoughts on which he is borne along, all temporal interests are swallowed up, and the reader arrives with the writer at the same all-important conclusions, and responds the same devout Amen!

In

The Apostle's life also possessed a remarkable unity. He believed Judaism divine, and he advocated it with his whole soul. And when new light came, and he recognized the higher divinity of the Gospel, he was "not disobedient unto the heavenly vision." His notable conversion, therefore, was a change in direction, not in motive, or zeal, or conscientiousness, or devotion to

the service of God. It was like the change of his name, the substitution of one, and that the first, letter for another, changing, but not annihilating, the original sound.

Yet Paul had passed through very different religious experiences from those of the other Apostles, and he derived new power from this source. It has been said that we cannot fully know the strength of an opponent's argument, unless we have at some time been of his belief. Paul was a Hebrew of the Hebrews. A Jewish doctor could tell him nothing new. He had been a Jew after Christ had lived and died, a Jew in opposition and persecution, and he had tasted the guilt of that passion and the force of that prejudice. Men and women he had hauled to prison and to death. In his inhuman bigotry he "breathed out threatenings and slaughter against the disciples of the Lord," and persecuted them from city to city. The very existence of the Christian Church was endangered by this arch enemy. But in the height of his career, he is arrested by a voice from heaven; a voice, not of vengeance, but of mild expostulation and warning from the Lord, whose cause he was pursuing with rancor and murder. Every circumstance connected with the conversion of Paul substantiates its miraculous origin. But within the precincts of his own mind, we detect no compulsion or violation of his free agency. The blow by which he was stopped in his course of persecution was sudden, but the process of mind through which he became fully imbued with the Christian faith and charity was progressive. For a season he sits in blindness and prayer, neither eating nor drinking. For three years he dwelt in Arabia and foreign places, and only once during fourteen years visited Jerusalem, the head-quarters of the new faith. Though no one, accordingly, was more active in proclaiming Christianity to the world, or entered so fully into what might be called the missionary cause of that period, no one, again, had a more personal, peculiar, and vivid religious experience. From a persecutor he had been raised to the glorious office of an Apostle; the chief of sinners, he had found mercy. Hence there is a vividness of emotion, an intense yearning of love and gratitude, that can find no words strong enough to do them justice. Jesus had not been known to him personally in his daily walks

and familiar conversation and travels, as he had to the other disciples. He had spoken to him from heaven, and communicated in visions. He was, therefore, a more solemn and awe-inspiring being, a more transcendent benefactor, than to John who reclined in his bosom, or to Peter who denied him and was pardoned. Paul was very far from regarding or speaking of Jesus as God, but he more constantly calls him Christ and Lord. The events

of his own life became the background on which his rescue from the guilt and fate of a persecutor of the Church stood out in strong relief. His own experiences became motives to prompt him to save others. He had measured the depth of that pit out of which he had been drawn, and he spared no toil or suffering to lift up others also from its dark recesses into light and liberty. The line kindles with personal emotion when he speaks of sin and pardon and salvation, and he added to the power of argument the intensity of personal consciousness and conviction.

Then, too, his life subsequently to his conversion furnishes abundant materials to illustrate and vivify his discourse. He had sounded all the depths of the inward life, and he had traversed all the regions and scenes of its objective manifestations. Hence his character was one of no halting or half-way quality. The pendulum of its movement had a wide swing, and it passed through many arcs of a complete circle. What the Apostle said, he said with all his heart, and what he did, he did with all his might. His faculties have totality of action, and when they enter into battle they give their whole momentum to the charge, without fear or misgiving. He could speak like a prophet, because he had lived like a hero. He could write with the enthusiasm of poetry, though without its form, because in his history were the elements of romance. His journeys, his perils, his shipwrecks, his scourgings and stonings, his chains and imprisonments, his joys and his triumphs, all afforded vivid figures of speech, with which his glowing mind clothed itself in the act of composition. He had touched the extreme points of earthly vicissitude, and measured the length and breadth of hope and fear. One day on the point of being adored as a god, he was liable on the next to be killed as a common malefactor. Now the object of the most af