 |  |
Tradition tells us moreover that those of the guard, Longinus, Acestus, and Megistus,
were converted on the way, and that they afterwards suffered martyrdom for the name of
Christ.
We have no words with which, adequately to express our own appreciation of this
man of God. We cannot trust our pen at this point, lest in the eyes of some, we appear
too fond. We cannot however say farewell to this lonely child of grace, this champion of
truth, this herald of light and liberty, without some tribute, and so we quote the words of
another, who, though viewing much of the Scriptures from a different angle from that
held by ourselves, was an unreserved lover of Paul the apostle.
"Here was one to whom no single man that has ever lived, before or since, can furnish
a perfect parallel. If we look at him only as a writer, how immensely does he surpass, in
his most casual Epistles, the greatest authors, whether Pagan or Christian, of his own and
succeeding epochs. The younger Pliny was famous as a letter-writer, yet the younger
Pliny never produced any letter so exquisite as that to Philemon. Seneca, as a moralist,
stood almost unrivalled, yet not only is clay largely mixed with his gold, but even his
finest moral aphorisms are inferior in breadth and intensity to the most casual of
St. Paul's.
Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius furnish us with the purest and noblest
specimens of Stoic loftiness and thought, yet St. Paul's chapter on charity is worth more
than all they ever wrote. If we look at the Christian world, the very greatest worker in
each realm of Christian service does but present an inferior aspect of one phase only of
Paul's many-sided pre-eminence. As a theologian, as one who formulated the doctrines
of Christianity, we may compare him with St. Augustine or St. Thomas of Aquinum; yet
how should we be shocked to find in him the fanciful rhetoric and dogmatic bitterness of
the one, or the scholastic aridity of the other! If we look at him as a moral reformer, we
may compare him with Savonarola; but in his practical control of even the most thrilling
spiritual impulses--in making the spirit of the prophet subject to the prophet--how grand
an exemplar might he not have furnished to the impassioned Florentine! If we consider
him as a preacher we may compare him with St. Bernard; yet St. Paul would have been
incapable of the unnatural asceticism and heresy-hunting hardness of the great Abbot of
Clairvaux. As a reformer who altered the entire course of human history, Luther alone
resembles him; yet how incomparably is the Apostle superior to Luther in insight, in
courtesy, in humility, in dignity, in self-control! As a missionary we might compare him
to Xavier, as a practical organizer 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
brandmarks 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 who have since striven to
follow the example of his devotion to his Lord" (Farrar).
Faithful to the end, the apostle did not forget his promise to the church in the
beginning.
The Thessalonians had been deceived by a letter purporting to come from the apostle
(II Thess. 2: 2), and to safeguard them and us he said:
"The salutation of Paul with mine own hand, which is the token in every epistle; so I
write. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen" (II Thess. 3: 17, 18).