doctrines which fell from him—their hearts were moved and troubled-and mostly so because he proclaimed a Name which they were taught to hold accursed. And when those synagogues broke up, which they oftentimes did in uproar, many followed that mysterious man, talked with him in his retirement, believed, and were baptized. That stranger was the apostle Paul-the name and theme on which he ever spoke was Jesus Christ and Him crucified; and they who believed and were baptized were those whom "the Lord added to the church daily, that they might be saved."

In this, as in an introductory lecture, I shall speak on the most striking parts of the character of this remarkable man and his preaching; and then review such instances of the success of his apostleship and ministry as will evidence that the Gospel, which he compassed sea and land to preach, was "the power of God unto salvation."

The most prominent marks of Paul's character are his zeal, perseverance, and devotedness. These, whilst he was under the Law, influenced him "after the most straitest sect of his religion to live a Pharisee;" and these-when by the grace of God he was called to be an apostle-with yet holier and increased impulse inspired him to labor more abundantly than all the apostles; and to "count

all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus his Lord."

In proof of his zeal-as a young, enthusiastic Jew, we find him fondly supposing that he ought to do many things against the name of the crucified Nazarene; and, thinking he was doing God service, "making havoc of the church, entering into every house, and haling men and women, committing them to prison, and being exceeding mad against them persecuting them even to strange cities." Another time we behold him watching, with bigot rejoicing, the clothes of those who stoned the heavenlyminded Stephen; and at length breathing out threatenings and slaughter against the disciples of the Lord, carrying the commission of the high priest to the remote city of Damascus, that "if he found any of this way, whether they were men or women, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem." But how rectified! how exalted was that zeal when it was pressed into the true service of God! What led Paul with unshrinking heart into every city, though he knew that there bonds and imprisonment awaited him? What led him at one time over the burning sands of the wilderness, and at another to the bleak confines of Pontus? What kept his spirit from drooping within him in the dark dungeon of Philippi, and what during the storm

and the stress of weather, as "he was driven up and down in Adria, and when neither sun nor stars for many days appeared?" What prompted him at Ephesus to proclaim against the idolatry to Diana, and what at Athens to confront that superstition which worshipped an Unknown God? What led him to alarm Felix with righteousness, temperance, and judgment to come; and what to ask Agrippa with a holy boldness-" King Agrippa, believest thou the Scriptures?" His zeal for Christ; his ardor to proclaim His name to Jew and Gentile ; his readiness to bear about in his body the marks of the Lord Jesus, to die daily, and amid perils and persecutions, and hunger, and cold, and nakedness, to let none of these things move him, nor to count his life dear to himself, "so that he might finish his course with joy, and the ministry which he received of the Lord Jesus, to testify the gospel of the grace of God."

Nor was Paul's perseverance less signal than his zeal. The latter is, in many, a mere momentary impulse-a power bent to its utmost tension, but whose elasticity is soon spent, and whose energy is soon broken. Like the ardent outpouring of a lava-stream, it wastes the very chambers of the heart from which it flows. But not so the fervor of the apostle Paul. It was zeal in

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its intenseness, but perseverance in its continuance. His heart was like the bush before Moses, it burnt, and burnt brightly and miraculously, but was not consumed; like the fire which of old was consecrated in the temple to God, it was lit from heaven, and like that fire was continually kept alive. read of Moses burdened and heart-bowed by the murmurings of Israel, repining that he led them from Egypt-of Elijah dispirited, sinking beneath the juniper tree, despairing, and imploring "Now, O Lord, take away my life, for I am not better than my fathers," because, as he imagined, he and he only was left, and they sought his life to take it away—of Ezekiel exclaiming, because the rebellious houses of Israel and Judah would not hear him, “Ah, Lord God, they say of me, doth he not speak parables !"-and of Jonah sitting down vexed in spirit, and displeased exceedingly, because God repented of his fierce anger against Nineveh when her six score thousand humbled themselves in sackcloth and ashes. But we trace no discouragement in the spirit of Paul. As patriotic as Moses, he could wish himself "accursed from Christ for his brethren, his kinsmen according to the flesh;" yet when they league in oath against his life, there is no murmuring against them, no provoking of his spirit, no speaking unadvisedly with his lips.

When he is stoned from one city, scourged in another, and imprisoned in the drear, damp dungeon of a third, he does not implore to die, though in danger and suffering he was dying daily. When his words are set at nought he is not discouraged, but bears the same faithful saying to other cities. And far from arrogating to himself honor as a prophet and apostle of the Lord, he was willing to be accounted a fool for Christ's sake! For thirty years he bore about in his body the cross of Christ; for thirty years he was familiar with persecution on the land, and perils on the deep; for thirty years he was defamed, evil-intreated, and betrayed by false brethren; for thirty years he was a wanderer, without any certain dwelling-place; for thirty years, like a good soldier of Christ Jesus, he never left his watch-post, and never sheathed the sword; for thirty years he pressed forward in the race for the prize of the high calling of God, still reaching toward the mark. Yet for the whole thirty years we trace no faltering of heart-no flagging of zeal-no halting as in weariness; as bold, as energetic, as firm, as full of trust and purpose when he stood a bowed and prematurely-bent old man in Nero's palace, as when with all the fire of a new convert he confounded the Jews which dwelt at Damascus, proving that Jesus was the very Christ.