SA CHAPTER VII. PAUL AND GENTILE MISSIONS. AUL'S cavalcade is dispersed and he is led stricken and helpless, that his head may weep in a dark place while his eyes are sealed. Did ever man question his crest-fallen soul like this man, in the home of Ananias? The talk that he hears is all new, and the strange hymns which float under its roof awaken hidden thoughts in the secret chambers of his spirit. The disciples who waited for his prisons and chains, hear that he is the blind subject of Christian hospitality. Yesterday he fell before the gate a ruined sinner, but rose a consecrated saint-fell a butcher of the saints, rose a champion Apostle. Yesterday morning he was a vulture sailing over the prey on which he gloated; to-day, he is a gentle dove covered with silver, and feathers of yellow gold. Outside the gate, he was a prowling wolf; in the home of Ananias, a trembling lamb; for the slayer of women came out of the baptistery with his heart breaking for all human woe. After three days, news ran through the city that he was at the synagogue. Why was he there? Let us see. It is thronged, and crowds gather at its doors. Floods of eloquent truth flow from a strange voice, and sound out a strange Name in the holy oratory of the synagogue. This reasoning is not after the dialectics of Gamaliel, it is like Stephen's, as clear, as warm, as conclusive. The old apology of that martyr haunts him; Saul is wielding Stephen's old logic with mighty power. He dares to say, that the Crucified is the Son of God! Perhaps his mind's eye sees the face of the martyr shining like the face of an angel in the heaven of heavens. Or does the ghost of the murdered man make his penitence eloquent? No matter. The synagogue rocks with excitement. In the first stupor of surprise, the Jews ask: 'Is not this he who destroyed the Galileans? This is not the fierce man of Tarsus. He could not frame such thoughts, would not talk so wildly.' Yet, he grows warmer, bolder, broader. He cites the Sacred Rolls from Genesis to Malachi to prove that Jesus is the Christ. Blank astonishment seizes the Jews; they gather in knots to consult, and are half-paralyzed. Their surprise gives place to indignation. Why do they not drag him forth, cast him out, put him to death? But he moves on and on like a torrent, clearer and stronger than ever; until he comes to tell of his own rescue from perdition. As he gives his story, new and holy fire makes him tremble from head to foot in the realities of one who is saved, when he cries to the surging crowd: 'I was a blasphemer, and a persecutor, and overbearing; but I obtained mercy, that in me first Jesus Christ might show forth HIS ARABIAN SECLUSION. 89 all long-suffering, for a pattern to them who shall hereafter believe on him to life everlasting.' The account which he writes of his early Christian life, in his Epistle to the Galatians, shows that he now spent three years in Arabia; which, by Jewish reckoning, might mean one whole year with a part of two others. A veil is thrown over this Arabian visit. Whether the name designates the peninsula of Sinai, bounded by Egypt and the upper part of the Red Sea, or the desert north of this, or the desert of Petraea or all these together, is not known. Most likely the word 'Arabia' has a somewhat local meaning, which covers Sinai and the regions adjacent. Arabian Jews had heard the Gospel from Peter at Pentecost, and, possibly, having been converted, had returned to their own country. The original inhabitants of these wild districts were descendants of Ishmael, whose religion degenerated into a sort of fetich idolatry, and amongst these Arabs, Saul was to outgrow his cold bigotry and narrow traditions into a broad messenger of grace to all orders of Gentiles. He tells us, that in going there he neither consulted his own inclinations nor the wishes of others, but cheerfully took the burden laid upon him by Christ. This was the great crisis of his life, and he must be severed from all controlling human influences until he passed it safely. At the birthplace of the Old Covenant, which burned with fire, he must study the ministry of death, that he might better preach the life of the New Covenant. Up to this point in his history, his great strength lay in the fact, that he owned himself without reserve, for in his intense hate his imperious will had been the regnant center of his being. In Arabia he must put himself entirely under the will of another. As a strong man, he held the new truth without wavering, free from those petty suspicions which torment the weak. For him to take liberties with the truth would be disloyalty, but thorough exploration of all its parts would give its whole empire a unity, which must correct his distortions of the moral law, and tutor him for the invincible preaching of the Gospel. In this way he could perfect his character, and prepare for action on a large scale; being first a debtor to the Jew and the Greek, the polished and the barbarian. But in order to repay the whole race, he must go first to Arabia. Had he gone back to Jerusalem to consult with the elder Apostles, their prejudices against taking the Gospel to the Gentiles might have chilled him, or it might appear that he had received authority from them. But Jesus kept him apart by sending him to those solitary granite mountains where Moses, the head of the law, and Elijah, the head of the prophets, were educated for their work, and where isolation brought him under the absolute dictation of his Lord. For three years Christ had instructed the Twelve personally, and Saul, the new Apostle, must go for the same length of time, to these crags, cliffs and wastes, for schooling around the frowning mount, under Christ's exclusive teaching. He had now rejected his former interpretation of Moses, and so at Sinai he must learn anew what the Lawgiver meant, as quoted by Stephen: A Prophet will God raise up to you, him shall ye hear.' He could better learn this on the holy ground which had quaked in blackness and tempest. Saul should study the Gospel where the Law was given, and obtain full knowledge of the blood of sprinkling where God had ordained that there can be no remission of sin without blood-shedding. When calmed, instructed, and strengthened under the shade of Sinai, he would be ready to ascend Calvary. The trumpet resounding around the legal mount, should teach him how to press another trumpet to his lips and proclaim the voice of other words, with a self-conscious joy which should exult in the cry: Thanks be to God who makes us to triumph in every place.' At the end of his Arabian life he returned to Damascus, where he was assailed by his foes, who were maddened against him; and he fled for safety to Jerusalem. His preaching forced the Jews to re-examine their own faith, and they plotted his assassination at the opening of his Apostolic career. His Christian brethren kept him secret until night, and when the streets and walls of the city were under close guard, they let him down in a net, or rope-basket, from a window in the wall, opening into a house inside the city. Stealing from the eyes of men whom he fain would bless, for the first time the world's Apostle flew for his life. When lowered into the outer darkness, as into a well, he grasped the rope, but he could hear his own heart beat; and what thoughts trooped through his soul at that sad moment! He came to that city to lash by the wrists Christ's disciples in gangs, and now flew to a rope for his own deliverance, that he might preach that Christ to all. Then, he would cage all the saints in prison, to kill thein; but now, how gladly he cramps himself into a basket to save his own life that he may make more disciples. Isaiah's figure presents him to us as 'a wild bull caught in a net' at last; and, possibly, the hands that drop him to the ground are those which he intended to enchain. He groped his way through the dark, with only a star here and there to shed a ray on his path, as if poetic justice reminded him by contrast of his noon-tide persecution. He trod upon his own dark plots at every step, and no chapter in his history would so stir our hearts as the record of his thoughts when he repassed the spot where Christ smote him to the earth. Did he look into the heavens now to see them re-open? would he have given then for one more glimpse of the Son of man! And how wakeful was the ear of his heart, to catch one whisper of his voice. He tells us himself (Gal. i, 18) that he desired to see Peter. For what? He has concealed his heart musings. But for once, he wanted to look the honest boatman in the face; to catch the wondrous story of redemption from a fresh memory and a full heart. His soul-musings must have been wonderful as he made his way back through Palestine. On reaching 'The Place of Stoning,' hard by the Damascus gate of Jerusalem, where he first breathed out threatening and slaughter, what were his thoughts? Did he pick up a stone there, to see if it still bore the stain of Stephen's blood? Did he bury his face in his cloak' and sob, where he had watched the clothes of those who stoned Stephen? That had been Paul-like. Saul came back to the Holy City another man. O! what He longed to nestle in the Three years had warm love of those whom he had hated, and sought to join them. proved his conversion thorough, and he made not for the home of his old tutor, nor did he seek for Onkelos, the coming author of the Targum, who had sat at his side in the great school as Gamaliel's pupil. But he went directly to the disciples of Jesus. The Jews had once reposed confidence in him and promised him a brilliant future, now they had turned their backs upon him, and he met a cold reception amongst the Christians. They suspected him. Luke says: All were afraid of him, not believing that he was a disciple.' He had been so furious against them that his name was odious, and they feared to be entrapped in some horrible plot. In this atmosphere of distrust, the delicate love and heroic courage of that choice spirit, Barnabas, took him by the hand, led him to the Apostles, and told them all the particulars of his conversion. They saw that his vision was no creation of his brain, 92 THE FIRST GENTILE CHURCH. and that the words of Jesus to him were no note of his imagination, but that in truth he had become a follower of Jesus. Barnabas silenced the fears of the brethren, and Saul was welcomed by Peter and James, our Lord's brother, whom he now met for the first time. The new Apostle began at once to build up the faith where he had sought its destruction, until the Grecian Jews threatened his life. This latter fact shows how thoroughly his three years' study of Christian truth had subordinated his Jewish attainments to the service of Christ. Saul had never met the Son of Mary in the metropolis, but their eyes had looked upon the same men, and now their feet had passed the same streets on the same errand of love, and their hearts had become the treasury of the same truths. Saul remained in Jerusalem only fifteen days (Gal. i, 19); and then his brethren saved his life a second time, by sending him to Tarsus, where, most likely, he established the churches in Cilicia. Meanwhile, persecution had driven certain disciples to Antioch, which was now to become a great center for the spread of the Gospel, to which work the Apostle should devote the best thirty years of his life. For this work Christ had educated this great workman. Eighty years were spent by Moses in his education, forty in the academies of Egypt, and forty in the desert of Horeb, for a third forty years' work, in making a nation from a mob of slaves. Jesus spent thirty years in preparing for the work of three, and it was meet that his greatest Apostle should spend the same length of time in preparing to lead the Gentile world to the foot of his cross. Some of the disciples who first visited Antioch were from the Island of Cyprus, the very hot-bed of worship offered to Venus; others were of Cyrene, a Greek city on the African coast between Carthage and Egypt. These first preached to the Jews in Antioch, then turned to the Gentiles and a great number believed. Acts xi, 21. Here the first battle for Christ with unmixed paganism was waged, and the first purely Gentile Church was formed entirely outside of all Judaizing influences. This event shaped the future of Christianity, proving that 'The field is the world.' It is remarkable that this Church was founded without the aid of an Apostle, by converted Hellenist Jews, who had not heard the parable of the sower; for Barnabas and another Cypriot convert had built up this first. Gentile Church in the great Syrian capital. These very irregular and disorderly proceedings amongst the primitive Baptists have greatly shocked certain prelatical parties. But they must bear up under the affliction in some way, for at last it will certainly appear that a simple, immersed Evangelist, confirmed the first Church ever called 'Christian.' Nay, so great was the ingathering that Barnabas was compelled to go from Antioch to Tarsus, in search of Saul to help him in the great harvest-field. Antioch was all inquiry; and the broad nature of Barnabas saw that the issue must be met by a man of wide conceptions, earnest convictions, and liberal sympathies; a man with full knowledge of human nature, cool, courageous, cosmopolitan; dead, as far as possible, to crude and timid preferences for race and nationality; who, in earnest and without doubt, could clearly and sharply define the |