Northern and Western influences, must be strongly characterized by the predominance of thought and will. Certainly we and our European kinsmen on the northern borders do abound comparatively in thought and will, and so far are ready to sympathize more heartily with the Apostle who unites such strength of will with acuteness of thought, than with the more mystical and contemplative character of a spirit like John. But apart from such considerations, Paul has a right from historical fact to be called the peculiar Apostle of the Western world. In his missionary journeys he gave Christianity to Europe, and combined the faith of the East with the force of the West. Revived in Augustine, the forms of his theology lorded it over European and Western churches for a thousand years. And when in the Roman Church a new and corrupt Pharisaism gained ascendency and substituted for Christianity a new Judaism uniting the abominations of priestcraft with the nominal faith of Christ, the spirit of Paul revived in Luther; the Epistle to the Galatians, the sturdy old Reformer's darling book, brought to light with new force the neglected doctrine of justification by a living faith, rather than by rites and penances; and once more the spirit of the Apostle of the Gentiles broke the might of Jewish exclusiveness, and the Church built upon the earlier and afterwards abjured prejudices of Peter was shaken to its centre by the free Gospel of Paul. The controversy between the Jansenists and Jesuits turned mostly upon the interpretation of Paul, and the Apostle's spirit lived anew in the learning of Jansenius and the keen eloquence of Pascal. New England was founded in much of his spirit, and appealing directly to God through Christ, the Pilgrims broke away from the Judaism of prelates like Laud and Hammond, and came in a courage resting upon a divine calling to these shores, here to plant the good seed that cannot die. His phraseology marks the whole tenor of our orthodox theology, and Edwards chief of all has connected a powerful metaphorical system with the Pauline letters. The liberal schools of divinity have not been backward to honor his name, timid although they sometimes have been in using that peculiar language which has been so often connected with doctrines never cherished by the Apostle. Honor, all honor, to the Apostle of the Gentiles! Honor for his peculiar service to the Church in his own age, and also for his lasting office as the teacher of experimental religion, — the guide to struggling souls through conflict to peace! Logician as he was, and indefatigable in active zeal, he must not be regarded as lacking in profound or tender sentiment. His love for Christ was a passion of his soul, and the fervor with which he gave utterance to this feeling appears all the more touching from its union with a will so strong and an intellect so keen. His contemplations of Christ in heaven, of the grace of charity, of the immortal life, move him to bursts of lyric fire that blend much of the deep sentiment and tender pathos of John with his own earnest eloquence, and we forget the acute logician in the inspired prophet. It would be well if more regard were paid to the form in which the religious sentiment manifests itself in Paul, and if, without neglecting his doctrinal views, we contemplated them less as logical forms and more as The embodiments of his own fervent experience. metaphysical portion of Evangelical theology would lose none of its depth, and gain much in power and interest, had it thus regarded the whole compass of the Apostle's mind. Honor to the intrepid Protestant in the early struggles of the Christian Church with spiritual despotism. Let him teach us evangelical freedom, and lead us to its source in evangelical faith. However we may pride ourselves on our philosophy, and be tempted to substitute for faith in Christ faith in human nature, we may remember that Paul too was something of a philosopher, and knew something of the spiritual elements of the soul; and yet he allowed nothing to separate him from the love of Christ or from the doctrine of the Cross. Honor to him from us people of this new world in the West! When he turned his face from Antioch westward, he bore with him the seeds of civilization as well as religion. His visits to Europe, whether to Greece or Rome, made the era of European civilization, and prepared the influences that have given America her present character. Not in the discoveries of navigators or the victories of warriors, but in the life and labors of the Apostle of the Gentiles, we may read the best commentary upon Berkeley's famed words: "Westward the star of empire takes its way." That full and yearning heart followed an inspiration more profound than its own consciousness, and was preparing to do a vast work in a land to him unknown. People of this new world, be not faithless to your great benefactor. How fondly, O our country, his soul would have responded to your pulses of freedom, whose heart was large as your domain, and whose will was strong as the flow of your many waters! Called to so great a heritage, use it worthily, and when the name of liberty is mentioned, forget not the essence in the name, - forget not what true redemption is, forget not the heroic man who was free because obedient, and whose life, so spiritual and so reverential, ever repeated the word, "Where the spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty." Now, in the words of that ancient prayer, repeated for so many centuries, let us say :— "O God, who through the preaching of the blessed Apostle St. Paul hast caused the light of the Gospel to shine throughout the world, grant, we beseech thee, that we, having his wonderful conversion in remembrance, may show forth our thankfulness unto thee for the same by following the holy doctrine which he taught, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen." XIII. JOHN AND THE WORD. HAPPY the man whose course knows no change but that of progress; whose life, like a fair river unstained by base soils, unbroken by treacherous shores, flows onward, wider, calmer, freer as it goes, more and more reflecting the bright heavens above in its waters, and bearing plenty, health, and energy on its tides. -- We speak now of the Evangelist John, of that life not stained, like Peter's, by treachery, nor broken, like Paul's, by bigotry, — of that disciple next the heart of Jesus, and best fitted alike from temper and experience to reflect the character of his Master. They met for the first time on the banks of the Jordan, the one a seeker, the other the bringer of that Divine kingdom which the ascetic of the wilderness was so earnestly declaring as now at hand. What John the fisherman of Bethsaida was when that meeting took place, we may in general terms ascertain. He was a fervent member of the Jewish Church, -an eager expectant of the better day predicted by the Messianic prophets. Nurtured under the best influences of the ancient dispensation by a mother worthy of being named with the Marys and Annas |