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Story Of The Life Of St. Paul, The Apostle.

To The Fathers Of The Sacred Heart For Foreign Missions,

Preface.

Of all the Christians that have ever lived, there is, perhaps, not one whose life is invested with a greater interest than that of St. Paul the Apostle. A Jew of the tribe of Benjamin, of the strictest sect of the Pharisees, highly educated, and brought up under the eye of the chief doctor and teacher of that time, a man of position among the Jews, he must necessarily have been one of the most conspicuous of the early converts to Christianity; even had his conversion not been miraculous. But to us Gentile Christians, St. Paul, the Hebrew of the Hebrews, stands in a very special relation; for he, as the Apostle of the Gentiles, reminds us that we have a claim to the promises which God made to Abraham--promises which the parenthetical dispensation of the Law could in no way disannul. It is in his writings especially that we read of the liberty of Christians, and of the necessity, power, and abundance of the grace of God; of the personal relation to God in which all true religion consists; of conscience, which makes the just man a law to himself; and of a simple interior godliness which he speaks of as Christ being formed in us.

But while he insists on our spiritual freedom, he dwells no less strongly on our duties--on the sincere charity that we owe one to another; the care we should take to avoid scandal; the interior preparation with which we should approach the holy sacraments; and the truth and reality that should pervade our lives.

St. Paul, too, is a great example and teacher of the way in which we should conduct ourselves towards unbelievers and the civil law of the State. For we find him not only showing charity to all men, and respect and submission to the magistrates and rulers in all that was lawful, but also availing himself of all his civil rights and privileges as a Roman citizen.

And does not the condition of our own times increase and intensify the interest which must always attach to the life of this great Apostle? The wide-spread structure of mediaeval Christendom is broken up, and public opinion is no longer on the side of right because right is the Will of God. Nations frame laws and constitutions which recognise neither the Church, nor the God Who founded it.

As it was in the days of St. Paul, so is it now: material prosperity, luxury, and pleasure, are the ends for which men live. The Church, now as then, is a private community of believers, depending, after the grace of God, on the good-will of its members individually, and on no authority derived from civil governments; indeed, there is hardly a nation upon earth in which the Church is even free, unless it be ignored. Those that are without look upon it now with much the same feelings of fear, wonder, hatred, or contempt as men regarded it in the days of the Apostles. Many a Gallio lives now indifferent to all religions; many a Demetrius who judges of religion simply by the gain it brings to the craftsmen; many an Agrippa who is all but a Christian; many a polished Nero ready to persecute.

Meanwhile, we that are within are cheered by the same hopes, and tried by many of the same temptations, as were the lot of the early Christians.

May the great Apostle of the Gentiles guide and help us in times which are growing more and more like to his own, and obtain by his prayers that Christ may live in us by grace, and truth, and peace.

W. J. B. R.

Story Of The Life Of St. Paul, The Apostle.

Tarsus, in Cilicia, was Saul's native city, and he must have been dwelling there during the period of our Lord's public ministry, for no record exists of his having witnessed any of the wondrous scenes connected with the life and death of Christ; and it is supposed that, after completing his studies at Jerusalem, he returned to his home, remaining there until the year 35, when his career of persecuting cruelty began by the martyrdom of St. Stephen, about the time of the Feast of Pentecost. The Scripture narrative does not mention Saul's name as one of those who took Stephen captive, but probably he was among the number who listened to that speech before the council, when we are told that the martyr's face was "as the face of an angel."

It is at the scene of the stoning that we hear of Saul--the young man at whose feet the witnesses laid down their garments, thus choosing him for their commander and chief; and when the dying Saint cried, "Lord Jesus, receive my spirit," and, "Lord, lay not this sin to their charge," Saul was there, consenting to his death.

Little did the fierce and angry multitude think of the marvels which St. Stephen's dying prayer would work, pleading effectually with God, and securing the conversion of the young man Saul, who was then one of the most bitter enemies of the Christian Church. Perhaps, in those last moments, it was permitted the martyred Saint to understand in some measure some of the purposes of the Almighty in his sufferings and death--to know, maybe, that very near him, in the ranks of the cruel and persecuting throng, stood the man who had been chosen as the agent to carry out the gracious designs of Providence towards the Gentile world.

However, the stoning of the Proto-martyr was followed for some considerable time by a course of merciless severity. Saul scourged, imprisoned, and put to death, men and women to whom the name of Christ was dearer than aught else, even than life; driving them by thousands from Jerusalem, and even pursuing them into their hiding-places, that he might force them back to die.

Thus it came about that Saul was journeying to Damascus.

It was well known that many of the persecuted Christians had sought refuge in that city, and Saul, "breathing out threatenings and slaughter against the disciples of the Lord," went to the high priest to obtain from him authority to seize all who were known to be believers in the new faith, and to bring them back to Jerusalem.

His journey was almost accomplished. Already the walls of the then beautiful city were within his sight; his heart beat high with triumph, when suddenly he was stayed, and, swifter than gleam of lightning, an unnatural brilliancy encompassed Saul and his attendants, who, confused and dazzled, fell prostrate on the ground.

A voice from heaven was heard--not in tones of anger or reproach, to terrify the bold persecutor of Christians, but sweetly, softly, sorrowfully it sounded in his ear, speaking words which none but he could understand--

"Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou Me?"

Oh, wondrous power of the gentleness of Jesus! The haughty Pharisee became in that brief moment humble and yielding as a little child, and answered, "Who art thou, Lord?"

"I am Jesus whom thou persecutest," said the heavenly voice.

Those who were with Saul heard not these words, nor was it permitted them to see Christ. They were only conscious of the overwhelming brilliancy of the flood of light, and knew too that a strange voice seemed speaking--the privilege of beholding in vision the Saviour of the world was reserved for the man who had so deeply grieved Him.

"Lord, what wouldst Thou have me to do?" inquired the now humbled Pharisee, and the answer came at once--

"Go into the city, and there it shall be told thee what thou shalt do."

It was a hard and humiliating command to one like Saul!

Was it not also harder still to hear that he should be required to teach the very faith he had openly despised to the Gentiles, for whom, as a Pharisee, he had the deepest contempt and scorn?

In the grand old city, in a street called "Straight," which is said still to exist, there dwelt near the eastern gate a man named Judas, who received Saul into his house. While staying there, a vision was granted to the sufferer, promising him relief, and naming a Christian man of that city who should speedily come and visit him.

This man was Ananias, who also was directed from heaven to seek out Saul of Tarsus, the well-known persecutor of Christians.

That name had a terror for the servants of God in Damascus, and Ananias was alarmed.

"Behold, he prays," the voice had said, and yet the Christian hesitated, for he knew fall well that Saul had received from the high priest authority to bind all who were followers of Jesus.

But the command, "Go thy way," stayed his many doubts, and, confiding in God's care, Ananias set out for the house of Judas.

Arriving there, he laid his hand on Saul, saying that God had sent him that he might receive once more his sight and be filled with the Holy Ghost; and at once, by the power of the Almighty, he was blind no longer, and, by the direction of Ananias, he received baptism, and avowed himself from henceforth to be among the followers of Christ.

Having recovered his strength, Saul entered the Jewish synagogue in Damascus to proclaim the message of the Son of God whom he had before rejected and despised, and the people there asked each other in amazement if this could be he who had come to the city as the enemy of Christians.

Their surprise served only to animate Saul with still greater zeal in preaching that the promised Messiah, so long expected, had really dwelt upon the earth in the person of Jesus of Nazareth, the crucified God.

Shortly after his conversion, Saul travelled into the desert regions of Arabia, to fit himself by prayer and solitude for his future work; to learn those lessons of self-knowledge and self-distrust, without which no active work can be done for God's sole glory; and--separated from the business of this world--to hold communion with his Creator.

Three years of silence and retirement--years in which the once well-known Pharisee was almost forgotten by the crowd who had followed him in his old days of influence and power--and then Saul came forth to do his Master's work imbued with those deep principles of spiritual life which should sustain and guide him in the arduous labours which he was about to undertake on his return to Damascus, and the Jewish people there.

But just as fiercely, just as deeply as Saul had once hated the holy Stephen, so did the Jews in the city hate and resolve to destroy him.

A plot was laid for his apprehension, and three men were stationed at the different gates of Damascus in order to slay him if he should try to escape; but his friends placed him in one of the large, strong baskets common in the East, and let him down by ropes from the window of a house close to the city wall; and thus freed he made his way to Jerusalem.

Arrived there, Saul asked eagerly for the disciples of Jesus, but they were afraid that he only sought to betray them; for, although three years had passed since his conversion, it had not become known in Jerusalem, and neither St. Peter nor St. James, who were there, believed that Saul was a Christian.

It was a fresh humiliation for that proud, lofty nature to be thus mistrusted and rejected by Christ's own Apostles, but it served to deepen his contrition for his former bitter persecution of the Church. One friend was raised up for him in St. Barnabas, who, remembering the honour and distinction which had attended Saul's departure from Jerusalem, pitied him in this humiliating return, and undertook to make known the wonderful story of his change of heart to the other Apostles.

Hearing this, they were no longer fearful, but welcomed Saul as one of their brethren, and gladly permitted him to share in their work, so that he at once began to labour for the conversion of the Grecian Jews in the city.

But they remembered him as one of their own party, one whom they had honoured as a Pharisee, and who had been their leader in the work of persecution; and these facts made them so much the more bitter in their hatred, and they began to conspire against his life.

One day, while Saul prayed in the temple, he fell into that strange supernatural state of ecstasy in which the prophets of old, and the Apostles and Saints of later times, have received messages and revelations from Heaven. It was the Lord Jesus Christ Who thus in vision appeared to His servant, bidding him leave Jerusalem because the Jews there would not receive his words, and declaring it to be the Divine purpose that he should journey afar off--to the Gentiles.

Doubtless, in the freshness and fervour of his newly-felt love, Saul would have chosen rather to remain in the city and give up his life for God, but with that great faith and ready submission of will which grace had implanted in his heart, he yielded without hesitation; and, going down to Caesarea, entered a ship bound for Syria, and made his way to Tarsus, where he remained for many years. During that time Saul's life was secluded, and very few positive records of it remain; but it was then he took short voyages to the different towns on the coast, and suffered the shipwrecks which are mentioned in his Epistles to the Corinthians. There, too, he endured some of that hunger and thirst, scourging and imprisonment, which he suffered for the sake of Christ, and received, as it is believed, many of those wonderful revelations which God granted as a help and consolation in his trials, as well as in preparation for the still greater difficulties which were hidden in the future.

All this time the Jews, who were still unbelievers, pursued Saul with the deepest hatred and longing for revenge.

He had forfeited his patrimony on becoming one of the sect of Christians, and he had then no Gentile friends to help and to pity him, yet he was content; for, as he tells us in his Epistle to the Philippians, he esteemed "all things to be but loss for the excellent knowledge of Jesus Christ, my Lord."

Meanwhile, St. Peter had visited the different towns and villages, and at length, reaching Joppa, took up his abode in the house of a man named Simon, by trade a tanner.

There, one day at noontide, as he reclined in Eastern fashion upon the housetop, he turned his heart to God, and, forgetting all earthly things, became absorbed in contemplation.

A feeling of intense, supernatural hunger came upon him then, and as his friends prepared food, he fell into a rapture, and saw the heavens open, and a sheet descend which contained animals of every description.

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