emolument from their unparalleled labours;1 nor any authority, that could gratify their ambition. Their situation amongst their pro 2 selytes presented little more than a distinction of peril, attended with an acknowledged community of privilege. Their very love of distinction must have been baffled, for whilst, among their own party, their tenets compelled them to assume a tone of moderation, they were regarded every where else as no better than fools, treated with contempt by the learned and the great, and by the vulgar with incredulous neglect or brutal ferocity. Their passion 1 Acts xx. 34. "I have coveted no man's silver, or gold, or apparel; yea, ye yourselves know that these hands have ministered to my necessities, and to them that were with me." Such was St. Paul's conduct at Ephesus, "for the space of three years." His historian and fellow traveller says of him while at Corinth, "And because he was of the same craft, he abode with them" (Aquila and Priscilla) " and wrought, for by their occupation they were tent-makers." Acts xviii. 3. 2 "For though I be free from all men, yet have I made myself servant unto all, that I might gain the more." 1 Cor. ix. 19. 3 "For I think that God hath set forth us, the Apostles last, as it were appointed to death; for we are made a spectacle unto the world, and to Angels, and to men. We are fools for Christ's sake, but ye are wise in Christ; we are weak, but ye are strong; ye are honorable, but we are despised. Even unto this present hour we both hunger and thirst, and are naked, and are buffeted, and have no certain dwelling place; and labour, working with our hands: being reviled, we bless: being persecuted, we suffer it; being defamed, we intreat; we are made as the filth of the earth, and are the offscouring of all things unto this day." 1 Cor. iv. 9-13. for adventure, if it be not too absurd to allude to such a motive, must long ere this have surfeited with excess-whilst their bravery was starved of all that support, which it commonly derives from vanity or pride. It could not command the admiration of their foes; for by these it was stigmatized as an obstinate madness. Their friends had learned to imitate, rather than admire; to detach from their conduct all idea of merit, and to demand resolution on the score of sincerity. It could not advance them in their own esteem; for this they must have sacrificed at the outset of their enterprise. A bravery so stripped of its usual adornments, so beggared of its ordinary and essential supports, maintaining vitality on its own resources, bearing up under the pressure of outward reproach, and the inward and sickening consciousness of fraud, were an unaccountable solecism in a single individual; in a number of persons it would amount to a miracle. Then their attachment to their cause, if still surviving, must have operated but feebly at the present junction; for its novelty was gone, its hopes were blasted; and it was indissolubly united with every thing revolting to flesh and blood. What is there at all consistent with hypocrisy, that could hold them any longer in bondage to it? Was there no possibility of retreat? Was there no pardon for any who should apostatize to truth, and give satisfaction for his crimes by the voluntary exposure of an outrageous fraud? Was there no party at Jerusalem powerful enough to shelter a returning penitent, or rich enough to tempt a discontented or treacherous partizan? -no remnant of that body of priests and rulers, who had once bribed an avaricious Judas,' and protected Roman soldiers under the avowed guilt of sleeping on the post of duty ?? We can conceive but of one remaining impediment in the way of an almost total desertion. One principle, wrought into the constitution of a social being-the purest of his feelings in a state of virtue; the last to quit him when he sinks to vice-may have yet withstood the storm of persecution; and so long as it remained itself inviolate, may have done something towards the continuance of this singular confederacy. That sentiment of generous attachment, which links together hearts susceptible to its influence-that sentiment so powerful in every condition of life, that it has prompted the good man to die with his friend, and the robber to perish without betraying his accomplice-may have grown firm amidst the very 1 Mark xii. 11. Luke xxii. 1. E circumstances that threatened its dissolution. And, under the influence of some mysterious law, which seems to forbid the extinction of human sympathies, the rupture of other ties may but have confirmed and strengthened this. The system that separated them from the sensibilities of their kind; and isolated them, as it were, in the midst of a gazing world, by rendering their return to it impossible, or difficult, may have concentrated the humanity which it could not extinguish, and by reducing it within the limits of a narrower circle, have imparted a stronger energy to all its instincts. Whatever influence the infidel may be disposed to attribute to this powerful principle, our subject removes from error this last support, and proves fatal to the struggles of expiring plausibility. It intimates no less than two distinct occasions, when the operation of this principle was either terminated or suspended. It contains an allusion, unsuspicious, because purely incidental, to a temporary defection on the part of Mark, who had been formerly associated with Paul and Barnabas1; and it records the particulars of an angry and final separation, between two of the Apostles more exposed perhaps to all the miseries inseparable 1 Acts xiii. 5-13. from fidelity, more seemingly under the immediate impulse of mutual obligation with regard to each other, and more detached from the sphere of its general influence with respect to the original party at Jerusalem, than any others of the society whatever. What then had resulted from the behaviour of Mark, relative to the cause which he seemed to have abandoned? Did this young man, wearied as he evidently was with the irksomeness of its service, adopt the course to which he must have been powerfully impelled? Did he quit it altogether, and return no more? Did he relieve himself at once from all the inconveniences attendant alike on the censures or forgiveness of his uncle, by throwing himself into the arms of the opposite party? Did he go to the Sanhedrim, and attempt to turn his pusillanimity to account, by the betrayal of all his former connections? Did he establish a claim to protection and favour on a full disclosure of their fradulent proceedings? Did he divert from himself the reprobation of the Christian proselytes, by laying open the various subtleties, with which their credulity had been cajoled, and their simplicity insulted? Did he ingratiate himself with them, by exhorting them to throw aside those burdensome precepts, and painful restraints of their new profession, |