of the spirit of God, and has perhaps more of the heroism of Christian feeling than, except in the discourses of our Lord, is to be found in the whole sacred treasury. It seems to come fresh from the celestial world. He speaks not as from a prison, but as from a region of light, and life, and glory. His thoughts are in heaven, his soul is with his Saviour, his heart is with his treasure: no wonder, then, that his language has a tincture of the idiom of immortality

As Archimedes, when Syracuse was taken by the besiegers, was so intent on a mathematical demonstration, that he knew not when the city was lost: so the apostle, absorbed in a concern as much superior to that of the phi losopher as Scripture truth is to scientific, lost sight of the cruelties of Nero, forgot his former sufferings, felt not his present captivity, thought not of his impending fate-present, past, and future,

as they related to himself, were absorbed in his zeal for the salvation of the Church, for the glory of its founder! Mark the Divine supports vouchsafed to this imprisoned Saint! Note his state of grace! Observe the perfection of his faith! How the motion of his spirit was accelerated as it drew nearer to its centre! He, whose deep humility had suggested to him the possibility, that, after converting others, he might himself be rejected: he who had desired not to be uncloathed, but to

be cloathed upon now declares that he is ready to be offered up, now desires to depart; not in the gentle decay of exhausted nature, not in the weaning languor of a sick bed, not in the calm of a peaceful dissolution, suffering only the pains inseparable from an ordinary death; but he is prepared to meet the hand of violence he is ready to pour out his blood upon the scaffold; he is longing to join "the souls of them which were "beheaded for the witness of Jesus,

" and

and for the word of God." So far from being dismayed, because he knew that his martyrdom was at hand; he who knew not what it was to boast, yet, knowing in whom he had trusted feeling his eternal redemption drawing nigh, could exclaim with a holy bravery: "I have fought a good fight; I have "finished my course; I have kept the "faith."

Then, in a rapture of triumphant joy at the mental view of the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge "had prepared for him against "the great day," that same unparalleled philanthropy, which he had so constantly manifested, breaks out and consecrates a moment, when we might have supposed the immediate nearness of his own unspeakable blessedness would have engrossed his whole soul. His religion was no selfish piety, his hope no solitary salvation. Gratitude swells into its highest transport D 6 from

from the reflection that the Lord Jesus had not exclusively reserved the Crown for him, no, nor for the beloved Timothy, to whom he writes, nor for the multitude of his own friends, nor for the converts who were to be peculiarly “his "joy and crown of rejoicing;" but " for "ALL them also which love his appear"ing," for all the redeemed of the "Lord" to the end of the world.

CHAP. XIII.

A GENERAL VIEW OF THE QUALITIES OF SAINT PAUL HIS KNOWLEDGE OF HUMAN NATURE -HIS DELICACY IN GIVING ADVICE OR REPROOF HIS INTEGRITY.

THERE is in Saint Paul's writings and conduct, such a warmth and openness; so much frankness and candour; such an unreserved pouring out of his very soul; such a free disclosure of his feelings, as well as of his opinions; such an elevation, mingled with such a soberness of thinking; so much social kindness, with so much Divine love; so much practical activity, with such deep spirituality; so much human prudence, with so much of the wisdom which is from above; so much tenderness for the per

sons