The Universalist. [volume] (Chicago [Ill.]) 1884-1897, 1897-09-25

ton for the new enterprises and work
that the winter season is sure to bring.
1t is also the time in the course
of our lessons when the work of Paul
was drawing nigh to it's conclusion. He
had fought the great fight for a uni.
versal church; and he had triumphed
over his enemies so far as the success of
admission of the Gentiles TO the Church
was concerned.
But the close of bis own life was
nigh at hand. He had beaten his enc
mics in establishing his cause as policy
in the Christian church; but he was
himself to become prisoner, and pass
out of active work in tho church.
1t does not matter whether be
was or was not released from his first
imprisonment to again make the long
journeys that had marked his former
ministry. He had done his work. so far
as the world knows it. He had achieved
the growth of his purpose. He had
matured the fruits of his mission.
There was little more of worth TO be
achieved.
- One cannot help being struck
with the great fact that when the
growths OF the vegetable world have
produced their fruit and matured it,
they begin to pass into the "sere and
yellow leaf" just so it is with man.
When he has achieved the work of his
life he fades and falls: he lays down his
work and his strength at the same
time.
1t has been urged against the
Pauline authorship of the Pastoral
Epistles that they do not show the vi
rile power of the other Epistles. Said
grsat scholar once in my hearing: 1.-THE
writer of the Pastoral Epistles is very
different man from the Paul Of Romans,
and of Philippians" But why should
he not be? Paul was an old man when
these Epistles to Timothy and Titus
we're written.
Whoever has read through the
pages that tell US of Paul in the closing
days of his third journey. pages that
are found in the 2nd Epistle to the Cor
inthians, and the Epistle to the Gala.
tians. and in the first eight chapters Of
Romans, and in the last part of the
story OF the journey in whoever
has read these pages, and come to real
ize what struggle and strain Paul had
passed through. will find in the peace,
which is SO plain in the eighth chapter
of Romans, the sign of heat so intense
as to have burnt their way to the very
bottom OF Paul's soul. In the battle
through which Paul had passed he had
burned up his strength as leaf burns
it's.
One is wildly reminded as he
reads these pages of the peace of Jesus
as st. John describes it in the fourteenth
chapter of his Gospel. Side by side
with it one finds the agony in the Gar.
den of Gethsemane. the prayers ind
tears and the bloody sweat. One thin ks
almost inevitably of the obedience of
Jesus on the cross, with the pity, the
prayer for the forgiveness of his foes.
and the great cry, and the heart break
at the end. So is the story told of the
burning out of the life in the suffering
that is born of love.
One in our common ways may not
pay the high penalty of the love that
was in the soul of Jesus and of the
great Apostle to the Gentiles. but in a
real sense every year of our life. with
such burden of kindly duty as it hae,
takes from US just so much of our phys
cal vigor. The spending of life is not
the mere animal process that it is some
times thought to be. 1t has a moral
quality in it that transfgures it's physi-
cal embodiment. We must think of all
the service of kindness that life has;
and the cares that flow from it, the
anxieties, and the strain of overcoming
evil that are found in every life. So
has it meaning that we sometimes do
not experimentation Helper.