The Montgomery advertiser., 1909-08-14
aY WILLIAM T. ELLIS.

RY WILLIAM T. ELLIS.
 One of the everyday tragedies or nffe is the breaking of old ties by pro- lgressiye persons who have gone into Ia new life. Young people who have heft the humble old home to go to col lege return and find themselves living lin A different world which does not lspeak the language of that in which hhey are reared. All about us we see broninent and successful men and kvomen concerning whose families we never inquire. They have had to make "a fresh life for themselves. Some are kall too quick to break with the past. and to forget those to whom they owe all: but even many who would carry lthetr families and old associates with them find it impossible to do so. Paul khe great apostle to the Gentiles, was nevertheless a Jew and his heart ever eearned for his own people. Daily ne prayed for them, and with all his tact Rnd tenderness and wisdom he sought ho keep in close relationship with hhem. Whenever he approached new community it was to the synagogue that he immediately repaired. His pride was that he was a Hebrew of the Hebrews. Yet alasl his own peo- pie continually cast him out.
 Despite innumerable mohbings, Paul kept his Hebrew affiliations. In the present lesson we find him ending his second missionary journey in order to .go up to Jerusalem to fulfill a VOW. He made the long journey up to the city of David-with the inextingutshable love for that spot which has charao- terised the devout Jew throughout all ages-and in the temple courts he fulfilled all the rites of an orthodox Jew.
 The Things Men Celebrate.
 Nothing Is said in the record about the reception given the great apostle by the church at Jerusalem. Appar- ently he had no triumphal entry. It Is more than possible that the Judaiz- ed Christians were cold to this apostle to the Gentiles. It is more probable. however. that the historian, with fine sense of proportion. records only the work of the evangelization and not the home jubilations. Luke. like Paul. had a supreme interest in the field.
 Paul was not one of those mission aries who make more noise at home khan they do abroad; whose work looms larger in the printed reports and sn the telling to home churches than st does before the eyes of those who actually see in on the ground. Nor was he of that company of evangelists
  Their success in distant fields to the renters from which they draw, or hope to draw. a stipend.
 For Paufs mind the work was the thing. His heart yearned for the bat tleground. like old pr. Hunter Cor bett. who would not walt to finish his term as Moderator of the Presbyter- Ian General Assembly, but who hasten ed back to his field in China. He vould rather preach in the China vii- aages than preside and be hontzed at slahorate functions in America. Of him 1t Is told that returning to China From e through he began to preach ko the natives as soon as he set foot upon the jetty. even before he had greeted his family.
 An Echo of the Baptist.
 An interesting figure enters the story here, one Apollos. an Alexandrian Kew. He was of the type. of the schol- Bmriy man of letters. ready in debate land equipped by research for through' pcontroversy. The Alexandrian spirit gswhich applied the Greek standards or sseholarship to the Hebrew scriptures, was personified in Appoios- Now Ap- tollos knew John the Baptist's teach ling, and the promised Messiah. but inc was ignorant that Christ had all ready come and lived and died Yet the was true to the best thaN he knew land up to the limits of his knowledge he preached his gospel in Ephesus. powerfully confounding the Jews. The churches which are not awake to the whole truth are typifed by Apollos and his Ephesian converts. We recall the great body of Armenian Christians. and the Coptic Church. and ,the Greek Church. and the Orthodox Russian Church. which through intel ilectual torpor and spiritual decline, have lost much of the treasure of the universal Christian Church. What shall we say to them? Shall we fol- low in the train Of the Christians of an older day and brand them as here tics? Surely not The temper of the itime Is to lead all these on to a fuller knowledge. Upon the best of what EGhey have the completer structure of Christian truth should be reared. That happily, is the mood of the day.
 That. too. was the mood of Paurs day Apollos was not cast out as a heretic. There were two friends of .the gospel, Aquila and Priscilla, who iseem ever to have been satisfied to .3xeep in the background, and to be shelpers of others. What part they had as the strengtheners, supporters. and comforts of Paul we can only inn agine4 When they learned of Apollos's preaching. they did not rise up in the ieynagogue and hurl criticisms at his Lhead. nor did they set to flowing that subtle current of censoriousness which as swifter than all the waters that gir- dle the earth. Instead. they took him aside and expended to him fully the way of life Would that our churches were full of AQuilas and Priscillasi RThen the preacher who Is now criti- scised for his crudities and rawness and Fblundeas and shortcomings would be helped, in quite brotherly fashion, to