Perth Amboy evening news., 1921-07-16


certainly the most influential
said almost nothing about where he
had been and what he had seen and
done. He wrote thirteen books o
the New Testament, and barely
mentions his marvellous travel en-.
periences; and never alludes to a
single famous sight"
One mysterious and alluring
chapter of Saul's biography, imme-
diately after his cataclysmic trans
formation on the Damascus Road, is
summarized in the simple words
from his Galation Letter. II went
away into Arabia"
How tantalizing! Did he go into
the rocky Businesses and caves of
the Hauran, south of Damascus,
where today the Druzes dwell in
their s~ubterranean rock-cut COM
munities a region much beloved by
the anchorites of the early Church?
Or did he fare forth to the black
Bedouin tents of the East, sharing
the sort of discipline for. a great
task that Moses had received?
Moses was a shepherd: Saul vas a
tent-maker; but he would have been
welcomed by the philosophically-
minded Arabs, whose interest in
religion is perennial.
Was Saul at Sinai?
1t may even have been that like
Elijah, Saul fed to that part of
Arabia which we know as the Sinai
Peninsula; certainly the sacred as
sociations of the spot would have
allured one so reverrent and learned
as he. AS I sat on the red crags CT
Mt. Sinai not long ago and looked
out over that marvellous panorama
Of rock-strewn peaks l wondered if
the name of Saul should not be
added to the names of those other
mountain-men. Moses and Elijah,
refugees for God in this peerless
fastness.
Perhaps it was in or neal Petra,
the mysterious rock city between
Sinai and the Arabian Desert, that
Saul went for seclusion. We know
that Aretas, a Petran ruler. was in
seeming authority in Damascus at
the time of Saul's great experience.
Only a very few Europeans have
ever visited this colorful city of
wcnderment, lost to history for e.
turtles: most of the visitors. I OBJ
served with chagrin, had written
their name in smoke upon the walls
of the great rock chamber known
as the Kings Treasury. Petra seems
the last word in isolation and seclu-
\ sion and in the unknown: its
strange charm is enhanced by the
thought that it may lave been here
that the greatest intellect of the
Christian Church brooded upon the
p~rofundities and matured its con-
victionS.
Strength in silence and Solitude
Wherever the exac spot in
Arabia that Saul sojourned, the
significance to us is profound and
pressing: the first essential of rain
ing for a great work in the world
is apartness and solitude. Before a
man is with people for service he
should be alone with himself and
God for strength. In this day CT
%".iazz" and crowd and excitement
the old, old message needs to be
sounded clearly, that only the per-
sons who have their times of sepa-
ration and seclusion can grow
strong In the mastery of their own
souls and in the leadership of their
fellows.
We may doubt whether there
ever was a personality of power
who did not have his silent and Sc
clustered spaces, wherein his spirit
might find itself and the great GER
tainties. That so many of us must
hSCuo DC III Tie company Oh our Iel-
lows every waking hour is a sign
Of both mental and spiritual weak
ness. The boy who loves to tramp
the fields and wood alone is likely
to amount to more for his genera
ton than the boy who must always
run with the gang and who
knows every latest dance step and
every fragment of sporting gossip
Out of h desert must v e come
the great ones.
There is no other training for
high service equal to this i'm
memorial one OF solitude. 1.-THE
world is too much with lis. " In our
spiritual geography we need to
Jared far, amidst most of the cities
and crowded highways of the whole
earth, l can testify that nowhere are
the stars so clear or the skies SO
near or the silence SO voiceful as
IN the vast desert spaces. 1t IS easy
to think the long, long thoughts
amid the loneliness of the primeval
wilderness. Ones soul is stabilized
and ones vision clarified by a So
Journ amidst the rocks and sands
where the world of men has left
scarcely a trace.
The path to all great preaching
iics lIOuS ARABIA.
The Preachers Paradox
Back from Arabia, with his souls
new strength disciplined. Saul
started in at Damascus to testify.
He began where he found the Light.
The time and place to start bearing
witness for Christ is right where we
first find Christ. Saul did not ask
to be sent to a foreign field. where
he could make a fresh start; he ac-
cepted the obstacles in his way, and
used them as pulpits! In Damascus
and Jerusalem, where his name had
been a terror to Christianity, he
earned a new name as a disciple of
Jesus. For if Christianity cannot
be practiced and preached at nome,
where we are best known, it can
not be carried abroad.
Saul is n of the paradoZes of
God. He is the prosecutor turned
preacher: the aristocrat made DEM
ocrat; the scholar transformed into
the man of action; the u~ltra-Jewlsh
Pharisee become a minister to the
Gentiles; the greatest, from a
worldly standpoint. among the dis
ciples of Jesus, made over into the
hunted, wandering. hungry, home
less friend of slaves and wayfarers.
Truly, Gods plans for a life are
often curiously at variance with
what would seem natural destiny.
AS pointed out last week another
paradox in Saul's case, and perhaps
the greatest. is hat he, who was a
trained intellectual. entered upon
the Way, not by the gate of learning
or logic. but by the doc of a per-