Perth Amboy evening news., 1921-07-23
A City;s Greatest Honor
BY T. ELLIS

chafe at the enforced inactivity? Was
it during these days of waiting that
he converted SO many of his kins-
men? Was this the time of his rapt
vision. when he was caught up into
the third heaven? We only know
hat he was being made ready, in
ways that he knew not, to do the
greatest work ever achieved by NOR
tai.
IF only we strive to be pure and
true.
To each of us there will come an
hour,
When the tree of life shall burst into
flower.
And rain at our feet a glorious dover.
OF something grander than ever we
knew"
A thought suggesting prayer runs,
20 Lord, prepare me for what Thou
are preparing for me-" Saul was I'M
consciously being fitted for the great
task that was shaping to his hand in
Nntioch. In a way that he knew not,
he a being led into his mission,
which was nothing less than the stu
| pendous work of the first Apostle to
the Gentiles.
The Great Break
One of the great hours of history
had struck. We at this distance can
scarcely perceive how great and radi-
cal it was. Up until the Antioch ex-
perience. Christianity had been chief
ly a Jewish sect. The good news had
been carried only to the chosen peo-
pie. True, the incident of Cornelius
and Peter. and of Philip and the
Ethiopian, had preached the wall of
exclusiveness. But the great break
came at Antioch. when the gospel
vas openly preached to the Gentiles.
In this pagan city it was settled hat
Christianity was vaster than Jewry,
and a message for all the world.
P~aradoxically, Saul, the Pharisee.
the born and bred Jewish aristocrat,
the bigot of the Sanhedrin, the per-
secutor of the followers of Jesus,
RAJ to be the leader of the Gentle
Church. In his great brain the
mighty truths of the new faith were
to be fused and formulated. Trained
within the limits of Judea, he was
to become Christianity's first and
greatest cosmopolite. DR.. James
Stalker. in his charming and stimu-
lating little Life of st. Paul." which
every follower of these Lessons
should possess, states the situation
in a few terse sentences:
Beyond Palestine lay the great
world of Greece and Rome-the
world of vast populations, of power
and culture, of pleasure and bust
ness. 1t needed a nan of unlimited
versatility. Of education, of immense
human sympathy and breadth, to go
out there with the gospel message;
a mar who could not only be a Jew
to the Jews. but a Greek to the
| Greeks, a Roman to the Romans, a
barbarian to the barbarians: a man
who could encounter not only rabbis
in their synagogues. but proud mag
istrates in their courts, and philoso-
pliers in the haunts of learning; a
man who could face travel by land
and by sea-, who could exhibit pres
ence of mind in every variety of cir
c~umstances, and would be cowed by
no difficulties. No man of this size
belonged to the original apostolic cir
Gle; but Christianity needed such a
one, and he was found in Paul"
Making a Dent in n City.
There are scarce a score of New
York men who are known to all the
English-speaking people of their own
CITY. IL Is IdIu " Iildho d bNiiS -
a metropolis. But Saul and Barna-
bas did. They put Christianity on
the map of the mind of pleasure
~engrossed Antioch. They spent a
whole veal in the city-no fiy-by-
night evangelists they, leaving the
really hard tasks to resident pastors
- preaching, teaching, debating,
counselling, contending. organizing:
There is a fine field for the use of
intelligent imagination here as we
try to envisage Saul-his home, his
habits, his homilies, his hearers. his
helpers, his heart-hungers, his hopes
and his heroism. Surely, from a
consideration of this Lesson some
young man or woman will be fired
with a like purpose to serve a city
in highest ways.
For the greatest honor that can
come to a city is to nave citizenN
greatly devoted to it's highest Well
fare. The best thing about Antioch
is that there the disciples were first
called Christians - tagged forever
with the name of their Saviour,
whose love is their life.