"Did the Apostles have wives and children pulling after them?" continued
Mr. Chase. "Imprisoned, stoned, beaten, and scoffed, was their life less
dreary than should be the missionary's of to-day? What says St.
Paul--'thrice was I stoned, thrice was I beaten with rods, thrice I
suffered shipwreck, a night and a day have I been in the deep.' Do you
suppose it ever occurred to that mighty, God-like spirit, even in the
lowest depth of his worldly misery, that it would be a comfort to have a
wife come to weep with him, to hand him fresh gown and sandals? Never so
far fell that grand soul from its exalted repose upon the bosom of the
infinite! From that source whence he drew courage sublimer, faith
diviner, and strength irresistible, which no woman's heart or hand could
aid in evoking! Ah, that was a glorious St. Paul."
"You are eloquent, sir, as all of us might well be over such a subject,"
said the Doctor; "but you must remember that only one St. Paul has ever
lived."
"Though he has been a model for many. I don't know--only _one_ St. Paul?
I think if we look back into history--say, take the Fathers of the
Desert--there was St. Jerome, a grand old man, St. Augustine, with less
of fire, but of lofty faith, St. Ephrem, there, in him you have a St.
Paul in eloquence; you will remember that his words were wont to flow so
rapidly that his frequent exclamation was--'O Lord, stay the tide of Thy
grace.' Why, the number is countless whose labors, toils, and
self-denials were gigantic. St. Benedict, St. Wilfred, St. Bernard stand
out--"
The Doctor having thrown down his pipe and commenced walking the floor,
here interrupted his enthusiastic guest:
"O, if you go to taking up the Roman Catholic calendar of Saints, you
will find plenty of fish in illimitable waters; but that is out of our
line of coasting, you must know; and we are not in the habit of
associating St. Paul with any of these latter-day Saints."
"Please allow me, Dr. Adams, you know I am a privileged person. My
last-named Saint, Bernard, lived at least four hundred years before
Luther and John Knox, and Wilfred and Benedict much nearer to Christ
than to us, the latter having been separated in time but four centuries
from his Lord; but let us not contend upon this point; I cheerfully
admit my own superior admiration for the converted persecutor of the
Christians."
"If his like has not been seen through eighteen hundred years, we may
not look for it in the nineteenth century," remarked the Doctor.
"I still insist, however," said the indomitable Mr Chase, "that he has
had many imitators; and that brings us back to the subject whence we
have strayed, and upon which I have not said all that I had intended. I
was going to remark, after asserting that missionaries should leave
their wives at home, that the success of Catholic missionaries
illustrates the truth of this."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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