_5. Rapid Growth of the Work:_ The knowledge once established in the minds of the Apostles that God granted to the Gentiles repentance unto life, seemed to unshackle those who were to preach the gospel, and gave a broader meaning in their minds to their commission to "Go unto all the world and preach the gospel unto every creature." Evidently before this they did not comprehend it in its fullest sense. The Apostles appear to have remained in Jerusalem a number of years--twelve years, tradition says--presiding over the Church and directing the labors of those preaching the gospel. Churches, or, more correctly speaking, branches of the Church were built up in Antioch, Damascus and other cities of Syria. The work also spread into Asia Minor, Greece and Rome; and everywhere great success attended the preaching of the elders, until the gospel was firmly established in various parts of the Gentile world. So extensive was the preaching of the ambassadors of Christ in those early days of the Church that we have Paul saying (about thirty years after the ascension of Messiah) that it had been "preached to every creature under heaven." (Outlines Ecclesiastical History, p. 83.) _6. Personal Appearance and Character of Paul:_ "We have no very trustworthy source of information as to the personal appearance of St. Paul. Those which we have are referred to and quoted in Conybeare and Howson. (Vol. i, ch. vii. end.) They are the early pictures and mosaics described by Mrs. Jameson, and passages from Malalas, Nicephorus, and the apocryphal Acta Pauli et Theclae. They all agree in ascribing to the Apostle a short stature, a long face with high forehead, an aquiline nose, close and prominent eyebrows. Other characteristics mentioned are baldness, grey eyes, a clear complexion, and a winning expression. Of his temperament and character, St. Paul is himself the best painter. His speeches and letters convey to us, as we read them, the truest impressions of those qualities which helped to make him The Great Apostle. We perceive the warmth and ardor of his nature, his deeply affectionate disposition, the tenderness of his sense of honor, the courtesy and personal dignity of his bearing, his perfect fearlessness, his heroic endurance; we perceive the rare combination of subtlety, tenacity and versatility in his intellect; we perceive also a practical wisdom which we should have associated with a cooler temperament, and a tolerance which is seldom united with such impetuous convictions. And the principle which harmonized all these endowments and directed them to a practical end was, beyond dispute, a knowledge of Jesus Christ in the Divine Spirit. Personal allegiance to Christ as to a living Master, with a growing insight into the relation of Christ to each man and to the world, carried the Apostle forward on a straight course through every vicissitude of personal fortunes and amid the various habits of thought which he had to encounter. The