he ground, and where
there were people that would make things easy for him; but when Paul
went further afield, Mark's courage ebbed out at his finger ends, and he
slunk back to the comfort of his mother's house in Jerusalem. At all
events, whatever his reason, his return was a fault; or Paul would not
have been so hard upon him as he was. The writer of the Acts puts Paul's
view of the case strongly by the arrangement of clauses in the sentence
in which he tells us that the Apostle 'thought not good to take him with
them who withdrew from them from Pamphylia, and went not with them to
the work.' If he thus threw down his tools whenever he came to a little
difficulty, and said, 'As long as it is easy work, and close to the base
of operations, I am your man, but if there is any sacrifice wanted you
must look out for somebody else,' he was not precisely a worker after
Paul's own heart. And the best way to treat him was as the Apostle did;
and to say to Barnabas' indulgent proposal, 'No! he would not do the
work before, and now he shall not do it.' That is often God's way with
us. It brings us to our senses, as it brought Mark to his.

We do not know how long it took to cure Mark of his early fault, but he
was thoroughly cured. The man that was afraid of dangers and
difficulties and hypothetical risks in Asia Minor became brave enough to
stand by the Apostle when he was a prisoner, and was not ashamed of his
chain. And afterwards, so much had he won his way into the Apostle's
confidence, and made himself needful for him by his services and his
sweetness, that the lonely prisoner, with the gibbet or headsman's
sword in prospect, feels that he would like to have Mark with him once
more, and bids Timothy bring him with himself, for 'he is profitable to
me for the ministry.' 'He can do a thousand things that a man like me
cannot do for himself, and he does them all for love and nothing for
reward.' So he wants Mark once more. And thus not only Paul's
generosity, but Mark's own patient effort had pasted a clean sheet over
the one that was inscribed with the black story of his desertion, and he
became 'profitable for' the task that he had once in so petulant and
cowardly a way, flung up.

Well, translate that from the particular into the general and it comes
to this. Let no man set limits to the possibilities of his own
restoration, and of his curing faults which are most deeply rooted
within himself. Hope and effort should be bo