nd Demosthenes thundered. In his third
journey he had to concentrate his work on Ephesus; because, like a
skilful general, he would not leave territory in the rear unconquered.
But Rome was now the aim of all his desires--Rome, the very citadel of
the world which he had to conquer. He approached it at last in the
garb of a prisoner and in a gang of prisoners. But, as we follow him,
we feel as if we were going with a victorious army to take part in a
grand triumph. Indeed, as you accompany this great spirit, this is
often the feeling you have. He had it himself. "Thanks be unto God,"
he says, "who always causeth us to triumph." Only to his mind the
occupant of the car of victory was not himself, but Christ; he was
only a satellite, showering largess in the name of the Victor among
the crowd around the chariot-wheels.

Such is the image of the Apostle which grows on the imagination as we
read his extraordinary life. Yet there was another side. To us now his
career is heroic and glorious; but to him, at the time, it was beset
with innumerable obstacles; and, wonderful as were his labours, more
wonderful still were his sufferings. He went from town to town
incessantly; but seldom did he leave any place without having been in
peril of his life. Sometimes the mob rose against him and only left
him when they had cast out of their town his apparently lifeless body,
as they would have flung away the carcase of a dog. Sometimes the
authorities apprehended him and subjected him to the rigour of the
law. But hear the catalogue of his sufferings from his own lips: "Are
they ministers of Christ? so am I: in labours more abundant, in
stripes above measure, in prisons more frequent, in deaths oft; of the
Jews five times received I forty stripes save one, thrice was I beaten
with rods, once was I stoned, thrice I suffered shipwreck, a night and
a day I have been in the deep; in journeyings often, in perils of
waters, in perils of robbers, in perils by mine own countrymen, in
perils by the heathen, in perils in the city, in perils in the
wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false brethren; in
weariness and painfulness, in watchings often, in cold and nakedness;
besides those things which are without, that which cometh upon me
daily, the care of all the churches." Yet, when he wrote this, he was
only midway in his career.

These incidents are glorified now by the influence of time, but, when
they had to be endured, they wer