ld's stock of beliefs, whereas
Paul, while at least equaling them in their own special line, gave to
mankind a new world of thought. If his Epistles could perish, the loss
to literature would be the greatest possible with only one
exception--that of the Gospels which record the life, the sayings and
the death of our Lord. They have quickened the mind of the Church as
no other writings have done, and scattered in the soil of the world
hundreds of seeds the fruits of which are now the general possession of
mankind. Out of them have been brought the watchwords of progress in
every reformation which the Church has experienced. When Luther awoke
Europe from the slumber of centuries, it was a word of Paul which he
uttered with his mighty voice: and when, one hundred years ago, our own
country was revived from almost universal spiritual death, she was
called by the voices of men who had rediscovered the truth for
themselves in the pages of Paul.

117. Form of his Writings.--Yet in penning his Epistles Paul may
himself have had little idea of the part they were to play in the
future. They were drawn out of him simply by the exigencies of his
work. In the truest sense of the word they were letters, written to
meet particular occasions, not formal writings, carefully designed and
executed with a view to fame or to futurity. Letters of the right kind
are, before everything else, products of the heart; and it was the
eager heart of Paul, yearning for the weal of his spiritual children or
alarmed by the dangers to which they were exposed, that produced all
his writings. They were part of his day's work. Just as he flew over
sea and land to revisit his converts, or sent Timothy or Titus to carry
them his counsels and bring news of how they fared, so, when these
means were not available, he would send a letter with the same design.

118. His Style.--This may seem to detract from the value of these
writings. We may be inclined to wish that, instead of having the
course of his thinking determined by the exigencies of so many special
occasions and his attention distracted by so many minute particulars,
he had been able to concentrate the force of his mind on one perfect
book and expound his views on the high subjects which occupied his
thoughts in a systematic form. It cannot be maintained that Paul's
Epistles are models of style. They were written far too hurriedly for
this; and the last thing he thought of was to pol