world to do a work required by the juncture of
history on which they fell. The story of the Reformation, for example,
cannot be read by a devout mind without wonder at the providence by
which such great men as Luther, Zwingli, Calvin and Knox were
simultaneously raised up in different parts of Europe to break the yoke
of the papacy and republish the gospel of grace. When the Evangelical
Revival, after blessing England, was about to break into Scotland and
end the dreary reign of Moderatism, there was raised up in Thomas
Chalmers a mind of such capacity as completely to absorb the new
movement into itself, and of such sympathy and influence as to diffuse
it to every corner of his native land.

2. This impression is produced by no life more than by that of the
Apostle Paul. He was given to Christianity when it was in its most
rudimentary beginnings. It was not, indeed, feeble, nor can any mortal
man be spoken of as indispensable to it; for it contained within itself
the vigor of a divine and immortal existence, which could not but have
unfolded itself in the course of time. But, if we recognize that God
makes use of means which commend themselves even to our eyes as suited
to the ends He has in view, then we must say that the Christian
movement at the moment when Paul appeared upon the stage was in the
utmost need of a man of extraordinary endowments, who, becoming
possessed with its genius, should incorporate it with the general
history of the world; and in Paul it found the man it needed.

3. A Type of Christian Character.--Christianity obtained in Paul an
incomparable type of Christian character. It already, indeed,
possessed the perfect model of human character in the person of its
Founder. But He was not as other men, because from the beginning He
had no sinful imperfection to struggle with; and Christianity still
required to show what it could make of imperfect human nature. Paul
supplied the opportunity of exhibiting this. He was naturally of
immense mental stature and force. He would have been a remarkable man
even if he had never become a Christian. The other apostles would have
lived and died in the obscurity of Galilee if they had not been lifted
into prominence by the Christian movement; but the name of Saul of
Tarsus would have been remembered still in some character or other even
if Christianity had never existed. Christianity got the opportunity in
him of showing to the world the whole fo