Authors," and a very great letter I found in an English translation of
Balzac's "Le Lys dans la Vall['e]e."

It must not be understood that I put St. Paul in the same category with
these mundane persons. Nevertheless, I found St. Paul very often
reasonably mundane. He preferred to work as a tentmaker rather than take
money from his clients, and one could imagine him as preaching while he
worked. He frankly made collections for needy churches, and he was very
grateful to Phoebe for remembering that he was a hungry man and in
need of homely hospitality. He was interested in his fellow passengers
Aquilla and Priscilla whom he met on board the ship that was taking them
from Corinth to Ephesus. It was evident that they had not been able to
make their salt in Corinth, where, however, their poverty had not
interfered with their zeal in the cause of Christ. Any tent marked
"Ephesus" was sure to have a good sale anywhere. The tents from Ephesus
were as fashionable as the purple from Tyre, and St. Paul was pleased
that his two disciples should have a chance of being more prosperous. I
always felt, too, that, in his practical way, he knew that Ephesus would
give him a better chance of supporting himself.

That Saul of Tarsus had not lacked for luxuries in his youth, one easily
guessed. It was plain, too, that he had had the best possible
instructors, and I liked to believe, when I was young, that his muscles
had been well trained in the sports of gentlemen of his class.
Altogether, so graphic were his descriptions and so potent his
personality that, while Julius Caesar and Brutus receded, he filled the
foreground, and all the more because at this time I picked up an English
translation of Suetonius, just by chance one dark winter day, and as I
had not yet discovered that Suetonius was a "yellow" gossip, my idols,
some of the Roman heroes, received a great shock.

The constant reading of St. Paul led me to the Acts of the Apostles, and
I found St. Luke very good reading, though I often wished that, as I
understood he had some reputation as an artist, he had adorned his
writings with illustrations.

It was a great shock to discover that none of the Apostles wrote in
English, for it seemed to me that their styles were as different from
one another as any styles could be, and as I, having lived a great part
of my time in classes where Nepos and Caesar were translated by my dear
young friends, had very little confidence in the work