ted the fulfilment of that prophetic doom, by which they were to have a home everywhere and nowhere. East of Rome there was probably no place, where there was a freer commingling of people from every quarter of the civilized world, or a more favorable position for obtaining an intimacy with the languages, habits, customs, and opinions of the various nations. A commercial entrepot is also fraught with liberalizing influences. Men brought together for mutual gain suppress the ruder aspects of their characters, and conciliate one another's good will by reciprocal complaisance and courtesy. Even the virtual antagonism in which they needlessly imagine themselves in their business transactions, (for to this day, men are slow to acknowledge reciprocal advantage as the true mercantile standard,) tends to assimilate them at every other point. In such a community, religious bigotry loses much of its moroseness and asperity, and the very persecutor is inflamed rather by unwise enthusiasm in behalf of his own creed, than by sentiments of malignity and cruelty towards those who differ from him. To "become all things to all men" was not unnatural to a native of Tarsus; and, when St. Paul adopted this maxim in the service of his Divine Master, he was only employing in sacred uses a facility of adaptation, which had grown out of his early training, and the necessary influences of his birthplace.

Tarsus was also celebrated as a seat of learning. Strabo says, that in all that appertained to philosophy and general education, it even took precedence of Athens and Alexandria. It was the residence of several eminent luminaries of the Stoic school, among whom were Athenodorus, the tutor of Augustus, and afterward governor of Cilicia, and Nestor, the tutor of Tiberius. It was not inconsistent with the superior freedom of the Hellenistic Jews to become conversant with Gentile learning, and some of the Apocryphal writings comprised in the Romish canon of Scripture are much more largely imbued with Platonism than with the spirit of Moses and the Prophets. Especially at the chief seats of erudition, was the current faith of the Jews deeply tinged with the academic philosophy, of which, in numerous instances, Hebrews of the Hebrews occupied the foremost places as professed

teachers and expositors. That St. Paul had enjoyed a generous culture, in part under Grecian auspices, before he was shut up, in the school of Gamaliel, to the exclusive study of the Targums and the Rabbis, is evident from the freedom and fluency of his style, from his literary citations and allusions, and from his dialectic acumen and skill. That, on its Jewish side, his education was thorough and perfect, his teacher's name alone is ample warrant. Gamaliel was the most learned Jew of his age, and was reckoned among the seven who alone were honored with the title of Rabban, (literally my master, but equivalent to most excellent master.) It is a saying of the Talmud, that "the glory of the law ceased" at his death. He was a Pharisee, and, as such, not only held in reverence the entire canon of the Old Testament, but probably attached even greater weight to the oral traditions of his sect, and to the (so called) religious writings in the then vernacular dialect. And it should not be inferred, from his prudent counsel in the case of Peter, that his Pharisaism set loosely upon him. That counsel savored as much of the fox as of the dove, and, taken by itself, it only indicates a keen insight into the springs of human action, and a shrewd perception of what would have been the only feasible way of extinguishing Christianity, if it were indeed, as he deemed it, a base-born superstition. There is extant a prayer against heretics, bearing his name, from which it would seem that he relied on the divine vengeance to do what he dissuaded his fellow-countrymen from doing.

A Frenchman, who understands English but imperfectly, may impart to our children a pure Parisian pronunciation, but is wholly unfit to give them a knowledge of the idioms of his own language, and to enable them to appreciate its rhetorical niceties and beauties. For these ends, the best teacher is he who has superadded a thorough French educa tion to the native use and the lifelong study of the English tongue. The same principle holds good in ethical and religious training. Mere conversance with the doctrines to be taught can qualify one only for the dry, technical statement of their terminology. In order to illustrate, defend, and enforce them, it is absolutely necessary that one should be famiar with the position, principles, and habits of those whom

he wishes to render proselytes. Christianity needed for its first preachers men who were not only good Christians, but who knew, from experience, the kind and measure of the opposition with which their faith would have to contend. And it was especially essential, that he who was to take the lead in Christianizing both Jew and Gentile, both the learned and the ignorant, should thoroughly understand the mental condition, the current experience, and the established beliefs of these several races and classes. We trace, in St. Paul's early history, a Providential training for his peculiar mission. He could talk intelligently to the Greeks about their superstitions, and could cite their own poets in confirmation of his doctrines. When "certain philosophers of the Epicureans and of the Stoics encountered him" at Athens, and constrained him to make a public harangue on the Areopagus, he was able to meet them on their own ground, and his speech before them is a masterpiece of philosophical condensation and precision, both in thought and style. He understood the intense nationality of the Romans, and the hardihood and persistency of their characters, as contrasted with Grecian fickleness and Oriental effeminacy; and knew how to frame his appeals to them so as to bring over their undivided energy of mind and heart from a hostile to a friendly attitude toward the Gospel. And as for the Jews, he had occupied in their capital a central point of observation, or rather of experience, and his own remembered self-consciousness revealed to him the impregnable and the accessible points of their moral nature, showed him through what avenues of approach he might get the control of their convictions and sympathies, and might enlist all that was noble in their local and ancestral attachments in behalf of the Christian commonwealth and its metropolis, the "Jerusalem which is above." We cannot overrate, among his endowments as a religious teacher, the thorough negative knowledge of Christianity which he had obtained prior to his conversion. He could best comprehend the positive truth of revelation, by his conversance with the various expressions of the formula humanity minus Christianity,-with the morbid anatomy of the human heart, not yet touched by the healing hand of the Saviour. For the modern teacher of religion, it

is not enough that he be a sincere and good man, and a learned theologian; he must be familiar, not alone with the dialect of Christian circles, but with the idioms of the exchange, the forum, and the workshop, with the habits of thought and modes of feeling which it is his province to transform; and, next to the Bible itself, for the training of one who shall do good service in the Church, we would place, first, the Greek and Roman classics, and then, the open university of the busy world. By classical study, as in no other way, he learns what natural religion could not do, and what revelation has done for the race,-what, how profound, how vital, were the needs for which philosophy and the spontaneous religion of blindness and ignorance proffered no supply,— how dependent we are on Christianity for truths which seem attainable without its aid. By intimacy with the active walks of life, he gains precisely the same knowledge with reference to individuals, the same perception of susceptibilities, wants, and yearnings, which revelation alone can meet. By such discipline was St. Paul prepared to be, not the mere scholastic expositor of a frigid creed, but the thoroughly skilled ambassador of reconciliation from heaven to man.

There is reason to believe that St. Paul's social position in early life was much above mediocrity. He inherited from his father the citizenship of Rome. A Jew, or a native of Tarsus, could have obtained this only by purchase, or in reward of distinguished services. If in the former way, the cost was larger than a poor man could have paid, or one in obscure life would have cared to offer; if in the latter, the implication of a prominent and influential place in society is still more direct and certain. Then, too, there are numerous tokens of a highbred courtesy in St. Paul's speeches and epistles. His style of address, in his recorded speeches, before men in exalted stations, is equally free from sycophancy and from rudeness, betraying at once the tact of an accomplished, and the dignity of a Christian, man- the unstudied ease of one who knew how to render to all their due, and the integrity of one who would on no account render to man what is due to God. In his epistles, there is a pervading ease and grace of manner, indicating at once the politeness of a generous heart, and fami

liarity with its choicest conventional expressions. His very rebukes are conciliatory. He prepares the way for needed censure by merited commendation. He suggests unpalatable truth at once with considerate gentleness and unmistakable emphasis. He shows equal delicacy in the reluctant asking, and the grateful acknowledgment, of favors. He always seems to be receiving a kindness while conferring an obligation. His numerous salutations are free from stiffness and awkwardness, gracefully diversified in their form, admirable always for their simplicity, and often for their positive rhetorical beauty. All these traits betoken a man who had grown naturally into the best modes of social intercourse, and with whom the language of refined courtesy was as a native dialect. In all these points, the Epistle to Philemon might be collated with the acknowledged models of the most courtly style of epistolary composition, such as the Letters of Cicero and Pliny in ancient, or of Lady Montagu or Lord Chesterfield in modern, times; and the comparison would result largely in favor of St. Paul. A similar reference, as to the apostle's rank in society, might be drawn from the high, though cruel official trust ceded to him in his early youth by his own fellow-countrymen. Then, too, we find him, at a subsequent period, sustaining at one time the charge of four men, who had taken upon themselves the Nazarite vow an office which implies the command of no inconsiderable pecuniary resources. It is worthy of remark, also, that alike in Judea, before Festus, Felix, and Agrippa, on his voyage to Rome, and while retained in bondage in the imperial city, where he was permitted to live in his own hired house, he was always treated as a prisoner of distinction. Nor is our conclusion from these facts. invalidated by his trade as a tent-maker; for it was customary among the Jews, of whatever condition in life, to teach their sons manual occupations. From his trade, we may hazard a not improbable conjecture as to his father's condition and calling. A chief staple of commerce in Tarsus was the cloth. of goats' hair, (illicium,) universally used for the better sort of tents, which persons of opulence were accustomed to carry with them on their journeys. If St. Paul's father was among the leading merchants of the city, what more natural than