palace of the Caesars.

ISAAC M. WISE

In the rabbinical literature several successes of the apostles are
noticed, especially at Capernaum and Capersamia. One of them is most
remarkable, viz., the conversion of Rabbi Eliezer ben Hyrcan by the
apostle James. This rabbi, the _Talmud_ narrates, was actually arrested
by Roman officers, and, in obedience to the edict against Christianity,
was accused of the crime of being a Christian, which he did not deny,
although he repented it.

The most important success, however, which the apostles could boast was
the conversion of Paul. The man whose colossal genius and gigantic
energies grasped the pillars upon which the superstructure of
Graeco-Roman paganism rested, bent and broke them like rotten staves,
till with a thundering noise down came the ancient fabric, with its
gods, altars, temples, priests, and priestesses, depositing _debris_
that took centuries to remove and remodel; the man whose hands were
against all, and against whom were all hands; who defied the philosophy
of the philosophers, the power of the priests, and the religions of the
world; who was all alone all in all--this man was Paul of Tarsus, the
great apostle to the Gentiles, with an original gospel of his own. He
kindled a fire in the very heart of the Roman Empire, under the eyes of
the authorities of Rome and of Jerusalem, which in a few centuries
consumed ancient heathenism from the Tigris to the Tiber, and from the
Tiber to the Thames. With a skilful hand he threw the sparks upon the
accumulated combustibles of error, corruption, and slavery, and ancient
society exploded, to make room and furnish the material for a new
civilization. The conversion of this man was the apostles' great
success. If it had not been for him the nascent Church, like other
Jewish sects, would have perished in the catastrophe of Jerusalem,
because the apostles did not possess that vigor and energy to resist the
violent shock. In Paul, however, the spirit of John and of Jesus
resurrected with double vigor, and he became the actual founder of the
Christianity of history.

Few and far apart are the brilliant stars in the horizon of history.
Strike out a hundred names and their influence upon the fate of man, and
you have no history.

Those brilliant stars, however, did not always make history from their
own wealth, from the original resources of their minds. Ideas which tens
of thousands have held, without an attempt to carry