; to the ignorant heathen he talks
about the weather and the crops; and to the Athenians he quotes their
own poets and delivers a high-strung oration; yet in every case he
arrives naturally at his own subject and preaches the gospel to each
audience in the language of its own familiar ideas. Even outside of
his own peculiar sphere altogether, St. Paul was equal to every
occasion. During his voyage to Rome, when the skill of the sailors was
baffled and the courage of the soldiers worn out by the long-continued
stress of weather, he alone remained cheerful and clearheaded; he
virtually became captain of the ship, and he saved the lives of his
fellow-passengers over and over again.

We think of the intellect of the system-builder as cold. But there is
never any coldness about St. Paul's mind. On the contrary, it is
always full of life and all on fire. He can, indeed, reason closely
and continuously; but, every now and then, his thought bursts up
through the argument like a flaming geyser and falls in showers of
sparks. Then the argument resumes its even tenor again; but these
outbursts are the finest passages in St. Paul. In the same way,
Shakespeare, I have observed, while moving habitually on a high level
of thought and music, will, every now and then, pause and, spreading
his wings, go soaring and singing like a lark sheer up into the blue.
When the thought which has lifted him is exhausted, he gracefully
descends and resumes on the former level; but these flights are the
finest passages in Shakespeare.

3. The intellectual superiority of St. Paul is universally
acknowledged; and to those who only know him at a distance this is his
outstanding peculiarity. But the close student of his life and
character knows, that, great as he was in intellect, he was equally
great in heart, perhaps even greater. One of the subtlest students of
his life, the late Adolphe Monod, of the French Church, has fixed on
this as the key to his character. He calls him the Man of Tears, and
shows with great persuasiveness that herein lay the secret of his
power.

It is certainly remarkable, when you begin to look into the subject,
how often we see St. Paul in the emotional mood, and even in tears. In
his famous address to the Ephesian elders he reminded them that he had
served the Lord among them with many tears, and again, that he had not
ceased to warn everyone night and day with tears. It is not what we
should have expected in a man of suc