is master lived,
the Epistle to the Colossians.

The composition of these Epistles was by far the most important part of
Paul's varied prison activity; and he crowned this labor with the
writing of the Epistle to the Ephesians, which is perhaps the
profoundest and sublimest book in the world. The Church of Christ has
derived many benefits from the imprisonment of the servants of God; the
greatest book of uninspired religious genius, the Pilgrim's Progress,
was written in a jail; but never did there come to the Church a greater
mercy in the disguise of misfortune than when the arrest of Paul's
bodily activities at Caesarea and Rome supplied him with the leisure
needed to reach the depths of truth sounded in the Epistle to the
Ephesians.

182. His Writings.--It may have seemed a dark dispensation of
providence to Paul himself that the course of life he had pursued so
long was so completely changed; but God's thoughts are higher than
man's thoughts and His ways than man's ways; and He gave Paul grace to
overcome the temptations of his situation and do far more in his
enforced inactivity for the welfare of the world and the permanence of
his own influence than he could have done by twenty years of wandering
missionary work. Sitting in his room, he gathered within the sounding
cavity of his sympathetic heart the sighs and cries of thousands far
away, and diffused courage and help in every direction from his own
inexhaustible resources. He sank his mind deeper and deeper in
solitary thought, till, smiting the rock in the dim depth to which he
had descended, he caused streams to gush forth which are still
gladdening the city of God.

183. Release from Prison.--The book of Acts suddenly breaks off with a
brief summary of Paul's two years' imprisonment at Rome. Is this
because there was no more to tell? When his trial came on, did it
issue in his condemnation and death? Or did he get out of prison and
resume his old occupations? Where Luke's lucid narrative so suddenly
deserts us, tradition comes in proffering its doubtful aid. It tells
us that he was acquitted on his trial and let out of prison; that he
resumed his travels, visiting Spain among other places; but that before
long he was arrested again and sent back to Rome, where he died a
martyr's death at the cruel hands of Nero.

184. New Journeys.--Happily, however, we are not altogether dependent
on the precarious aid of tradition. We have writings of