he Jews five times received I forty stripes save one.
Thrice was I beaten with rods, once I was stoned, thrice I
suffered shipwreck, a night and a day have I been in the deep:
in journeyings often, in perils of rivers, in perils of robbers,
in perils from my countrymen, in perils from the Gentiles, in
perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the
sea, in perils among false brethern; in labor and travail, in
watchings often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold
and nakedness.

To this should be added the great hero's farewell. In prison, aged,
infirm, about to die, he wrote these words, yet they are filled with the
same dauntless spirit of courage and faith which always animated Paul,
the Apostle.

"For I am already being offered, and the time of my departure is come.
I have fought the good fight, I have finished the course, I have kept
the faith: henceforth there is laid up for me the crown of
righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give to me
at that day; and not only to me, but also to all them that have loved
his appearing."

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Notes

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NOTES

The wise men were perhaps Jews, though it is generally thought that they
belonged to some other people, who looked and longed for a great king
who should free them from the Romans. Many Jews lived in the East, and
had become wise in the arts of astrology. They studied the stars and
thought that in them could be read the signs of things about to happen
on the earth. Indeed, it is not many centuries since, all over Europe,
men thought that a comet foreboded much evil of some sort. So to those
pious men God sent at last the sign for which they had so long waited.
The Bible tells nothing about the men themselves, but the church was so
fond of thinking of them and the honor they paid to the little baby who
should be the Master, that many stories were told of them. Their number
was sometimes given as twelve, but more often as three, until now
perhaps some people almost think that the Bible story says three; but it
does not. The popular stories made them also kings and gave them names,
and told how they represented three great races of the world, European,
Asiatic, and African. But in the Bible they are only wise men with
costly gifts, and they go out into history all unknown.

_John_ tried to get the people to see how they ought to repent and lead
good lives, that God migh