https://archive.org/details/StoryOfTheLifeOfStPaul_201502/page/n15/mode/2up
| Author of "Legends of the Saints," "Stories of the Saints," "Stories of Martyr Priests," "Tom's Crucifix and other Tales," "Catherine Hamilton," "Catherine Grown Older," "The Three Wishes," &c. |
To The Fathers Of The Sacred Heart
For Foreign Missions,
Who, Obeying Their Vocation,
Are Devoting Their Lives
To The Apostleship of Heathen People,
This Story Of The Life Of
The Great Apostle Of Nations Is
Dedicated
Of all the Christians that have ever lived, there is, perhaps,not one whose life is invested with a greater interest than thatof St. Paul the Apostle. A Jew of the tribe of Benjamin, of thestrictest sect of the Pharisees, highly educated, and brought upunder the eye of the chief doctor and teacher of that time, a manof position among the Jews, he must necessarily have been one ofthe most conspicuous of the early converts to Christianity; evenhad his conversion not been miraculous.{8}But to us Gentile Christians, St. Paul, the Hebrew of theHebrews, stands in a very special relation; for he, as theApostle of the Gentiles, reminds us that we have a claim to thepromises which God made to Abraham—promises which theparenthetical dispensation of the Law could in no way disannul.It is in his writings especially that we read of the liberty ofChristians, and of the necessity, power, and abundance of thegrace of God; of the personal relation to God in which all truereligion consists; of conscience, which makes the just man a lawto himself; and of a simple interior godliness which he speaks ofas Christ being formed in us.
But while he insists on our spiritual freedom, he dwells no lessstrongly on our duties—on the sincere charity that we owe one toanother; the care we should take to avoid scandal; the interiorpreparation with which we should approach the holy sacraments;and the truth and reality that should pervade our lives.
St. Paul, too, is a great example and teacher of the way in whichwe should conduct ourselves towards unbelievers and the civil lawof the State. For we find him not only showing charity to allmen, and respect and submission to the magistrates and rulers inall that was lawful, but also availing himself of all his civilrights and privileges as a Roman citizen.
And does not the condition of our own times increase andintensify the interest which must always attach to the life ofthis great Apostle? The wide-spread structure of mediaevalChristendom is broken up, and public opi