XI THE WONDERFUL CONVERSION 1 FOR WE PREACH NOT OURSELVES, BUT CHRIST JESUS AS LORD, AND OURSELVES AS YOUR SERVANTS FOR JESUS' SAKE. SEEING IT IS GOD, THAT SAID, LIGHT SHALL SHINE OUT OF DARKNESS, WHO SHINED IN OUR HEARTS, TO GIVE THE LIGHT OF THE KNOWLEDGE OF THE GLORY OF GOD IN THE FACE OF JESUS Christ.— 2 Corinthians iv. 5-6. THE conversion of St. Paul was an event of such importance to the Church of Christ, and therein to the religious fortunes of mankind, that no thoughtful Christian can fail to be profoundly interested in it: nay, the interest cannot be limited to those who revere the Apostle as the foremost champion of the Faith; every student of human nature and of human history must be concerned in the spiritual record of one who has stamped himself on the course of human life so firmly, and left behind him a tradition so potent and so noble. The Festival which we 1 Preached on the Festival of St. Paul's Conversion (January 25, 1903) in Westminster Abbey. keep to-day appeals to a far wider circle than that of Christian believers. St. Paul is, by universal admission, one of the Masters of mankind. On the threshold of my sermon, I may well remind you of the unique importance of the event we are commemorating. The influence of St. Paul has been so powerful and so salutary, and exercised in so many directions, that we do not exaggerate when we describe his career as the most fruitful which the long annals of the Christian Church contains. The simplest of my hearers will be at no loss to understand the supremacy of St. Paul. It is evident on the surface of the New Testament; it emerges from the most superficial study of Christian history; it is confessed by the vast and various religious literature of Christendom; it is one of the most certain facts of current Christianity. Take the case of the New Testament. Paul's is the central figure of the last and longest portion of the book of the Acts. Of the twentyone Epistles no less than thirteen claim him for their author; and of the remaining eight, at least four are manifestly leavened by his teaching. Of the four Gospels, the longest was written by one of his disciples and distinctly reflects his influence. If we pass from the New Testament to the history St. of the Christian Society, it is still St. Paul who dominates the scene. He is the true founder of the historic Catholic Church, for he first grasped the universality of the Gospel; he fought the good fight of Christian liberty, and won it. He is the ultimate author of the distinctive theology of Western Christendom. St. Augustine and Luther-the two most potent theologians of the West-were the echoes of St. Paul. Modern critical studies have abundantly confirmed the traditional supremacy of St. Paul. For The genuineness of almost all his epistles -it is hardly excessive to say all, save the Pastorals, which constitute a separate literary problem not yet solved is now generally conceded by critical scholars, and these documents form the necessary startingpoint for the investigation of Christian origins. the scientific historian of Christianity, not less than for the average believer, St. Paul is, next to the Divine Founder Himself, the principal figure of Church History. The personality of the Apostle is as attractive as his influence has been great. We know more about him than about any of the Apostles; and all we know is wonderfully pleasing. It would be easy to collect a striking series of appreciations of his character from students of every type, but we may content ourselves with one of the . latest. "The 'striking originality' of Paul's character,” observes Professor Findlay, "is 'due to the fruitful combination in it of two spiritual forces, which are seldom found united in this degree in one personality -dialectical power and religious inspiration.' . Add to these attributes the apostle's heart of fire, the glow of passion and imagination which fused his mystical intuitions and logical apprehensions into one, his fine sensibility, his resolute will, his manly sincerity and courage and woman-like tenderness, his vivacity, subtlety, and humour, his rich humanity and keen faculty of moral observation, his adroitness and ready tact, his genius for organization and inborn power of command, and the vigorous and creative though not facile gift of expression that supplied the fitting dress, as original as the thought behind it, with which his doctrine clothed itself,—all these qualities and powers went to the making of Jesus Christ's apostle to the nations, the masterbuilder of the universal Church and of Christian theology." 1 Such was the man who found the supreme crisis of his life in the event which we commemorate to-day. It is, perhaps, not superfluous to remark that the "wonderful conversion" of St. Paul is not 1 Dict. of Bible, ed. Hastings, iii. 699. seriously disputed in any quarter, though there is large difference of opinion as to the character of the experience thus described. Even those scholars who emphasise and, as it seems to me, exaggerate the discrepancies in detail between the accounts of the event given in the Acts, yet recognise in those accounts a core of historic fact, and connect them with the irresistible testimony of the Apostle himself in his undoubted epistles. Thus, to give but one example, Weizsäcker, who sees in the narratives in the Acts nothing more than "the conception formed of [the conversion] in the school of the Apostle," yet finds in the epistles conclusive evidence of the fact itself. "The Apostle's description of it," he says, "is not to be questioned. It is here mirrored in his consciousness, but it rests on facts. It is perfectly certain that no course of instruction by Apostles or Christians of any order preceded his conversion. It is certain that he persecuted the Christian Faith because he regarded it as incompatible with the maintenance of the law and of the traditions. It is also certain that it was a manifestation of Christ which first and of itself brought him to believe in Christ, and that this was not preceded by any preliminary stage of inclination towards the teaching of Jesus, or of |