THE SECRET OF A VICTORIOUS LIFE.
THE words of the apostle Paul are among the most precious legacies bequeathed to the world by great men; a legacy which derives its main value from the fact that it conveys that which was, in its origin, a gift from Heaven. But quite as valuable as Paul's words is Paul's life. Those eloquent and powerful statements of truth which all subsequent generations have carried in their consciences and hearts, would lose half their force if there were not behind them the impulsion of one of the noblest lives ever lived upon earth. The single-hearted devotion to duty, the fearlessness, the noble temper, the patience, and the self-sacrifice of that life constitute one of the supreme achievements of history. For it is in character, and in character alone, that the supreme achievement is to be found. Not in great works of architecture, not in great books, not in great statesmanship, nor in great social movements, is to be found the supreme achievements of which men are capable; a noble character remains, among all the activities and attainments of men, the one supreme and final success; that which neither time nor misconception nor detraction are able to diminish or destroy. The eagerness with which men turn to the stories of such lives as that of Paul is almost pathetic. They look away from their own failures and infidelities and sins to such a life, and find comfort in the fact that some man has really lived the life which each man would like to live in his best hours. . . . The great satisfaction, the supreme comfort, which springs from such a life as Paul's comes from the consciousness that here was a man who overcame every obstacle, and, instead of being mastered by the things which seemed against him, triumphed over them. His was a life outwardly all defeat, inwardly all victorious. It appeals to and satisfies the inward aspiration of everyone; for each of us feels that just such a life belongs to him; that we were not made to be baffled and beaten and vanquished, but to conquer and overcome, and to emerge from the struggle victorious against all odds. The secret of a great life is never difficult to find. When Savonarola was brought to the rack, and his persecutors listened eagerly for the secrets they were about to wring from him, the reformer could only reply in his agony, "My secrets are few, because my purposes have been great." Paul's purposes were great, and his method therefore was transparent. Everything was against him, as men look at life. He stepped aside from the career which was open to him, and which promised the realization of the ambition of a Jew; he expatriated himself; he was a wanderer on the face of the earth, outcast, persecuted, rejected, despised, and finally put to death. All things conspired against him, and yet in the face of all these obstacles no one reads his life with any other consciousness than that here was a great eternal victory. This man, with all the world against him, defeated the world, and calmly held it at bay. And this great result was achieved, not by tricks, nor by persuasion, nor by great gifts of mind, but by a tremendous conviction and a life held steadfastly true to that conviction. . . . It was matter almost of indifference to him that men rejected him and spurned him and persecuted him. So long as he had the consciousness of a divine work to do, and of divine strength to accomplish it, he cared little for human aid or help. The world was to him simply the field in which his work was to be accomplished; he did not look to it for the rewards of that work. He belonged to his fellows for all service and helpfulness, but they could neither appoint his task nor reward him when it was finished. Like trees, he was rooted in the common soil; but, like them, light and heat, and the dews and rain which give foliage and strength, came from Heaven. Here is the secret of his life, and here is the only secret by which such success as his can be attained.—Christian Union.