RELIGIOUS.


         SOME PROVIDENTIAL MEN AND MOVEMENTS
                   IN HISTORY.--PAUL.
                   (The Thirteenth in the Series.)

                            By A. H. Hill.

  Paul gives us, in what might be called a brief sketch of his life, some very
striking things. I am verily a man which am a Jew, born in Tarsus, a city
in Cilicia, yet brought up in this city at the feet of Gamaliel, and taught
according to the perfect manner of the law of the fathers and was zealous
towards God, circumcised the eighth day; of the stock of Israel, of the tribe
of Benjamin, an Hebrew of the Hebrews; as touching the law, a Pharisee;
concerning zeal, persecuting the church; touching the righteousness which
is of the law, blameless.
  In addition to his being a Jew, Paul was a Roman citizen. Acts 16:37;
22:28. Thus he was the son of two great powers, the Jewish church and
the Roman government. Under the former his heritage was a rich one, a
member of the household of Abraham, the family to whom God committed
the oracle of the ancient church. That nation produced some of the great-
est men that ever lived, the greatest literature and the one through which
God brought His Son. As a Roman citizen, Paul could demand a certain
protection. Acts 16:37. The Valerial law forbade any Roman citizen to
be bound; the Porcian law forbade any to be beaten with rods.
  Paul was fortunate to be a son of a great church and of a great nation.
Truly is any man blessed who can lay claim to such a sonship; and he is
still more blessed who can add that he is the son of a great family and of a
great age.  These goodly heritages, the Jewish church and the Roman
government, produced a Paul--a person fitted for the high commission to
which he was called.
  As a Jew, versed in rabbinical lore, Paul was able to meet their chief men
on their own ground, and as a Roman versed in her jurisprudence he was
able to defend the cause he espoused against her learned men. In that
                           (595)




			

OHS/National Afro-American Museum & Cultural Center Serial Collection

African Methodist Episcopal Church Review, Vol. 28, Num. 2

Volume:  28
Issue Number:  02
Date:  10/1911