The Sanctuary :: :: University of Virginia Library

“God ------ through the preaching of St. Paul, caused the light of the Gospel to shine throughout the world ------ we having his wonderful conversion in remembrance.” —Collect for the Day.

Martyr for Christ and miracle to man,—
If ere conversion by its glory can
Irradiate the clouds which roll
In lurid darkness round the soul,
It is, when saints with raptured glow recall
That lion of the Church,—the lofty-minded Paul!

230

Culture and cruelty in him combined
At once to fascinate and awe mankind;
And thus, made fierce by flaming zeal,—
Nature and Grace can thence reveal
A teaching contrast, where the Church can read
Much that excited souls in some dark moment need.

Here is a Witness, with whose truthful light
The gospel puts the infidel to flight!—
Struck by a miracle, the maddest foe
Who ever dealt a murd'rer's blow
On christian virtue, suddenly outcries
“What must I do, O Lord!” and lifts his scalèd eyes.

Robed in a Vesture of incarnate beams
Dark'ning bright noon with supernat'ral gleams,
The persecuted Lord appears
And pours on his appallèd ears,
Like muffled thunder heard on midnight-sea,
Tones which in Hebrew said “Why persecut'st thou Me?”

And never did God's miracle of grace
With more divinity reveal its trace
Than in the contrast, thus beheld!—
When bigotry, by mercy quelled,
Sank into softness, while the blinded Paul
Thrill'd the admiring Heavens with adoration's call.

Three years, an eremite of weeping prayer
Hid in Arabia's wild,—the Spirit, there,
By Voice, and Vision, and by ways
Screen'd from the search of mortal gaze,
Instructs the convert with celestial lore
And lifts him up to heights, Saint never scaled before!

But when, at length, to Salem's home return'd,
How keenly in him must his heart have burn'd
As on the blood-tinged gates, perchance
He fixed his aw'd and mournful glance,

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Where, three years since, the martyr'd Stephen cried
“Forgive them, gracious Lord,”—and into glory died!

Or when the flashing dome of that dread Shrine
Whose very air once breath'd, to him, divine,
Rose dawning on the distant sky
Before the Convert's tearful eye,—
How thrill'd he now to learn his God had been
The Antitype in flesh of all that Temple-scene!

And, what to him, are time, and scene, and earth,
The vaunting nothingness of blood and birth;
The pomp, the princedom, or the smiles
By which a Belial-world beguiles
The victims who on sensual good rely
And find no blissful heaven, but that beneath the sky?

“To live is Christ,”—behold, a master-spell
Whose power eternity alone may tell!
These were the words, by which array'd,
That hero of the Cross obey'd
The charm they wielded, till his dying breath—
The glory of his life and grandeur of his death!

Man's inner-world his diocese became
Through which he heralded Messiah's name;
Nor earth, nor hell, nor sword, nor fire
His superhuman zeal could tire,—
Unhasting and unresting like a star
Whose moving lustre fills deep midnight from afar.

And in the Lord, his children are not we,
The island-Church, catholical, and free?—
As Gentiles, on this festal day
Lord of the conscience! unto Thee we pray
That each true doctrine Thine Apostle taught
May sanctify the soul, a dread Atonement bought.

“Who art Thou, Lord!”—Alas, if thus men cry,
Dungeon'd in doubt, beneath God's open'd sky.

232

The Saviour in his people lives;
And he who unto anguish gives
A cup of water, with a christian heart,
Of Christ's own Body is a sacramental part.

Acts ix. 1.

ix. 11.

vii. 58.

Phil. iii. 5, 8.

Acts vii. 56.

Gal. ii. 20.

Ephes. v. 30.