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    is their characteristic * If he weeps or rejoices , if he glows or sorrows , if he is grateful or devout , if he speaks of time or eternity , life or death , over and through the eloquence of feeling , of imagination , of piety , of benevolence ^ there predominates the eloquence of thought . He was both a close , a rapid , and a

    powerful reasoner , possessing qualities rarely united in the same mind , and scarcely ever in the same degree . His style is a torrent , not merely , not so much , of imagination as of intellect . What skill in solving difficulties , in getting the better of prejudices , in winning inveterate opponents over to Christ , in putting the Gospel forth to the world in those lights and with those recommendations that were best fitted to the actual and diversified

    condition of the public mind . He knew how to convince and convert ( he Jew and then the Gentile- —the one without offending the other , though of the most different faith and feelings , and which was as difficult , without compromising his own principles in the smallest particular . Jesus declared the truth , -which he heard from God , as he received it from the fountain of truth ; Paul declared it as that truth best suited man . Jesus was thd

    truth itself ; Paul the expounder of the truth . Jesus was the prophet ; Paul the logician of Christianity . The letters of Paul will reward the scholar ' s labour ; for he who had sat at the feet of Gamaliel , and partaken of the intellect tual culture of Asiatic refinement—who , in becoming all things to all men , was able to command the attention not only of the uncultivated barbarian , but also of the wise and learned in that

    city , which had been the mistress and was still the teacher of the world ,- —he who thus united in himself much of the learning of both eastern and western civilization ^ and who in addition to his intellectual attainments had also that knowledge which resulted from a large acquaintance with various classes of men and most of the then known parts of the globe , cannot fail to supply in his writings those treasured of information of which the true lover of knowledge is a seeker . What bursts of eloquence do his letters

    furnish' —what genuine elevation and ardour for the study and imitation of the orator . And the real poet will find in them , not indeed the form , but much of the essence of poetry , in natural emotion , in intense emotion , in nobility of soul , in expansion of mind , in vigour and compression of thought , in loftiness and vividness of imagination . This is the stuff of which all true poetry is made , and he that has a soul for poetry will find some one of these qualities in every page of the Apostle ' s writings .

    The philanthropist may read Paul , and have his largeness of soul enlarged ; for there is a wider benevolence in the expression of that gosp ' el principle , that Christ had made all men of all nations into o n ** family , — 'there is a wider benevolence and fuller delight in the expression by Paul of that gospel principle than has ' ever yet fallen from the lips of another man - . .

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    On the Study of SI . Paul ' * Epistles . 671

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Oct. 2, 1832, page 671, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1822/page/23/