The Pulpit Commentary — Acts — Volume 1 — Section 324

when it is voluntarily encountered, patiently borne, and embraced even to the cross, to stoning, to torture, and the stake, the world has no help for it but to notice what is transpiring. An unwilling world is put into the dilemma that it is either convinced or connct.ed. The confession is wrested from all beholders that there is somethin" present which begs and deserves close scrntiny and respectful attention, or that they are in any giv~n instance deserting precedents that in all others they have observed. When the testimony of suffering is shown forth in one, the force of it will partly depend on the notoriety that his conduct may win, and it may undoubtedly be weakened by the suspicion of individual eccentricity until this again be rebutted. But when the te~timony is borne by many and for a length of time, it is equivalent to the presence of a new and very real moral force among mankind, Many of the grandest and most impressive triumphs of Christianity have been owing to this, and many of its most significant impulses have been due to it, Men and suffering have calmly faced one another, have measured the force of one another; neither have shrunk from the wager-men have not fled and suffering has not yielded up its sting. And yet they have made common cause, and have made also most wonderfully effective fight. Something in man, given him from without and from above, has made him fearless of what all nature made him to fear. It is an exhibition in the areJ!a of the world; it never fails of having witnesses; it always leaves its traces. And the Paul of perils and sufferings ever stands one of the clearest and noblest illustrations of a great and effectual moral display.-B. Vers. 26-30.-.An i1l odour Gnd its remedy. The odour of character and" iii repod" are two very different things. The character of most fragrance may be ill worst "report!' w·as it not true of Jesus? The noblest personages that have graced the world have often been temporarily of ill report, but not, correctly speaking, of ill odour. Of all ill odour none is a hundredth part so bad as the ill odour of character. Notice- I. ITS CHIEF POINTS OF STUONG CONDEMNATION. 1. It is an intrinsic shame to the person of whom it is true. It is the result of what he is and what he says and what he does, and not of the mistakes others may possibly make respecting him in any of these particulars. 2. It is a virulent disintegrant of human society and love. It turns the place and opportunity of attraction into those of repulsion, and substitutes for the union of trust the disunion of suspicion. 3. It is cruelty to all those who are of the same kind by nature. Some kind of sin, beside all the black front it shows as such to God, adds the aggravation of widespread and keenly felt domestic misery. 4. It is a very fountain of fear to an indefinite number of others. The character that is cor- rectly answerable to the description of one of ill odour is an offence to those who have to come in contact with it, and to those who/ear lest they should come in contact with it. 5. It is constantly diffusing its noxious and malarious influences, and not least when perhaps for a brief while least observed. Il. THE B.EMEDY. There is one remedy, one only, that goes to the root of the matter. That character must be changed. Come what may, let what may seem risked, through whatsoever experience of suffering and anguish of a new birth, nothing short of a real and penetrating change will avail Nothing partial, no outside improvement, no mere mitigation of his style of word or deed, could have reconciled "disciples at Jerusalem" or anywhere else to Saul, had there not been proof patent of radical change. The source of the old ill must be cut off, and in such wise that it come11 to be the natural thing to men to feel convinced that it is really and undoubtedly cut off. Ill. THE ROOM THAT THERE 18 FOB THE EXEROISE 01!' BROTHERLY CHARITY WITHAL. :Men who go by the name of Christian do often suspect when they should not, and distrust too long. The example of Jesus is clear against such conduct and such a disposition. To the worst sinner he was prQDlpt to giv~ the hand of hope a~d the hand of help, and to shield them from the glance and the pointed ~nger of t_auntmgs draw:n from the put. We may admit that the eye of Jesus recognized genumenese, and hlS lip could pronounce UJ,On it with a certainty shut ou_t fro!D ourselves. None the less must we recognize his principle, and honour it bf usmg it. B~~bas n~w took Saul by the hand, and showed him the brotherly kmdneBB the spmt of which the great Master first gave to the Ohurch. And it is agreeable to observe how "apostles" and "brethren" thereapo11, believed in Saul, anll act@d u ihough they believed in. on. m. 1-43.] THE AOTB OF THE APOSTLES. 321