The work of the Holy Spirit - pagina 189

;

THE APOSTOLIC SCRIPTURES. ting

was

of little significance to their persons

';

149

but against this

whole representation we protest with all our might. Nay, these men were not such excellent personalities that the few occasional letters from their hands could scarcely have any significance in their lives. On the contrary, their epistolary labor was the most important of all their lifework small in compass, but rich in content; apparently of less, but by virtue of its comprehensive and far-reaching influence of much higher significance. And since the apostles may not be considered half-idiots, knowing scarcely anything of the future of the Church, and without any realization of what they were doing, we maintain that a man like St. Paul, having finished his Epistle to the Romans, was indeed conscious of the fact that this work would occupy a prominent place among his ;

apostolic labors.

Even tho

it

be granted that the apostle was unconscious of

yet this alters not the

To-day,

fact.

eighteen centuries ago have

all

can scarcely be recognized

when

power were healed inheritance

We

still

it,

the churches founded

past away, and the church of

who by

the people

or saved have all

memory remains

single

;

when

crumbled to

Rome

his wonderful

dust,

and not a

of all his other toil; to-day his epistolary

governs the Church of Christ.

can not conceive what the condition of the Church would be

without

St.

Paul's epistles;

great apostle that has

come

if

we were

to lose the inheritance of the

What

to us through our fathers.

that controls our confession,

if

is it

not the truths developed by him

what is it that governs our lives, if not the ideals so highly exalted by him? We can safely say, with reference to our own Church, that without the Pauline epistles its whole form and appearance would be totally different. This being

so,

we

are also justified in saying that the objectify-

ing of Christian truth in the apostolic epistles Instead of calling

of all their labors.

that in

it

their activity reached its

it

a

"

the most important

is

we

dead-letter,"

confess

very zenith.

However, the peculiar work of the Holy

Spirit in the apostolate

being the subject of our present inquiry, and not the apostolate itself,

we

of this

will consider

now the serious question What :

is

the nature

work?

Our choice

lies

between the theory of the

the natural, process.

mechanical,

and that

of

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