Page:Lives of the apostles of Jesus Christ (1836).djvu/37

 of years, the head of Christendom, ruling with a power more absolute than her imperial sway, saw more than the Roman world beneath him. Even to this day, vast and countless "regions, Caesar never knew," own him of Rome as the center of unity;" and lands

"farther west Than the Greek's islands of the blest,"

and farther east than the long unpassed bounds of Roman conquest, turn, with an adoration and awe immeasurably greater than the most exalted of the apotheosized Caesars ever received, to him who claims the name of the successor of the poor fisherman of Galilee.

Such, and so vast, was the revolution, to the achievement of which, the lives and deeds of the apostles most essentially contributed,—a revolution which, even if looked on as the result of mere human effort, must appear the most wonderful ever effected by such humble human means, as these narratives will show to have been used. The character of the men first chosen by the founder of the faith, as the instruments of spreading the lasting conquests of his gospel,—their birth, their country, their provincial peculiarities,—all marked them as most unlikely persons to undertake the overthrow of the religious prejudices even of their own countrymen; and still less groundless must have been the hope that any of Jewish race, however well taught in the wisdom of the world, could so far overcome the universal feeling of dislike, with which this peculiar nation were regarded, as to bring the learned, the powerful and the great of Rome and Greece, and of Eastern lands, to own a low-born Galilean workman as their guide to truth,—the author of their hopes of life eternal. Yet went they forth even to this task, whose achievement was so far beyond the range of human hopes; and with a zeal as far above the inspiration of human ambition, they gave their energies and their lives to this desperate commission. Without a hope of an earthly triumph or an earthly reward,—without even a prospect of a peaceful death or an honored grave, while they lived, they spent their strength fearlessly for him who them forth; and when they died, their last breath went out in triumph at the near prospect of their lasting gain.

In giving the lives of these men, many incidents will require notice, in which no individual apostle was concerned alone, but