[Footnote 4:  There has been much doubt as to whether Paul was martyred during the three years of this imprisonment, or whether he was acquitted, left Rome, visited his beloved churches in Macedonia and Asia Minor, went to preach the gospel in Spain, and was again arrested, taken to Rome, and there beheaded.  The earliest authorities seem to have been agreed upon the second hypothesis; and this is based chiefly upon a statement made by Paul’s disciple Clement to the effect that the apostle had preached in “the extremity of the West” (an expression of Roman writers to denote Spain), and also on the impossibility of placing certain facts mentioned in the second letter to Timothy and the one to Titus in the period of the first imprisonment.  He was certainly tried, defended himself, and he may have been at first acquitted.]

At Jerusalem and at Antioch he had vindicated the freedom of the Gentile from the yoke of the Levitical Law; in his letters to the Romans and Galatians he had proclaimed both to Jew and Gentile that they were not under the law, but under grace.  During the space of twenty years Paul had preached the gospel of Jesus as the Christ in the chief cities of the world, and had formulated the truths of Christianity.  What marvellous labors!  But it does not appear that this apostle’s extraordinary work was fully appreciated in his day, certainly not by the Jewish Christians at Jerusalem; nor does it appear even that his pre-eminence among the apostles was conceded until the third and fourth centuries.  He himself was often sad and discouraged in not seeing a larger success, yet recognized himself as a layer of foundations.  Like our modern missionaries, Paul simply sowed the seed; the fruit was not to be gathered in until centuries after his death.  Before he died, as is seen in his second letter to Timothy, many of his friends and disciples deserted him, and he was left almost alone.  He had to defend himself single-handed against the capricious tyrant who ruled the world, and who wished to cast on the Christians the stain of his greatest crime, the conflagration of his capital.  As we have said, all details pertaining to the life of Paul after his arrival at Rome are simply conjectural, and although interesting, they cannot give us the satisfaction of certainty.

But in closing, after enumerating the labors and writings of this great apostle, it is not inopportune to say a few words about his remarkable character, although I have now and again alluded to his personal traits in the course of this narrative.

Paul is the most prominent figure of all the great men who have adorned, or advanced the interest of, the Christian Church.  Great pulpit orators, renowned theologians, profound philosophers, immortal poets, successful reformers, and enlightened monarchs have never disputed his intellectual ascendency; to all alike he has been a model and a marvel.  The grand old missionary stands out in history as a matchless