THE QUIET HOUR.

Pahiatua Herald, Volume XLIII, Issue 13165, 25 January 1936, Page 7

THE QUIET HOUR.

DEVOTIONAL COLUMN.

PAULS THORN IN THE FLESH. (Published under the auspices of the Pahiatua Ministers’ Association). The circumstances in regard to St. Paul are these. To prepare Paul for his threat Apostolic work he had been endowed with the most extraordinary gifts of mind. Paul was a man of genius of the very foremost rank. To my mind, no man that 1 know, sacred or profane, is Worthy for a moment to stand in the same intellectual and spiritual rank with Paul. And then nothing exalts a man like a great intellect. A towering intellect is perhaps the greatest temptation that can be put upon any man. Then the unparalleled privileges and promotions that were added to him ; combined to make Paul’s temptation to vain glory and boasting one- of the most fiery (temptations we can imagine. Then there was his miraculous conversion, the high honours that were given him from Heaven ; his labours more abundant than they all ; and his remarkable successes—all that was enough, upon Paul’s own admission and confession afterwards, to exalt him above measure. Rightly received, and rightly employed, all these things ought to have made Paul one of the humblest and lowliest of men. But the Great JV.la.ster saw it to be absolutely necessary to bal-

ance His servants’ talents and prerogatives with thorns and buffetings, showing us thereby that the humblest of Saints is not safe from pride with its destructive aecoriipa niments.

Now, what Paul's thorn in the flesh really was, no man knows for certain. No end of guesses and speculations have been made without much actual result. Mosheim thought ijt was the rankling of remorse for his early days when he persecuted the church so dreadfully, bight I not holds that it was epilepsy. Dean Farrar decides that it was ophthalmia, an affliction of the eyes. Again Professor Ramsay has no doubt but that it was one of the burning fevers so prevalent in Asia Minor in that day. But whatever the thorn, as he terms it, was, we are left in doubt as to what Paul did with it. And we are in no doubt as to the Master’s mind and will about it. Think of this magnificent resolve of the great Apostle—‘‘Most gladly, therefore, will 1 rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me.” A splendid attitude for any man to adopt. And while i.t would be the most fruitless of all studies to seek to find out just what Paul’s thorn was, on the other hand to discover what our own is, may be of the greatest help to ns, We must be our own commentator here. What is it- that tortures you and rankles ill your breast, till life becomes almost intolerable to you? What is it that gnaws and saps and undermines all our joy in life? To discover the trouble is to go some of the *vay to the remedy. We wonder perhaps at Paul’s momentary weakness. No sooner did he begin to lose his night’s rest because of the pain; no sooner did his heart begin to sink within him, than he fell to praying with all his wellknown import uni tv that this whole thorn of his, might be immediately taken away. Greatest of all Apostles as he was, his insight and faith and patience wholly failed him when his own thorn began its sanctifying work in his life. You never made a greater mistake yourself than Paul made. With all his boasted knowledge of the mind of Christ there was not a catechumen in Corinth or in Phillipi with more of a fretful child’s nature in him than the socalled great Apostle when the thorn came into his own flesh. He instantly demanded that it should be removed. He acted as if his Master had paid no attention as to what hotel His servant. He behaved as if his thorn had come to him out of nothing better than Christ’s sheer caprice. But his Lord compassionately overlooked and freely forgave Paul all his unbelief and all his impatience and all his foolish charges and said to him : My grace is sufficient for thee ; for My strength is made perfect in weakness. It our troubles in life bring us a similar answer from our Lord then we may bless them and regal’d them almost as angels in disguise.