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Sketches from the Life of Paul
Those who, like the apostle, have felt a responsibility for beloved
churches or institutions, can best appreciate his depression of spirit and
self-accusings. The servants of God who bear the burden of his work
for this time, share the same experience of labor, conflict, and anxious
care that fell to the lot of the great apostle. Burdened by divisions
in the church, meeting with ingratitude and betrayal from those to
whom they look for sympathy and support, vividly impressed with
the peril of churches that are harboring iniquity, compelled to bear a
close, searching testimony in reproof of sin, and then weighed down
with fear that they may have dealt with too great severity,—the faithful
soldiers of the cross find no rest this side of Heaven.
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