PREFACE

It seems unnecessary to suggest that this book is entirely independent of the conventional lines of the modern realistic novel. To any who hold that idealism in fiction is not artistic, that a didactic element is inadmissible, and that philosophizing has no place, the work will hardly commend itself. To others, who believe that fiction may be a useful vehicle for the conveyance of helpful ideals, and even abstract truth, it is offered with the hope that it may furnish some measure both of entertainment and profit.

A majority of the characters being creations, and a large part of the action also unhistoric, it must be left to the judgment of the reader how well they fit into their historic frame-work. So far as St. Paul is introduced in the narrative, nearly everything delineated belongs to those portions of his life which are but very briefly or incidentally touched upon, either in the Scriptural writings or other history. But utilizing many undoubted realities, the aim has been to fill in the wide blanks with that which is in accord and in the line of the possible or probable.

The author has intended to respect the hallowed associations which cluster about the name of the great Apostle. But Paul was a man with like passions as other men, and to be faithful, any outline of the forces that played through his great soul should be drawn naturally, and without that misleading glamor often imposed by far-away time and distance. Only by such a treatment can his life be brought near, and its practical lessons enforced. If to any the interpretation seem unduly broad, they may be assured that the author has no iconoclastic intent, but on the contrary, an aim which is wholly constructive, whereby everything wholesome and uplifting in human life may be encouraged and strengthened.

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