A COMPANION TO "THE EPIC OF PAUL"
SAUL OF TARSUS, brought up at Jerusalem, a pupil of Gamaliel, the most celebrated Rabbi of his time, from setting out as eager but pacific controversialist in public dispute against the preachers of the Gospel, changes into a virulent, bloody persecutor of Christians, and ends by abruptly becoming himself a Christian and a teacher of Christianity. The Epic of Saul tells the story of this. "It is the great success of the poem," says Prof. John A. Paine, "to put the reader in the place of those who opposed the rising and rapidly spreading faith in Jesus, and to unfold a marvellous insight into the reasonings, motives, intrigues, and action of those actually engaged in trying to suppress the new movement; and thus, it helps to form a remarkably vivid conception of the crisis, and to gain a deeper understanding of the conflict."
"Saul in the Council Stephen's face saw shine
As it had been an angel's, but his heart
To the august theophany was blind—
Blinded by hatred of the fervent saint,
And hatred of the Lord who in him shone,
What blindfold hatred such could work of ill
In nature meant for utter nobleness,
Then how the hatred could to love be turned,
The proud wrong will to lowly right be brought,
And Paul the 'servant' spring from rebel Saul—
This, ye who love in man the good and fair,
And joy to hail retrieved the good and fair—
From the unfair and evil, hearken all
And speed me with your wishes while I sing."—
—From the Proem.
APPRECIATIVE CRITICISMS.
"Decidedly impressive and attractive.... One never wants to lay the book down, and reads it through with increasing, rather than flagging interest."—The Spectator, London.
"Dr. Wilkinson's Epic of Saul is daring in conception, subtle in analysis, exquisite in delineation, stately in movement, dramatic in unfolding, rythmical in expression, reverent in tone, uplifting in tendency. The Poem of Saul is as truly an epic as Milton's Paradise Lost."
—Rev. George Dana Boardman, D.D.
8vo, Cloth, Gilt top, 386 pp. Price, $1.50, post-free.
"Epic of Saul," and "Epic of Paul" together, $3.00.
FUNK & WAGNALLS COMPANY, Publishers, New York
Transcriber's note:
The ad page has been moved from the beginning to the end of the book.