beseech Him to grant us perfectly to know His SON JESUS CHRIST to be the Way, the Truth, and the Life, is not our supplication offered through the same His SON JESUS CHRIST Our LORD ?'

104

St. Barnabas the Apostle.

BEARING WITH INFIRMITY.

ACTS xv. 39.

So Barnabas took Mark.

THE character of the Apostle whom the Church commemorates to-day, is drawn out in singular detail. Not that the inspired writers ever describe men's characters as we do,-giving a summary of their lives, and stating the result of all their actions. That is never done. One or two words, is the utmost amount of express portraiture we ever meet with. Thus Esau is called

a profane person;' and Jacob, a plain man.' Moses was 'meek,' and Job' patient:' Abraham 'faithful,' and Lot 'just.' So again, Nathanael had no guile' Stephen was 'full of faith and of the HOLY GHOST:' James and John were 'sons of thunder;' while Barnabas is declared to have been a good man.' But even these intimations of character are unfrequent. The usual method is to set the person before the reader in action,

H.D.

and straightway, by his fruit he becomes known. Nor is it hard to perceive a Divine Hand in the picture thus exhibited. Every touch helps, in some unexpected way, to bring out the individual. Every thing said or done conspires to produce one definite effect. different matters recorded.

There are no inYet, with all this,

it is strange how little is stated. A careless reader of Scripture would often think that there were no materials for forming any notion at all of men's characters; whereas a definite notion may be obtained of almost every person; and in a large number of cases, there is no lack even of details. We are in this way presented with every intermediate grade, between a slight sketch and a highly finished picture, of all the persons who are conspicuous in the Book of Life.

Barnabas is one of the fully drawn characters. He comes before us first as a Levite, who sold a possession, in order that he might lay the money at the Apostles' feet. Thus, his first recorded. action was an endeavour to minister to the needs of the infant Church. He is next found conducting St. Paul to St. Peter and St. James, and reconciling the mighty souls of those Apostles to him whom they had only known as a persecutor.

a

Acts iv. 36.

b Acts ix. 27.

Next, he is the one to go in quest of Saul, whom he brings to Antioch: and when money is to be carried to the suffering Church at Jerusalem, it is by the hands of these two Saints that the Church sends relief. . . . . ... It was them, again, (Barnabas and Saul,') whom. the HOLY GHOST chose to carry among the heathen the refreshing tidings of the Gospel of CHRIST: after which, they brought consolation,' (for so the decree of the first Council is called,) to the Brethren at Antioch... When the name of Barnabas is first mentioned, we are told that his real name was Joses: but that the Apostles, (in order perhaps to distinguish him from our LORD's cousin Joses,) used to call him Barnabas; that is, being interpreted, the son of consolation and certainly, every particular in his history confirms the propriety of the name he bore. To administer comfort and consolation to others, seems to have been his especial office. One is prone to suspect that it was owing to him, that when St. Paul and he left Antioch, Cyprus was the first place they visited; for he himself was of the country of Cyprus,' and may well have burned to communicate the consolations of the Gospel to his own people.

c Acts xi. 25.

d Acts xv. 31.

e Acts iv. 36.

The words of the text remind us of another part of the history of Barnabas. When St. Paul and he went on their first journey, they took with them John, whose surname was Mark,' to be their minister.' He must have been a very young man; being the son of that Mary, whose dwelling was at Jerusalem,-the sister of Barnabas. This youth, for whatever reason, at the end of a little while, shrank from the toils of the Apostolic journey; and leaving the two Saints to proceed alone through Pamphylia, returned to Jerusalem,-as one may fancy, to his Mother's house. The sacred narrative is so concise, that the fact of his desertion is all we learn; and it seems fairest to ascribe it to cowardice, to disgust at the perils and hardships of such a journey performed at such a time. Certain it is that he speedily repented: for when Paul and Barnabas were about to commence their second journey, he was desirous to attend them. St. Paul however now rejected his services. Not so Barnabas. To what extent he was influenced therein by partiality for his sister's child, it is impossible to say. But after all the other indications of character, already particularized, it seems only reasonable to behold the son of consolation' in the staunch partizan