the clouds of Heaven!" At this, the populace responded with loud cries of "Hosanna to the Son of David!" The Scribes and Pharisees, enraged at a result so contrary to their calculations, exclaimed that James himself was seduced; and cast him headlong from the Temple. Falling bruised and mangled, but not slain, the Apostle presently struggled to his knees, and in that attitude prayed fervently for the forgiveness of his enemies, who all the while kept up a shower of stones upon his battered form. A Rechabite who stood by, and who is identified by Epiphanius as Simeon, the Apostle's kinsman and successor in his Episcopate, entreated the Jews to spare him. "The just man," he said, "prays for you; why, therefore, do ye slay him?” But they never the more restrained their cruelty, continuing to stone the Apostle until a fuller with his club mercifully despatched him by beating out his brains. According to Epiphanius, the martyrdom of St. James took place when he was in the ninety-sixth year of his age.*

The General Epistle of St. James is eminently practical, being devoted to an enforcement of all Christian virtues— of constancy, patience, purity, charity, and others. There is no real virtue which is not based upon that peculiar excellence of character which conferred upon St. James the title of "the Just "; and we would conclude our notice of this Apostle with a poetical tribute to the immortal savour of that virtue of virtues. James Shirley, the author of the lines we are about to quote, was known as "the last of a great race" of dramatists (1594-1666). He was a sometime clergyman in Hertfordshire, who, going over to the Church of Rome, became successively a schoolmaster at St. Alban's, and a dramatic author in London. The following short poem from "The Contention of Ajax and Ulysses for Achilles' Armour," published in 1659, carries its own recommendation; whilst the fact that it was a

*Eusebius: Ecclesiastical History, lib ii., c. 23; Epiphanius: Adversus Octoginta Hareses; Hares. 78.

great favourite with Charles II., may serve to vindicate the character of that somewhat frivolous monarch as not altogether unsusceptible of grave and serious reflection:

The glories of our birth and state

Are shadows, not substantial things;

There is no armour against fate;

Death lays his icy hands on Kings;
Sceptre and crown

Must tumble down,

And in the dust be equal made

With the poor crooked scythe and spade.

Some men with swords may reap the field,

And plant fresh laurels where they kill;
But their strong nerves at last must yield,
They tame but one another still.
Early or late,

They stoop to fate,

And must give up their murmuring breath
When they, pale captives, creep to death.

The garlands wither on your brow,

Then boast no more your mighty deeds;

Upon death's purple altar, now,

See where the victor victim bleeds;
All heads must come

To the cold tomb,

Only the actions of the Just

Smell sweet, and blossom in the dust.

St. Barnabag the Apostie.

JUNE 11.

Hail! Princes of the host of heaven,
To whom by Christ, your chief, 'tis given
On twelve bright thrones to sit on high,
And judge the world with equity.

'Tis yours to cheer with sacred light
Those who lie sunk in sin's dark night;
To guide them in the upward path,
And rescue them from endless wrath.

With no vain arts, no earthly sword,
Ye quell the rebels of the Lord:
The cross, the cross which men despise,
'Tis that achieves your victories.

Through you the wondrous works of God
Are spread through every land abroad;
Thus every clime records your fame,
And distant ages praise your name.

And now to God, the Three in One,
Be highest praise and glory done,
Who calleth us from sin's dark night,
To walk in His eternal light.

Translation, by the Rev. J. Chandler.

HE ancestors of St. Barnabas, who were of the tribe of Levi, had emigrated to the Island of Cyprus, where, in common with other Jewish families, it is probable they had sought refuge from the acts of violence perpetrated in their native

EARLY FRIENDSHIP WITH ST. PAUL.

393

country of Judæa by the Syrians, Romans, or other Gentiles. The law which prohibited members of the tribe of Levi from holding landed property at home, was not considered binding upon them abroad; for we know that St. Barnabas was the proprietor of an estate which he magnanimously alienated for the benefit of the poorer Christians when a common fund was proposed by the Apostles to minister to their necessities (Acts iv. 36, 37). As the parents of St. Barnabas-or Joses, as he was then calledwere in opulent circumstances, they sent their son for his education to Jerusalem, where he was trained under Gamaliel, a famous doctor of the law, and the teacher of St. Paul, with whom, whilst they were fellow-disciples of their illustrious master, St. Barnabas contracted a friendship which was renewed and continued in after years of co-operation in the cause of Christ.

St. Barnabas is believed to have been one of the seventy disciples (Luke x. 1)*; although the particular circumstances of his first adhesion to Christ have not been ascertained. It has been surmised, on the other hand, that he was one of the converts of the Day of Pentecost; and, in any case, his name appears immediately after that season as a member of the Church of Jerusalem, and he was already a Christian of some standing at the date of the conversion of St. Paul. The name bestowed upon him at his circumcision was Joses, a Hellenized form of the historic name of Joseph, which was changed, after a fashion common amongst the Apostles, to Barnabas, “which is," says St. Luke, "being interpreted, the Son of Consolation" (Acts iv. 36). By some who interpret the name of Barnabas as a Son of Prophecy, or a Son of Exhortation, it is believed that he acquired the designation on account of those prophetic gifts for which he was remarkable; whilst St. Chrysostom, who translates the word as Son of Consolation, as in our authorized version, discovers the reason

*Eusebius: Ecclesiastical History; lib. i. c. 12.

for such a designation in the fact of his mild and gentle disposition, which fitted him pre-eminently to minister to minds diseased and troubled, and in the fact of that ready charity which prompted him to take the lead in selling his estate for the comfort and consolaton of his Christian brethren.* The very slight literal difference between the two names has sometimes caused Barnabas to be identified with Barsabas, whose name also was Joseph-or Joses— and whose surname was Justus; and who was the competitor with St. Matthias for the vacant apostleship of Judas Iscariot (Acts i. 23). But against this confusion St. Chrysostom records a very precise and emphatic protest.†

When the disciples at Jerusalem, distrustful of the professions of Paul, "were all afraid of him, and believed not that he was a disciple," it was his friend Barnabas who introduced him to the Apostles, "and declared unto them how he had seen the Lord in the way, and that he had spoken to him, and how he had preached boldly at Damascus in the name of Jesus" (Acts ix. 26, 27).

The first public employment of Barnabas was on a mission of confirmation to the infant Church of Antioch, in which city he and Paul-whom he had fetched from Tarsus when he saw the importance and responsibility of the work-laboured together for a year in the establishment of that Church. "And the disciples were called Christians first at Antioch" (Acts xi. 26).

The particulars of the travels which Barnabas and Paul prosecuted together during a joint labour of fourteen years, are recorded in detail by St. Luke in the Acts of the Apostles, and are glanced at by St. Paul himself in his Epistle to the Galatians. As their co-operation had begun at Antioch, so there it determined. So sharp a dispute arose between them about the retention of Mark-the nephew of Barnabas-in their company on a projected tour

St. Chrysostom: In Acta Apostolorum; Hom. xxi. ¶ 1. + St. Chrysostom: In Acta Apostolorum; Hom. xi. ¶ 1.