Acts 20:36

36-38. When these solemn and touching words were concluded, the apostle was ready to re-embark upon the vessel about to weigh anchor in the harbor, and the final farewell must be spoken. (36) " And when he had thus spoken, he kneeled down, and prayed with them all; (37) and they all wept much, and fell upon Paul's neck, and kissed him, (38) sorrowing most of all for the word which he had spoken, that they should see his face no more. " It would be difficult to imagine a more touching scene. The tears of women and of children are sometimes shallow; but when full-grown men, men of gray hairs, who have been hardened to endurance by the bitter struggles of life, are seen to weep like children, and to fall upon one another's necks, we have the deepest expression of grief ever witnessed on earth. Such, however, is not the sorrow of this world. When the strong man of the world is overwhelmed with grief, he seeks for solitude, and his heart grows harder while it is breaking. But the sorrow of the man of faith is softening and purifying. It binds the afflicted in closer sympathy with one another and with God, while it is sanctified by prayer. It is painful, but it is not altogether unwelcome. It is a sorrow which we are willing to feel again, and which we love to remember. The history of the Church is full of scenes like this. When the paths of many pilgrims meet, and they mingle together, for a few days, their prayers, their songs of praise, their counsels, and their tears, the hour of parting is like a repetition of this scene on the sea-shore at Miletus. Tears, and heavings of the breast, which tell of grief and love and hope all struggling together in the soul; the parting hand and fond embrace; the blessing of God invoked, but not expressed; the sad turning away to duties which the soul feels for the moment too weak to perform-these are all familiar to the servants of God, and are remembered as tokens of those hours when, most of all, the joys of heaven seem to triumph over the sorrows of earth.

If Paul had been parting from these brethren under happy anticipations for them both, the sorrow of neither party could have been so great. But, added to the pain of a final parting was the gloom of their own uncertain future, and the terrible and undefined afflictions which certainly awaited him. There is not, in the history of our race, apart from the sufferings of the Son of God, a nobler instance of self-sacrifice than is presented by Paul on this journey. He had already, twelve months before this, recounted a catalogue of sufferings more abundant than had fallen to the lot of any other man. He had been often in prison, and often on the verge of death. From the Jews he had five times received forty stripes save one, and had three times been beaten with rods. Once he was stoned, and left on the ground, supposed to be dead. He had suffered shipwreck three times, and spent a day and a night struggling in the waters of the great deep. In his many journeys, he had been exposed to perils by water, by robbers, by his own countrymen, by the heathen; in the city, in the wilderness, in the sea, and among false brethren. He had suffered from weariness, and painfulness and wakefulness. He had endured hunger and thirst, and had known what it was to be cold for want of sufficient clothing. Besides all these things, which were without, he had been and was still bearing a burden not less painful in the care of all the Churches. And besides even all this, was that thorn in the flesh, the messenger of Satan to buffet him, which was so irritating and humiliating that he had three times prayed the Lord to take it from him. These sufferings we would think enough for the portion of one man; and we would suppose that his scarred and enfeebled frame would be permitted to pass the remainder of its days in quiet. Yet here we find him on his way to Jerusalem, engaged in a mission of mercy, but warned by the voice of prophesy that bonds and afflictions still awaited him. Most men would have said: I have suffered enough. The success of my present enterprise is doubtful, at best, and it is certain to bring me once more into prison, and into untold afflictions. I will, therefore, remain where I am, amid brethren who love me, and strive to end my days in peace. Such may have been the feelings of the Ephesian elders, as they clung tearfully around him; but how grandly the hero lifts himself above all such human weakness, while he exclaims: "None of these things move me, neither do I hold my life dear to myself, so that I may finish my course with joy, and the ministry which I have received of the Lord Jesus, to testify the gospel of the favor of God." When parting forever from such a man, they might well weep, and stand mute upon the shore till the white sails of his vessel grew dim in the distance, ere they turned in loneliness to the toils and dangers which they were now to encounter without the presence or counsel of their great teacher. We are not permitted to return with them to Ephesus, and listen to their sorrowful conversation by the way; but must follow that receding vessel, and witness the bonds and afflictions which await its most noted passenger.