St. Paul did so. God, when he set him apart,
as he says, from his very birth, gave him a great grace, even the
honest and good heart; and he was true to it, and used it. He tried
to learn his best, and do his best. He profited in the Jews'
religion, beyond all his fellows. He was, touching the
righteousness which was in the law, blameless. He was so zealous
for what he thought right, that he persecuted the Church of Christ,
as the Pharisees, his teachers, had taught him to do. In all
things, whether right or wrong in each particular case, he was an
honest, earnest seeker after truth and righteousness. And therefore
Christ, instead of punishing him, fulfilled to him his own great
saying,--'To him that hath shall be given, and he shall have
abundance.' He had not yet, as he himself says, again and again,
the grace of Christ, which is love to his fellow-men; and therefore
his works were not pleasing to God, and had, as the article says,
the nature of sin. His empty forms and ceremonies could not please
God. His persecuting the Church had plainly the nature of sin. But
there was something which God had put in him, and which God would
not lose sight of, or suffer to be lost; and that was, the honest
and good heart, of which our Lord speaks in the parable of the
sower.
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