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from interfering for my safety, I shall go unto God; but if you attach yourselves to my temporal welfare, I shall have to run my course anew. You can give me no better gift, than my immolation to God, while yet the altar is ready; that becoming a choir in love, ye may sing to the Father in Jesus Christ, for that it hath pleased God to call the Bishop of Syria out of the east, and that he should be brought into the west. It is well for me, in learning the world, that I should set unto God, that in God I may rise.
III. Ye have spoken evil of no man. Ye have taught others. It is my desire, that the lessons ye have given may find a firm foundation. Do ye only ask for me power from within and from without, that I may not only speak, but also feel; not only bear the name of Christian, but approve myself one; for if I approve myself one, I shall be entitled to the name, and shall be reckoned to have been faithful, when the world seeth me no more. For nothing visible is abiding; visible things are temporal; things invisible are eternal. For our God; which is Jesus Christ, assumes a more visible reality in His union with the Father. This is no time for holding peace. When Christianity is hated of the world, it calls for high exertions.
IV. I write to the Churches, and I charge you all, that I die willingly for God, unless you prevent me. I exhort you, not to shew me an unseasonable kindness. Suffer me to be devoured by wild beasts, for by their means I am permitted to go to God. I am food for God's service. Let me be ground by the teeth of the wild beasts, that I may be found pure bread unto Christ. Yea, encourage ye them, that they may be my grave, and may leave no part of my body; so that, when I am fallen asleep, I may burthen no man. Then shall I be a true disciple unto Christ, when the world seeth my mortal body no more; pray ye to Christ for me, that by their instrumentality I may be found a sacrifice unto God. I make not my commands unto you, as though I were Peter or Paul; they were Apostles; I have been condemned; they were free; I, hitherto, am a slave: but if I suffer unto death, I shall become the freedman of Jesus, and shall have a resurrection unto liberty in Him. Now am I learning, while in my bonds, not to set my affections on any thing that is worldly and fallacious.
V. From Syria unto Rome I carry forward my sufferings, by
