Bernard and his Age."
Five years later, he published a work on Gnosticism, and in 1821, his
"Life of Chrysostom;" besides some treatises of minor note, which we need
not pause to enumerate. At length, in 1825, when of course he was
thirty-six years old, the first volume of his General History of the
Church appeared. And to say that this work put him directly at the very
head of Christendom as the expounder of its inward life, is saying only
what we all know to be true. After that, he turned aside occasionally in
obedience to other calls of duty, at one time to write a history of the
Apostolic Age, and at another the Life of Christ, but always returning to
his General History, as the one great task appointed him of God to do. As
I parted with him in the spring of 1848, my heart drawn out toward him
with an admiring tenderness and reverence, such as I had never experienced
toward any other living scholar, I could not forbear assuring him, that
many prayers would go up for him in America as well as in Europe, that he
might be spared to complete his work. "I hope it," he replied, "but that
must be as God wills." But this wish of his heart was denied him.
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