The Fugitive

“And can I be the very same,
Who lately durst blaspheme Thy name,

And on Thy Gospel tread!
Surely each one who hears my cas,
Will praise Thee, and confess Thy grace
Invincible indeed!”

John Newton.

“Truly these were three memorable days in the life of Paul; and, if we except the three days spent in the new tomb in Joseph’s garden, the most wonderful in the history of the Church and the world.”

is still pointed out to the curious stranger, by the monks of Damascus, the “House of Ananias;” and farther on the left, forming a grotto or cellar below the level of the street, is the reputed house of Judas.’” When Saul reached the dwelling which had been provided for him, he was in a state of great helplessness. He could take no meat. He ate nothing and drank nothing, and for three days groped in darkness. We cannot think he had any friends to be kind to him. The Christians would be afraid to. go near him, for they had heard of his cruelties, and perhaps- of the object of his present journey. “Said of Tarsus is on his way hither /” — we may well believe what terror and agony such an announcement would produce in many a bosom and home among the refugee converts at Damascus. They would suspect the vision and the blindness were all a pretence, and that, if they went to his lodging, his companions might be concealed somewhere near, ready to seize them and put them in chains. The Jews, on the other hand, would shun and hate, with a bitter hatred, the man who was now on his knees praying to Jesus, and calling him by the title of God!

How many strange thoughts must have been passing, meanwhile, in Saul’s own bosom! He would revert, perhaps, to his Tarsus home. What would his loved father, and sister, and friends think of such a change % and Gamaliel! how could he meet him again as a Christian? and, worse than all, he would think of his former cruelties to the poor saints at Jerusalem. He would remember, with bitter tears, the heavenly look of the martyr Stephen — his unearthly forgiveness,

* Rae Wilson’s Travels.

his holy resignation, his triumphant death — and how he had helped in that scene of blood! But one thought, rising above all these sore reflections, would comfort his spirit. When no earthly voice was near to cheer him, he would remember those tender tones that were still ringing in his ear, “Saul! Saul!” and the last glorious sight his eyes had seen ere they were smitten with blindness. God had seemed purposely to exclude the outer world, that the eye of His dear servant might be taken away from all earthly things, and fixed on his own heart, and on his adorable Redeemer. “Behold! he prayeth!” What! had he never prayed before 1 Were not the Pharisees famed for their many and their long prayers 1 Can we suppose the young disciple of Gamaliel, who, “after the straitest manner of his religion, lived a Pharisee,” was a stranger to prayer 1 No, not to prayer in its outward form. He had repeated words often before; but he had never really, till now, uttered the cry of faith. The Jews of his own sect might often point to him as a man of prayer; but God, the “searcher of hearts,” says of him for the first time, when he sees him in that vaulted chamber, “Behold! he prayeth!”

While wrapt in such mingled thoughts as we have supposed, a humble Christian stranger knocked at his chamber door. Saul was prepared for his visit; for God had told him by a dream or vision that one of the name of Ananias would come and lay his hands on him, and restore his sight. Who Ananias was, we are not specially informed. Probably he was one of the scattered sheep whom Saul, like a ravening wolf, had set out from Jerusalem to destroy. He had known, indeed, the object of the persecutor’s visit to Damascus.

Very probably “the men” who had come along with Saul, and whom we lose sight of after he was struck to the earth, had not been aware of the wondrous change that had taken place on their leader, and were making publicly known in the city the cruel errand they had come to discharge. But God appeared by a vision to Ananias, and instructed him to go and lay his hands on the blinded Pharisee. “And there was a certain disciple at Damascus, named Ananias; and to him said the Lord in a vision, Ananias. And he said, Behold, I am here, Lord. And the Lord said unto him, Arise, and go into the street which is called Straight, and inquire in the house of Judas for one called Saul, of Tarsus: for, behold, he prayeth, and hath seen in a vision a man named Ananias coming in, and putting his hand on him, that he might receive his sight.” * We can hardly wonder at the simple-minded disciple being astonished, and, at first, even afraid to go on so strange a mission. “Then Ananias answered, Lord, I have heard by many of this man, how much evil he hath done to thy saints at Jerusalem: and here he hath authority from the chief priests to bind all that call on thy name.” t What! to go to the man who, above all others, was signalized for his cruelties to the people of Christ! But God’s wish is enough. “He is not disobedient to the heavenly vision;” and, although we had known nothing else of this kind messenger, we know enough from one word to see the strength of his faith in God’s command, and his love to one whose name he was wont to think oi only with terror — “Brother Saul!” He is no longer afraid. God has told him that the lion

* Acts ix. 10-12. t Acts ix. 13. 4. has become a lamb — the fierce persecutor a true believer. He goes at once and speaks to him as such. Saul was a bold and courageous man. He was not in the habit of shedding tears; but I think a tear must have rolled down from his raylcss eyes as he listened to the first word that a Christian friend ever spoke to him. It was the kindest word that could be used. It must have put away all his fears if he had any. “Brother Saul, the Lord, even Jesus, that appeared unto thee in the way as thou earnest, hath sent me that thou mightest receive thy sight, and be filled with the Holy Ghost.” *

Who can tell but this kindly little word may have at the moment sunk firm and deep into the soul of the great apostle, and taught him those large-hearted views and feelings of Christian brotherhood which led him afterwards so often in closing his letters thus to write, “Grace be with all them that love the Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity!” God had owned him as a son, and whenever Ananias knows this, he hastens to own him as a brother. “The Lord, even Jesus.” It was the first time he had listened to that name with feelings of unmingled joy. Christ, indeed, had Himself spoken to him, saying, “I am Jesus.’” But at the moment that comforting word was mingled with many self-accusations. Now it came like a strain of heavenly music. It was the name of one who was henceforward to be better to him than the best of of all earthly friends. “The Lord, even Jesus, hath sent me,” not to upbraid thee for thy great guilt, and pierce thy heart afresh with new sorrows, but to tell that he has selected thee as a chosen vessel, to bear to

* Actsix. 17.

distant nations “the unsearchable riches” of his Gospel.*

What a specimen had Saul here of the love and kindness both of Master and disciple! How specially impressed must he have been with the interest manifested in him by the Lord Jesus! He had been breathing out slaughter against one whom he now sees could have struck him dead in a moment, and made him a monument of vengeance! But that One not only employs words of love and kindness towards him, but He goes to the street of a city — He selects a particular house in that street, where the new convert is to be lodged — He goes to another disciple, and tells that disciple to see to the safety of the blind Hebrew, and “speak comfortably unto him.”

While Saul was thus “called to be an apostle by Jesus Christ,” it is worthy of notice that he was baptized into the faith of Christ, not by any apostle, or boasted “successor of the apostles,” but by a humble, lowly, unknown disciple. In these days, when so much is said on the subject of what is called “apostolical succession,” and that baptism is no real baptism — no real sacrament, unless administered by the hands of priests who can trace their ordination, in an unbroken line, from the apostles — what can be made of the case of the greatest of all converts, the holiest of saints, the chiefest of apostles? If there had been any such virtue in the administration of the rite, surely the most valued disciple that ever existed in the Christian Church would not have been denied the benefit of it. But just as if for the purpose of shewing that there was no such imaginary charm in the dispensers and dispens-

* Blunt. ing of the ordinance, and that they who hold the view I refer to, “teach for doctrines the commandments of men,” God himself specially appoints that his greatest Disciple, Minister, and Missionary, be baptized, not by the hands of Peter, or John, or James, but by the hands of “one Ananias” a humble saint whose best “apostolical succession” was his simple faith and brotherly love. How impressively does this tell us, that “neither is he that planteth anything, nor he that watereth, but God that giveth the increase! “As there was nothing in the administrator, so there was no virtue in the element. It is not the waters of the land of his fathers — not Kedron, or Siloam, or Jordan, which are used in the sacred rite, but one of those countless streams of which we have spoken, that Naaman loved so well. Previous to this, there” had fallen from his eyes as it had been scales,” and he had his sight restored to him. He was “a new creature.” Thicker scales had fallen from his blinded soul. His whole future history is now to be told in a short verse he himself afterwards wrote, —” I have determined with myself to know nothing else save Jesus Christ and

HIM CRUCIFIED.” *

He resolves immediately to shew that he is not ashamed of the Gospel. He had come to Damascus in order that he might go into the synagogue to bind men and women, and drag them to suffer death at Jerusalem. He now stands in these same synagogues proclaiming Jesus the only Saviour of sinners! How great must have been their astonishment!” But all that heard him were amazed, and said, Is not this he that destroyed them which called on this name in

* 1 Cor. ii. 2.

Jerusalem, and came hither for that intent, that he might bring them bound unto the chief priests’?“* We can well imagine the result. The Jews frown upon him. They are em-aged to think that the great champion of their religion is now proclaiming the crucified Nazarene to be very God. “But Saul increased the more in strength, and confounded the Jews which dwelt at Damascus, proving that this is very Christ.” t

He was directed, at this time, to go for a little season to Arabia. Writers are not agreed precisely as to what is meant by this country — whether it refers to some place not very far from Damascus, or whether it was what we more commonly understand by the name Arabia — the desert country near the Red Sea. Among other conjectures, it is supposed Saul may have gone to Aurana, now called Hauran, to the south-east of Damascus. This is a retired and hilly region, where the Arabians are of a peaceful and primitive character, tending herds and flocks, and occupying themselves in the manufacture of goats’ -hair tents. If so, we may think of him as possibly returning for a season to his early calling, supporting himself by the work of his hands, and exemplifying in that remote place his own future saying — “Not slothful in business, fervent in spirit, serving the Lord.”

It has been thought, and perhaps correctly, that he began now for the first time to suffer from that complaint in his eyes of which we shall speak more hereafter. It was a complaint common in the city and neighbourhood of Damascus during the damps of summer and autumn, and, being generally followed by

* Acts ix. 21. f Acts ix. 22.

fever, compelled those who were subject to it to seek a healthier climate in the uplands. It is not improbable, therefore, that the apostle, suffering in bodily health, and after the severe struggles his mind had undergone, would be glad of a purer and more bracing air than Damascus could afford.

Though this, however, may be so far true, it was by no means the chief reason for his removal from the Syrian city. These Arabian solitudes doubtless listened to many a fervent prayer from his lips. He had received divine intimation of the great warfare in which he was to engage; and not wishing to enter that warfare on his own charges, may we not believe he went thither mainly to receive strength to fit him for his high calling? Although he had for many years studied God’s Word, yet how different would its types, and promises, and prophecies appear now! What a new book to him in its Gospel meaning! We may think of him, therefore, in his retirement, with the holy Scriptures in his hands; the Holy Spirit opening his eyes to behold “wondrous things contained in that law “which he had never before dreamt of, and preparing him, by special gifts and graoes, for unfolding it to others. Frequent revelations seem now to have been made to him. God appears to have met him again and again as He did Elijah of old in his lonely cave in the wilderness of Horeb, and made him listen to another” still small voice.” He alludes to this on several occasions in the course of his epistles. “But I certify you, brethren, that the gospel which was preached of me is not after man. For I neither received it of man, neither was I taught it, but by the revelation of Jesus Christ.” *” For / have received oj

* Gal. i. 11, 12, the Lord that which also I delivered unto you, That the Lord Jesus, the same night in which he was betrayed, took bread.” * “If ye have heard of the dispensation of the grace of God which is given me to you-ward: how that by revelation He made known unto me the mystery.” t “But when it pleased God, who separated me from my mother’s womb, and called me by His grace, to reveal His Son in me, that I might preach Him among the heathen; immediately I conferred not with flesh and blood: neither went I up to Jerusalem to them which were apostles before me; but I went into Arabia, and returned again unto Damascus.” J

Wherever, then, this “Arabia” was, to which he refers, although we are told nothing but the fact of his having gone thither, it forms a very interesting period in the life of the “called apostle;” like his blessed Lord before him, retiring into a lonely solitude to prepare, by fasting and prayer, for the great work that was given him to do.

What a change on that fierce and energetic spirit! far away from all the active work of an active life, holding secret fellowship with God alone! He may have felt that no small grace and strength were needed in his new position. He had given up wealth, fame, friends, country, all, for a despised Saviour. It must have required much prayer and divine fortitude for Gamaliel’s pupil to be willing to endure the loss of all these things, and to get in exchange only poverty, reviling, suffering, and at last death. After a little while he returned to Damascus, and continued there

* 1 Cor. ix. 23 f Eph. iii. 2, 8.

t Gal. i. 15-17. Lewin, vol. i. p. 62. for “three years,” or perhaps less, preaching the faith which he once wished to destroy.

What were the Jews about all this time 1 We cannot think their rage would be abated, or that they would be more inclined to listen with patience to the preaching of one they had learnt to hate as greatly as they once loved him. They doubtless tried first to meet him in argument; but “they could not resist the. power and spirit with which he spake.” They formed a cruel design “to kill Saul!” Their purpose of murder seemed successfully planned, and they had little doubt of making sure of their prey. The walls around the city were high and well guarded. The ruler, who was a friend to the Jews, assented to the charge they brought against him, and issued a warrant for his apprehension. He gave orders to his soldiers to keep a vigilant guard in case the new Christian teacher would escape; and the Israelites themselves, to make all sure, took their turn of watching him day and night, lest he might elude the vigilance of the soldiers. But a Greater than all was with the obj ect of their rage. The Lord himself is “keeping the city,” and His servant within it, and these watchmen “watch in vain.” Saul could say, with his great aDcestor — “Lord, how are they increased that trouble me! many are they that rise up against me. Many there be which say of my soul, There is no help for him in God. But thou, 0 Lord, art a shield for me; my glory, and the lifter up of mine head. .... I will not be afraid of ten thousands of people, that have set themselves against me round about.” * He finds his way probably to one of the houses of his brother Christians, where

* Psalm iii. 1, 2, 3, 6.

doubtless he would be commended in prayer to Him who “bringeth the counsel of the heathen to nought, and maketh the devices of the people of none effect.” This house happened to be close by the city wall; probably, like many dwellings in the East, it was built to jut over it, forming what is called a kiosk, from which a view is obtained of the open country. The apostle is put into a basket; this is slung from a window by means of a rope, as you see represented in the picture, and gradually lowered to the foot of the wall.

“As I stood with a friend,” sayrs a recent traveller, who resided at Damascus, looking at the place referred to, “a couple of men came to the top of the wall with a broad flat basket, full of rubbish, which they emptied over the wall. ‘Such a basket,’ said my friend, ’ the people use here for almost every sort of thing. If they are digging a well, and wish to send a man down into it, they put him into such a basket; and that those who aided Paul’s escape should have used a basket for the purpose, was entirely natural according to the present customs of the country. Judging from what is done now, it is the only sort of vehicle of which men would be apt to think under such circumstances.’ Pilgrims are admitted into the monastery at Mount Sinai in a similar manner. A rope, with a basket attached to it, is let down from a window or door about thirty feet above the ground. Those who are to ascend, seat themselves one after another in this basket, and are thus drawn up by means of a pulley or windlass turned by those in the convent.” *

It may have been at a place which the Jews thought

* Professor Ilackett. Sec 2 Cor. xi. 32, 33. there was little need of guarding that Saul was let down, or perhaps he was favoured by the darkness of the night. We should rather say the same Saviour, who had “appeared to him on the way,” had given His angels charge over him to encamp round about him. He would hear a voice saying in that midnight hour, “Fear not, for I am with thee.” Assured of safety, ere long he is beyond the reach of his enemies.

Was there anything cowardly in this midnight escape 1 On the contrary, I think there was rather somethingnoble in it. Doubtless, if Saul had consulted his own feelings, his natural fortitude and the remains of his natural pride would have said to him, “No! brave it out, and die like Stephen, the glorious death of a martyr!” But he acted in what he did more in accordance with the will of his Lord — that Lord who had left as a special injunction to his disciples, “When they persecute you in one city, flee ye to another.” No one who reads the Apostle’s life will ever accuse him of timidity. He who could afterwards hear unterrified the growl of Nero’s lions, and say, in the prospect of a violent death, “None of these things move me,” would not have been afraid now to face “the perils of false brethren;” but he felt that, “to abide in the flesh” was as yet needful for the great work assigned to him. He burned with a holy desire, before finishing his earthly course, to repair those breaches which, while an enemy of the truth, he had made on the walls of the infant Church.

AVhat an eventful night that must have been to him! The once proud horseman, so lately riding along these plains, is now a hated and hunted fugitive! My young readers may imagine him hurrying from his first expe-F bZ THE FOOTSTEPS OF ST PAUL.

rience of those “perils of the city” of which he afterwards so touchingly wrote. The night, as we have supposed, may have been a dark one; or perhaps, ere he had gone far, the moon had risen in all its clear eastern splendour, lighting up the hoary summits of the distant Lebanon, and making Abana and Pharpar appear like threads of silver winding along the flat plain. How many thoughts must have crowded upon him, and more especially as the first hills of Palestine reveal themselves in the morning light! He finds himself (now a disciple of the Nazarene) looking across in the direction of that village and name (Nazareth) once despised, which he now so loved. Saul had from his boyhood, like all Jews, learned to value and admire the Psalms of David; and we know it was the custom of the Israelites, in going up to Jerusalem to their feasts, to cheer themselves on the way by chanting them in company. Perchance, during this solitary pilgrimage, these formed his “songs in the night.” If so, with what new zest must he have sung them! with what new meaning must they have been invested, since he had first learned them at his Tarsus home! The sweet Psalmist of Israel was once, like himself, a lonely, friendless exile, hunted “like a partridge on the mountains.” Who can tell but the heavenly musings of the fugitive king may have proved cheering solaces to the spirit of the fugitive Christian 1 “Why art thou cast down, 0 my soul? and why art thou disquieted within me 1 Hope thou in God, for I shall yet praise Him for the light of His countenance.” “My heart is fixed, 0 God! my heart is fixed; I will sing and give praise.” “The stone which the builders refused, is become the head-stone of the corner. This is the Lord’s doing, and it is marvellous in our eyes.”

We need not follow him further in his old and weJIknown journey. He turned his steps in the direction of Jerusalem, principally, as he tells us himself, “to see Peter.” He wished to get acquainted with that groat apostle, the companion of his Lord, and the great instrument in the Pentecostal revival, in order to get from him counsel and advice about his future work. It must have been with a trembling step and faltering heart, when the old towers of the holy city once more rose before his view. The glittering pinnacles of the temple and the altar courts — what different feelings does the first glimpse of them now convey, compared with his first journey from Tarsus to Jerusalem! Now their glory is all past. He may have seen at the moment the smoke of the sacrifices ascending to heaven. But these were only the shadows — the Substance had come, and with His coming, all the types were done away. These former glories had now in his eyes “no glory, by reason of the glory that excelleth.” From the road by which he entered the city, the tiny waters of the Kedron, or at all events the green sward of the valley through which it flowed, must have met his eye. The voice, too, of a brother’s blood must have there been sounding mournfully in his ears. How could he meet that dreadful band of murderers who were so lately his bosom friends and companions 1 What a look of scorn and reproach he must expect to be cast upon him, when he next sees the old master whose instructions he still reveres! How will every Jew hate him! how must every Christian, for a time at least, suspect him! Ho had left Jerusalem, honoured and caressed — the prayers and blessings of many a father and mother in Israel had followed him — priests and people had spoken of him as a young hero. Now his name would be in every lip as a vile apostate and castaway. All these are very painful thoughts; but he goes manfully on, feeling that “the Lord will stand by him.” The words of the Psalmist were, perhaps, often in his lips, — “In God have I put my trust: I will not be afraid what man can do unto me. Thy vows are upon me, 0 God: I will render praises unto Thee. For Thou hast delivered my soul from death: wilt not Thou deliver my feet from falling, that I may walk before God in the light of the living?”*

Much of what he dreaded does take place. The Jews hate — the Christians are suspicious. He had come to Jerusalem probably supposing that the news of his conversion would have reached long ago, and been well known to them all. We must remember, however, that communications between distant places were neither so frequent, nor so much to be relied on as now; and very possibly the Christian disciples may have heard only floating rumours about the sudden change, and treated it as a very unlikely story. We cannot wonder, therefore, they give him at first a cold reception. “And when Saul was come to Jerusalem, he essayed to join himself to the disciples: but they were all afraid of him, and believed not that he was a disciple.” t How cutting to the feelings of the future apostle! How cheerless and chilling an introduction to his future fellow-labourers and friends! ‘One of their number, of whom we shall hear more hereafter, comes and speaks a kinder word for him. Barnabas,

* Psalms lvi. 11-13. t Acts ix. 26.

who proved all that his name implies — “a son of consolation” — takes him by the hand, and told the others “how the Lord had appeared to him by the way, and spoken to him, and how he had preached boldly at Damascus in the name of Jesus.” We ought not to place much reliance on mere tradition; but there is a story, beautiful in itself, and not improbable, that has been handed down to us regarding Barnabas and Saul. It is said that, having been schoolfellows and playmates under Gamaliel, Barnabas, who had become a believer at an early date, had often prayed for the conversion of his friend, and pleaded with him personally to no effect: that he met him on this occasion on the streets of Jerusalem, not aware at the time of what had taken place at Damascus. He once more began, as formerly, to plead with him to renounce Judaism, and become a Christian, Saul threw himself weeping at his feet, and told him the joyful news.“” Be this as it may, Gospel love cannot any longer be withheld — Peter and James, who alone of the apostles were then present, gave him the right hand of fellowship. From that moment they were brothers. We seem to hear them saying to him, in his own beautiful language, “Brother! thou art no more a stranger and a foreigner, but a fellow-citizen with the saints, and of the household of God.” It is peculiarly beautiful to see Peter, and very characteristic of him, so ready to welcome Saul, when many of the other disciples were hanging cautiously back. He, doubtless, would remember his own case — how he, too, had been a denier of his Lord — basely forsaking Him whom once he had loved, and had been so tenderly loved in return. He must have felt that in this respect

* Bible Cyclopaedia.

his sin was greater far than that of the Cilician, who “did it ignorantly in unbelief;” and how much more justly, therefore, the brethren might have refused to receive him back again as a disciple, and especially as an apostle. But would he deny to Saul a welcome, when his forgiving Lord had not denied one to him? Saul had abundantly answered that great question of Jesus, which Peter to his dying hour never could forget — “Lovesfc thou mei?” and, conscious of the same love to the same gracious Shepherd from whom they had both wandered, these stray sheep rejoice together in the same fold. Their common Lord had represented Himself as greeting the returning prodigal while he was yet “a great way off.” It was befitting, therefore, that when the two brothers met, “they should make merry, and be glad.” Saul’s going to Jerusalem at this time must, indeed, have required more than ordinary fortitude. It is no easy matter for those with a naturally lofty spirit like him to own that they are wrong, and to find old friends turned against them. Great, too, must have been the courage required to face them in public — to stand in the midst of a synagogue where once he could see nothing but smiling faces — now darkened with anger! But he seems to have felt it his duty, in the city where he had done so much harm, “to deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Jesus.” His yearning love to his Jewish brethren, of which he afterwards so touch ingly speaks, and his earnest desire to remove, if possible, the blindness from their eyes, seems to have greatly prompted him to this early visit to Jerusalem. “I say the truth in Christ, I lie not, (my science also bearing me witness in the Holy Ghost), that I have great heaviness and continual sorrow in my heart for my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh.”* Perhaps, in the first ardour of his new spiritual life, so convinced had he been himself of his own error in rejecting the Saviour, he may have supposed that he would have had little difficulty in winning over to the same belief those with whom he formerly possessed much influence. Alas! he soon found that it is nothing but the grace of God that can melt the hard heart, and open the sealed eyes. Though his old friends and kinsmen, however, thus disowned him, many Christian hearts and homes were open to him. It is not to be wondered at, after what I have said, that the Apostle Peter’s house became his dwelling at this time. There he remained for fifteen days. There is nothing told us regarding this fortnight’s intercourse between these two great apostles — the fisherman of Galilee, and the pupil of the learned Gamaliel. We can picture to ourselves what their fellowship would be; their talk together, evening after evening, when the day’s work was over. Saul would doubtless love to listen to Peter’s account of the Saviour’s blessed life — the never-to-be-forgotten sayings and doings which he was privileged to hear and to witness. How the fervid soul of the narrator would kindle at the recollection of his Master’s many acts of personal kindness and love, and the gracious words which proceeded out of his mouth! Peter, we know, was not afterwards slow to confess and speak of his own failings; may we not suppose he would even narrate with many tears the story of his fall, that he might contrast with it the

* Romans ix. 1-3. See the rendering of these verses in Haldane On the

Romans.

tender love of Him who so graciously forgave him! He would fondly recall the special message sent by the angel, “Go and tell Peter;’“’ and how, when he met face to face the Lord he had denied, he got no harsher rebuke than the thrice-repeated question,” Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me V We may well believe these two holy men, who had each received in different ways such touching proofs of Jesus’ love, would pray earnestly together on their bended knees that God would enable them, by their future lives and ministry, to make good the words, “Lord, thou knowest all things; thou knowest that we love Thee.” Sometimes their conversation would turn on matters concerning the welfare of the Church, or it may be, after the stormy discussions in the synagogue, other kindred spirits would be assembled along with them in this quiet home, for mutual prayer and encouragement.

It has been reckoned to have been now about the time of the Passover (April, 41). Jerusalem was crowded with Jewish strangers from all parts of the world. Saul himself being by birth one of these Hellenists, or Jews of the dispersion, had probably thought it would be a suitable commencement to his ministerial work to “dispute against the Grecians,” and proclaim to them the name of his crucified Master. “He hoped, no doubt, that an enlarged measure of success would attend his ministry in this city, where his previous life, and habits, and education were so universally known, and that the miracle of his conversion would here form an irresistible argument to the truth of his doctrine. Very different, however, are the intentions of God, respecting our future disposal, from intentions of ourselves and our friends. Saul perhaps expected to spend many years at Jerusalem. The Almighty had appointed that he should remain there fifteen days I” *

The Lord Jesus had other work in reserve for him. His special name from this time was to be “The Apostle of the Gentiles.” He was to be the great Missionary of the infant Church, as his Lord had declared to Ananias in Damascus — “Ho is a chosen vessel unto me to bear my name before the Gentiles, and kings, and the children of Israel.” His remaining any longer at Jerusalem at present would be attended with great danger to himself; for, unknown to him, there was already a plotlaid for his destruction, and no human means could have prevented the early loss of a life so precious. The Jews at this time, as we learn from history, must have had their fiercest passions roused into action, so as to make them ready for any daring crime. This was owing to a threatened violation of their national and religious feelings by the wicked Roman emperor, Caligula. He had given orders to have his statue erected in the Temple of Jerusalem, — a proposal so abhorrent to the mind of every Israelite, that they resolved to shed the last drop of their blood in resisting it. Fortunately, however, the news of his death by the hand of an assassin reached the Jewish capital during the very time that Saul was living there in the house of Peter.t Their fury, therefore, now finds vent in another channel, against the devoted apostle, and a Higher than any human friend warns him of his danger. One day Saul went up to the temple, in great sadness of spirit at all this violent opposition, to seek comfort and support in prayer. When he w

* Blunt’s lectures, vol. i p. S9. f Josephus.

% his knees, the Lord Jesus again appeared to him in a trance or vision. This memorable occasion he speaks of afterwards, as what he might well “glory in,” were he given to boasting. He was caught up into the third heavens, and heard “unspeakable words, which it is not lawful (or possible) for a man to utter.” In that vision Jesus told him expressly to leave Jerusalem, as “they would not receive his testimony.” It may be well to quote his own description. “And it came to pass, that, when I wTas come again to Jerusalem, even while I prayed in the temple, I was in a trance; and saw Him saying unto me, Make haste, and get thee quickly out of Jerusalem: for they will not receive thy testimony concerning me. And I said, Lord, they know that I imprisoned and beat in every synagogue them that believed on thee.”* What, we may be led to ask, is Saul’s precise meaning in giving this answer 1 It is as if he had said, “Lord, if there be any place surely where I will have attentive listeners, it will be in Jerusalem, where there are many who knew me well as Saul the persecutor — the murderer of holy Stephen; and when they think of me being at one time as fierce and bitter against Thy name as themselves, and see what Thy grace can do, they will not surely refuse my testimony!”t

“Man proposeth, but God disposeth!” Nay, “but 0 man! who art thou that repliest against God V His Divine Master, on that same occasion, answers aim in a single sentence, telling him what his future work and calling is to be — “Depart, for I will send thee far hence unto the Gentiles.” At this vision his drooping t revives. Meanwhile the brethren become acim;

Acts xsiL 17-19. t Blunt. quainted with the conspiracy against his life, and they get him persuaded immediately to leave Jerusalem.

Could he leave it, do you think, without a pang? As he passed through its gates, I doubt not he wept, like his Lord, over its hardness and unbelief. We may imagine hiin pausing on the rising ground outside, and taking one last look of the fated city, under the feeling that he may never see it again; and that when he is sleeping in his grave, “far hence among the Gentiles,” the proud towers and palaces and temple which now meet his eye, may be blazing under the torch of the conqueror. Willingly would he have lingered for a while in her streets, to try and convince these hard hearts of their guilt, and bring them to repentance but the voice of his God has called him elsewhere, and he feels he must obey. The disciples take means to have him privately conveyed to Cesarea. He probably takes a ship from thence to Cilicia, and after an eventful absence, the Apostle finds himself once more in the city and scenes of his infancy. There, it is probable, he was actively engaged in preaching the Gospel. From all we can gather, this was his last visit to Tarsus. We shall leave him seated in his old chamber, looking out on the crags of Mount Taurus, and the shadows of the Roman vessels reflected in the waters of the Cydnus, — talking, perhaps, to his sister about his own great change, and of the Prophet of Nazareth, whom once he scoffed at, now his chiefest boast, — kneeling, it may be, in prayer with her, and asking Jesus to pour his grace into her heart, as He had done into his. We shall leave Saul in thought in this loved retreat, while we trace what work was preparing for him in other cities.