cal passions were at once let loose. The Pharisees suddenly discovered that their old adherent might be used as a champion against their Sadducean foes, and at once they took his side-ceased to be judges, and sank into partisans. It was a strange reaction when they shouted— "We find no evil in this man"-a sentiment which they could not in their hearts believe, but what he had spoken was an opportune war-cry. And they added in their new-born zeal and patronage-"But if a spirit or an angel hath spoken to him" and the rest of the sentence was drowned in the uproar. The one word rendered-"Let us not fight against God"-does not appear to form a portion of the text, and the abrupt sentence has a special emphasis, the very reference to spirit and angel exasperating their opponents into a yell which interrupted the speakers. Thus orthodoxy clamoured, and heresy retorted with similar din-nay, the debate was intensified into action, hands were laid on the apostle, and he was clutched hither and thither by his unexpected allies and their antagonists. Then the chief captain feared "lest Paul should have been pulled in pieces of them"-some assaulting, and others defending him; and there being no hope of the restoration of quiet, and not knowing how far the unseemly excitement might be carried, Lysias "commanded the soldiers to go down and to take him by force from among them, and bring him into the castle."

During the following night, when strange thoughts must have occupied his mind-the scenes of the day starting up before him, and the events of his previous life, from the martyrdom of Stephen and his departure under the high

"BE OF GOOD CHEER."

377

priest's commission to Damascus, rising vividly in his recollection, while his mind was profoundly impressed by the truth of the repeated warning that imprisonment awaited him in Jerusalem, and he might be wondering as to the issue, and whether his fate should be that of the protomartyr, or whether he should be able to accomplish his earnest wish of visiting Italy-the Lord stood by him and said, "Be of good cheer, Paul, for as thou hast testified of me in Jerusalem, so must thou bear witness also at Rome." His heart was at once relieved and comforted. The cloud was lifted. The Lord was his shield, and had been a witness of all the procedure. Faithful service is never overlooked; His eye is never dimmed. "Be of good cheer" is His frequent salute, and His words do their own errands, creating what they command. They come in the crisis, and men wonder at the martyr's courage. How is it that fetters and stripes, and every form of refined cruelty, do not quench the soul; that the sight of the rack or the gibbet, the cage of wild beasts, or the fagots piled up before the stake, do not terrify a prisoner into weakness or recantation? Is it not that Jesus has spoken, and the words are yet ringing in his ears-"Be of good cheer?" May not every one who works and witnesses for Jesus enjoy the same blessed consolation? Shall He withhold His words from the faithful spirit that bows to no will but His, relies on no strength but His, and covets no assistance but His? Nay, such loyalty reposing on such confidence brings Jesus ever near, as He still repeats the same syllables-"Be of good cheer."

The sanhedrim could not destroy the apostle; an invi

sible hand interposed and stayed their fury. No matter what delays might happen, or what obstacle the tardy and hostile operations of law might create-Rome is the goal. There were compearances before Felix and Festus, and two years of captivity at Cesarea; the storm raged fiercely in the Mediterranean, sending the ship of Alexandria far out of her course, and casting her upon an island a total wreck; but another vessel received the prisoner, and he whose name and fame had preceded him, landed safely at Puteoli, where some of the brethren welcomed him—“ and so we went towards Rome."

XVI.-PAUL AT CESAREA.

I.

BEFORE FELIX.-ACTS XXIV. 1-23.

THE apostle's work was done in Jerusalem, and so the words of Jesus had intimated. But how he was to reach Rome he could not tell, and events were happening around him which threatened to defeat the Master's promise. Disappointed of their prey, more than forty Jews "banded together, and bound themselves under a curse, saying, that they would neither eat nor drink till they had killed Paul." This conspiracy indicates the rancorous fanaticism which characterized the people. Probably those men were sicarii, or zealots—that desperate class who, pleading the example of Phinehas, took the execution of the law into their own hands, and at length sank into hired assassins-paid agents of private revenge. To show the state of feeling and morals, we are told that they made their purpose known to the sanhedrim, who, from the report of Paul's nephew, seem to have acquiesced in the murderous project. Such a conspiracy was quite in accordance with the temper of the people. Josephus tells us of ten men who combined in a similar way against the life of Herod, because he was deemed an apostate; and Philo, another contemporary of the apostle-a calm, meditative, and philosophical Jew— given to speculation rather than political or ecclesiastical policy, thus writes-"It is highly proper that all who have

a zeal for virtue should have a right to punish with their own hands, without delay, those who are guilty of this crime; not carrying them before a court of judicature, or the council, or, in short, before any magistrate; but they should indulge the abhorrence of evil, the love of God, which they entertain, by inflicting immediate punishment on such impious apostates, regarding themselves for the time as all things-senators, judges, prætors, sergeants, accusers, witnesses, the laws, the people-so that, hindered by nothing, they may without fear, and with all promptitude, espouse the cause of piety." But Providence has many modes of working out its ends. It is not the tribune or his centurions who are to save Paul; nor is there to be any bold or sagacious unravelling of the plot. A young man suddenly steps upon the scene, and frustrates it. Gaining a knowledge of it by some means, he first informs his uncle, and by him is sent to the chief captain to give him similar insight. Lysias was well aware of the unscrupulous nature of the men with whom he had to deal, and at once took measures for his prisoner's safety and sent him the same night under a strong military escort to Cesarea.

And thus Paul finally left Jerusalem-a prisoner guarded by a troop of soldiers. He had come to it in early youth with bright hopes and eager purposes. His rabbinical studies had delighted him, and he outstripped many competitors. The juvenile emotions of the student, as he first gazed upon the metropolis-the city of God, and the scene of so many glories and disasters-must have been in strange contrast to his feelings, when as a prisoner, and to escape assassination, he issued from one of its northern