who were required to take part in the execution, prepared themselves for
the work of death, by laying down their upper garments at the feet of
the "young man" Saul. [59:6] He had established himself in the
confidence of the Sanhedrim, and he appears to have been a member of
that influential judicatory, for he tells us that he "shut up many of
the saints in prison," and that, when they were put to death, "he gave
his voice, or his _vote_, [60:1] against them"--a statement implying
that he belonged to the court which pronounced the sentence of
condemnation. As he was travelling to Damascus armed with authority to
seize any of the disciples whom he discovered in that city, and to
convey them bound to Jerusalem, [60:2] the Lord appeared to him in the
way, and he was suddenly converted. [60:3] After reaching the end of his
journey, and boldly proclaiming his attachment to the party he had been
so recently endeavouring to exterminate, he retired into Arabia, [60:4]
where he appears to have spent three years in the devout study of the
Christian theology. He then returned to Damascus, and entered, about
A.D. 37, [60:5] on those missionary labours which he prosecuted with so
much efficiency and perseverance for upwards of a quarter of a century.

Paul declares that he derived a knowledge of the gospel immediately from
Christ; [60:6] and though, for many years, he had very little
intercourse with the Twelve, he avers that he was "not a whit behind the
very chiefest apostles." [60:7] Throughout life he was associated, not
with them, but with others as his fellow-labourers; and he obviously
occupied a distinct and independent position. When he was baptized, the
ordinance was administered by an individual who is not previously
mentioned in the New Testament, [61:1] and when he was separated to the
work to which the Lord had called him, [61:2] the ordainers were
"prophets and teachers," respecting whose own call to the ministry the
inspired historian supplies us with no information. But it may fairly be
presumed that they were regularly introduced into the places which they
are represented as occupying; they are all described by the evangelist
as receiving the same special instructions from heaven; and the
tradition that, at least some of them, were of the number of the
Seventy, [61:3] is exceedingly probable. And if, as has already been
suggested, the mission of the Seventy indicated the design of our
Saviour to diffuse the gospel