e the feelings and views expressed by the
apostle in the beginning of this chapter--but that he should wish to
be put into the place of Christ; or madly with evil to himself, from
which nobody could be benefited, cannot be suspected; unless with
Festus, we suppose him to have been "beside himself," and not to have
known what he wrote, when he expressed himself as in the text.

REFLECTIONS

I. In Paul's conversion how wonderfully apparent are the wisdom and
power of God? When we view Saul of Tarsus making havoc of the church
in Judea, and soliciting permission to pursue its scattered members
even into exile, we consider him as a determined enemy of Christ. Who
then would suspect that he should be made to feel the power of divine
grace? That he would become a Christian? Yea, a prime minister of
Immanuel! But lo! For this cause did God raise him up! For this work
was he training while drinking at the fount of Science, and learning
the Jews' religion in the school of Gamaliel! While unsanctified he
was a destroyer; but when melted by divine influence into the temper
of the gospel, all his powers and all his acquisitions were
consecrated to the service of God and the Redeemer.

To affect this change in Paul, however unexpected, was not beyond the
power of God; and it was done of God! Neither was it delayed till Paul
had spent his best days in the service of Satan. At setting out to
destroy, he was met of the ascended Savior, transformed by the
renewing of his mind, and from that time devoted to the service of
God; and continued faithful unto death. Many were his trials--severe
his sufferings for the gospel which he preached; but "none of these
things moved him; neither did he count his life dear to himself, that
he might finish his course with joy, and the ministry which he had
received of the Lord Jesus, to testify the gospel of the grace of
God."

II. The temper manifested by St. Paul when contemplating the state of
his nation, how worthy of imitation? Like his divine Lord, "when
he beheld them he wept over them." Neither was the view unprofitable.
It served to remind him of his own past guilt and danger, and the mercy
which had been exercised toward him. His guilt and danger had been
great. In high handed opposition to heaven, he had even exceeded "his
kinsmen according to the flesh." Witnessing their state brought these
again to his remembrance, and the grace of God which had stopt him in
his course, and saved him f