he fortitude, or
exaggerate the sufferings, of his party. When they fled for their lives,
he tells us. When the churches had rest, he remarks it. When the people
took their part, he does not leave it without notice. When the apostles
were carried a second time before the Sanhedrim, he is careful to
observe that they were brought without violence. When milder counsels
were suggested, he gives us the author of the advice and the speech
which contained it. When, in consequence of this advice, the rulers
contented themselves with threatening the apostles, and commanding them
to be beaten with stripes, without urging at that time the persecution
further, the historian candidly and distinctly records their
forbearance. When, therefore, in other instances, he states heavier
persecutions, or actual martyrdoms, it is reasonable to believe that he
states them because they were true, and not from any wish to aggravate,
in his account, the sufferings which Christians sustained, or to extol,
more than it deserved, their patience under them.

Our history now pursues a narrower path. Leaving the rest of the
apostles, and the original associates of Christ, engaged in the
propagation of the new faith, (and who there is not the least reason to
believe abated in their diligence or courage,) the narrative proceeds
with the separate memoirs of that eminent teacher, whose extraordinary
and sudden conversion to the religion, and corresponding change of
conduct, had before been circumstantially described. This person, in
conjunction with another, who appeared among the earlier members of
the society at Jerusalem, and amongst the immediate adherents of the
twelve apostles, (Acts iv. 36.) set out from Antioch upon the express
business of carrying the new religion through the various provinces of
the Lesser Asia. (Acts xiii. 2.) During this expedition, we find that in
almost every place to which they came, their persons were insulted, and
their lives endangered. After being expelled from Antioch in Pisidia,
they repaired to Iconium. (Acts xiii. 51.) At Iconium, an attempt was
made to stone them; at Lystra, whither they fled from Iconium, one of
them actually was stoned and drawn out of the city for dead. (Acts xiv.
19.) These two men, though not themselves original apostles, were acting
in connection and conjunction with the original apostles; for, after the
completion of their journey, being sent on a particular commission to
Jerusalem, they the