nity towards him; for he
had no sooner secured his person in the fortress, than he was proceeding
to examine him by torture. (Acts xxii 24.)

From this time to the conclusion of the history, the apostle remains in
public custody of the Roman government. After escaping assassination by
a fortunate discovery of the plot, and delivering himself from the
influence of his enemies by an appeal to the audience of the
emperor, (Acts xxv. 9, 11.) he was sent, but not until he had suffered
two years' imprisonment, to Rome. (Acts xxiv. 27.) He reached Italy after
a tedious voyage, and after encountering in his passage the perils of a
desperate shipwreck. (Acts xxvii.) But although still a prisoner, and his
fate still depending, neither the various and long-continued sufferings
which he had undergone, nor the danger of his present situation,
deterred him from persisting in preaching the religion: for the
historian closes the account by telling us that, for two years, he
received all that came unto him in his own hired house, where he was
permitted to dwell with a soldier that guarded him, "preaching the
kingdom of God, and teaching those things which concern the Lord Jesus
Christ, with all confidence."

Now the historian, from whom we have drawn this account, in the part of
his narrative which relates to Saint Paul, is supported by the strongest
corroborating testimony that a history can receive. We are in possession
of letters written by Saint Paul himself upon the subject of his
ministry, and either written during the period which the history
comprises, or, if written afterwards, reciting and referring to the
transactions of that period. These letters, without borrowing from the
history, or the history from them, unintentionally confirm the account
which the history delivers, in a great variety of particulars. What
belongs to our present purpose is the description exhibited of the
apostle's sufferings: and the representation, given in our history, of
the dangers and distresses which he underwent not only agrees in general
with the language which he himself uses whenever he speaks of his life
or ministry, but is also, in many instances, attested by a specific
correspondency of time, place, and order of events. If the historian put
down in his narrative, that at Philippi the apostle "was beaten with
many stripes, cast into prison, and there treated with rigour and
indignity;" (Acts xvi. 23, 24.) we find him, in a letter to a
neig