y must he have
experienced what is described in words like these, "That which I do I
allow not, for what I would that do I not, but what I hate that do
I"; "For the good that I would I do not, but the evil that I would not
that I do"; "I find, then, a law that, when I would do good, evil is
present with me. For I delight in the law of God after the inward man;
but I see another law in my members warring against the law of my
mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my
members. Oh wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body
of this death?" Thus Paul had been a lost man, in hopeless bondage to
sin.

But he had to repent of his own righteousness as well as of his sin.
He had inherited the passionate longing of the Jewish race for
fellowship with God--the longing expressed a hundred times in the
poetry of his fathers in words like these: "As the hart panteth after
the waterbrooks, so panteth my soul after Thee, O God"; "My soul
thirsteth for God, for the living God; when shall I come and appear
before God?" He had been taught that the great prize of life is to be
well-pleasing to God, and he had learned the lesson with all the
passionate earnestness of his nature. Yet he never could attain to
that for which he longed. There always seemed to be a cloud on the
Divine face, and he was kept at a distance. Luther went through the
very same experience. His was also a passionately religious nature,
and he strove with all his might to get into the sunshine of God's
face; but his efforts were entirely baffled. Wash them as he would,
his hands were never clean.

What could an earnest nature do in such circumstances but seek to
bring still greater sacrifices? Probably this was the source of Paul's
zeal in the work of the persecutor. He was vindicating the honour of
God when he exterminated the enemies of God. The work must have gone
sorely against the grain of a nature as sensitive as his, especially
when he saw scenes, like the death of Stephen, in which the gentleness
and heroism of his victims shone out with unearthly beauty. But he
only flung himself more passionately into his task; because, the more
trying it was, the greater was the merit of doing it, and the more
certain was he of winning at last the full approval of God.

This portion of Paul's career seems to be capable of complete
vindication on the ground of conscientiousness. Indeed, in reviewing
it, he stands sometimes on this