ask what was the state of
his mind. His was a noble nature and a tender heart; but the work he
was engaged in might be supposed to be congenial only to the most
brutal of mankind. Had his mind, then, been visited with no
compunctions? Apparently not. We are told that, as he was ranging
through strange cities in pursuit of his victims, he was exceedingly
mad against them; and, as he was setting out to Damascus, he was still
breathing out threatenings and slaughter. He was sheltered against
doubt by his reverence for the objects which the heresy imperiled; and,
if he had to outrage his natural feelings in the bloody work, was not
his merit all the greater?

40. But on this journey doubt at last invaded his mind. It was a long
journey of over a hundred and sixty miles; with the slow means of
locomotion then available, it would occupy at least six days; and a
considerable portion of it lay across a desert, where there was nothing
to distract the mind from its own reflections. In this enforced
leisure doubts arose. What else can be meant by the word with which
the Lord saluted him: "It is hard for thee to kick against the goad!"
The figure of speech is borrowed from a custom of Eastern countries:
the ox-driver wields a long pole, at the end of which is fixed a piece
of sharpened iron, with which he urges the animal to go on or stand
still or change its course; and, if it is refractory, it kicks against
the goad, injuring and infuriating itself with the wounds it receives.
This is a vivid picture of a man wounded and tortured by compunctions
of conscience. There was something in him rebelling against the course
of inhumanity on which he was embarked and suggesting that he was
fighting against God.

41. It is not difficult to conceive whence these doubts arose. He was
a scholar of Gamaliel, the advocate of humanity and tolerance, who had
counseled the Sanhedrin to leave the Christians alone. He was himself
too young yet to have hardened his heart to all the disagreeables of
such ghastly work. Highly strung as was his religious zeal, nature
could not but speak out at last. But probably his compunctions were
chiefly awakened by the character and behavior of the Christians. He
had heard the noble defense of Stephen and seen his face in the
council-chamber shining like that of an angel. He had seen him
kneeling on the field of execution and praying for his murderers.
Doubtless, in the course of the persecut