ion he had witnessed many
similar scenes. Did these people look like enemies of God? As he
entered their homes to drag them forth to prison, he got glimpses of
their social life. Could such spectacles of purity and love be
products of the powers of darkness? Did not the serenity with which
his victims went to meet their fate look like the very peace which he
had long been sighing for in vain?

Their arguments, too, must have told on a mind like his. He had heard
Stephen proving from the Scriptures that it behooved the Messiah to
suffer; and the general tenor of the earliest Christian apologetic
assures us that many of the accused must on their trial have appealed
to passages like the fifty-third of Isaiah, where a career is predicted
for the Messiah startlingly like that of Jesus of Nazareth. He heard
incidents of Christ's life from their lips which betokened a personage
very different from the picture sketched for him by his Pharisaic
informants: and the sayings of their Master which the Christians quoted
did not sound like the utterances of the fanatic he conceived Jesus to
have been.

42. Such may have been some of the reflections which agitated the
traveler as he moved onward, sunk in gloomy thought. But might not
these be mere suggestions of temptation--the morbid fancies of a
wearied mind, or the whispers of a wicked spirit attempting to draw him
off from the service of Heaven? The sight of Damascus, shining out
like a gem in the heart of the desert, restored him to himself. There,
in the company of sympathetic rabbis and in the excitement of effort,
he would dispel from his mind these fancies bred of solitude. So
onward he pressed, and the sun of noonday, from which all but the most
impatient travelers in the East take refuge in a long siesta, looked
down upon him still urging forward his course toward the city gate.

43. The Vision of Christ.--The news of Saul's coming had arrived at
Damascus before him; and the little flock of Christ was praying that,
if it were possible, the progress of the wolf, who was on his way to
spoil the fold, might be arrested. Nearer and nearer, however, he
drew; he had reached the last stage of his journey; and at the sight of
the place which contained his victims his appetite grew keener for the
prey. But the Good Shepherd had heard the cries of the trembling flock
and went forth to face the wolf on their behalf. Suddenly at midday,
as Paul and his company were