nd you that out of Paul's
experience, as a cardinal instance and standing example of Christ's
heart and dealings, comes the thought that that long-suffering is always
wooing men to itself, and making efforts to draw them away from their
own evil. In Paul's case there was a miracle. That difference is of
small consequence. As truly as ever Christ spoke to Paul from the
heavens, so truly, and so tenderly, does He speak to every one of us. He
is drawing us all--you that yield and you that do not yield to His
attractions, by the kindliest gifts of His love, by the revelations of
His grace, by the movements of His Spirit, by the providences of our
days, by even my poor lips addressing you now--for, if I be speaking His
truth, it is not I that speak, but He that speaks in me. I beseech you,
dear friends, recognise in this old story of the persecutor turned
apostle nothing exceptional, though there be something miraculous, but
only an exceptional form of manifestation of the normal activity of the
love of Christ towards every soul. He loves, He draws, He welcomes all
that come to Him. His servant, who stood over the blind, penitent
persecutor, and said to him, '_Brother_ Saul!' was only faintly echoing
the glad reception which the elder Brother of the family gives to this
and to every prodigal who comes back; because He Himself has drawn Him.

If we will only recognise the undying truth for all of us that lies
beneath the individual experience of this apostle, we, too, may share in
the attraction of His love, in the constraining and blessed influences
of that love received, and in the welcome with which He hails us when we
turn. If this man were thus dealt with, no man need despair.

III. Lastly, we may notice how this experience is a manifestation of the
power of the living, loving Lord.

The first and plainest thing that it teaches us about that power is that
Jesus Christ is able in one moment to revolutionise a life. There is
nothing more striking than the suddenness and completeness of the
change which passed. 'One day is with the Lord as a thousand years'; and
there come moments in every life into which there is crammed and
condensed a whole world of experience, so as that a man looks back from
this instant to that before, and feels that a gulf, deep as infinity,
separates him from his old self.

Now, it is very unfashionable in these days to talk about conversion at
all. It is even more unfashionable to talk about sud