ike the soldiers
who nailed the Lord to the cross, they knew not what they did. But
Saul knew what he was doing, and the light struck conviction to his
heart.

Conviction is a knowledge of sin imparted by the Holy Spirit through
the Word. The light that Saul saw is an expressive emblem of the light
of revealed truth. Light signifies truth, in very many places in the
Scriptures. Take, for examples, the following: "The people which sat
in darkness saw great light." Darkness here does not mean natural
darkness, but mental or spiritual darkness, which is ignorance. Again:
"Every one that doeth evil, hateth the light." This was Saul's state
exactly. He was doing evil, and he hated the light to such a pitch of
passion that he sought to take the lives of the children of light. But
it was God's way then, and it is God's way now, to convict and convert
men by means of the very thing they hate, which is the Word of Truth.

Saul remained three days and nights in this awful state of conviction
in which time "he did neither eat nor drink." The anguish of spirit
suffered during these days and nights no heart but his own can ever
know. His sins were red with the blood of the saints. Doubts as to
what the persecuted Jesus might require of him, with a thousand
unanswerable questions, harassed his mind. Conviction, or a feeling
sense of sin, always precedes conversion. Repentance cannot take place
without a knowledge of sin's condemning and destroying power. When
this is felt man desires to be rid of sin, and asks what he must do to
be saved. This is the first step in repentance. Conversion and
repentance, complete, are expressions meaning one and the same thing.
Our Lord's illustration is instructive: "When a woman is in travail,
she hath anguish; but when she is delivered she straightway forgetteth
her anguish for joy that a man is born into the world." These words
from the lips of Jesus tell us more about conviction and conversion
than all else that has ever been written.

We must notice the kindness in which Ananias approached Saul to
complete the manward side of his conversion and usher in the new
birth. He put his hands on him, not roughly, but gently, and said:
"BROTHER SAUL,"--"and immediately there fell from his eyes as it had
been scales: and he received sight forthwith, and arose, and was
baptized." His spiritual eyes were now open; his sins washed away; and
out of the baptismal stream he was visibly born into the church a