that thou mightest receive thy sight, and be filled with the Holy Ghost. And immediately there fell from his eyes as it had been scales, and he received sight forthwith, and arose and was baptized. And when he had received meat he was strengthened. Then was Saul certain days with the disciples which were at Damascus. And straightway he preached Jesus in the synagogues, that he is the son of God. But all that heard him were amazed, and said: Is not this he that destroyed them that call on his name in Jerusalem, and came hither for that intent, that he might bring them bound unto the chief priest? Buf Saul increased the more in strength, and confounded the Jews that dwelt at Damascus, proving that this is very Christ." In the speech which Paul afterwards made from the stairs leading from the temple to the tower Antonia, he relates the speech of Ananias with some variations. "A certain man named Ananias, pious according to the law, bearing a good character with all the Jews who lived there, coming and standing over me, said: Brother Saul, look up, and in the same hour I looked up on him. And he said: The God of our fathers hath forechosen thee to know his will, and to see the just one, and to hear the voice of his mouth, that thou mayest be his witness to all men of the things which thou hast seen and heard." In his speech before Agrippa, he relates what was said to him by Christ at greater length. He there relates,

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that Jesus went on to say: "Arise and stand upon thy feet, for to this purpose I have appeared unto thee, for I have forechosen thee to be a minister and a witness, both of the things which thou hast seen, and of the things in which I will appear unto thee, delivering thee from the people, and from the Gentiles, unto whom I now send thee, to open their eyes, and to turn them from darkness unto light, and from the power of Satan unto God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins, and an inheritance among them that are sanctified through faith in me."

Such then is the simple narrative of the conversion of Paul, and I do not say too much when I affirm, that it bears all the marks of a real transaction; and as it became the basis of the conduct of a whole life, we must admit thus much, that Paul at least thought it real; and we are driven to the alternative, either to admit it just as it stands, or suppose a case of hallucination and monomania, such as the history of the world does not afford.

But Paul was converted from what, to what? not from an immoral to a moral life, not from an irreligious life to a life of piety, for even in his persecution of the Christians, it appears that he had acted conscientiously, but from the belief that Jesus of Nazareth was an impostor to the belief that he was the true Messiah, and he was commissioned to preach him as the Messiah to the Gentiles. The fact of

having seen Jesus after his resurrection, and having been personally commissioned by him to preach him to the Gentiles, constituted him a witness and an Apostle, and made him equal with the original twelve. To this, he always appeals for his Apostolic authority. To the Corinthians he writes, " Am I not an Apostle, have I not seen the Lord Jesus?" In another part of the same Epistle he says, "Moreover, brethren, I declare unto you the Gospel, which I preached unto you, which also ye have received and wherein ye stand, by which also ye are saved if ye keep in memory what I preached unto you, unless ye have believed in vain. For I delivered unto you first of all, that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures; and that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the Scriptures. And that he was seen of Cephas, then of the twelve. After that he was seen of above five hundred brethren at once, of whom the greater part remain unto this present, but some are fallen asleep. After that he was seen of James, then of all the Apostles. And last of all, he was seen of me also, as of one born out of due time." "And if Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain. Yea, and we are found false witnesses of God, because we have testified of God, that he raised up Christ, whom he raised not up if so be that the dead rise not."

A question here comes up of the most interesting nature, as settling the view we must take of the writings of Paul, in respect to the amount and nature of those communications which he at different times received from Jesus, with whom it is certain that he had frequent interviews by vision after his conversion on the way to Damascus. The amount of Divine communication which he then received seems to have been this, that Jesus of Nazareth was the true Messiah, and that repentance and a holy life were to be preached in his name to the heathen, and they of course to be admitted into the church on the same terms with the Jews, which terms were belief in Jesus as the Messiah and messenger of God. The doctrine of immortality he considered, as we see from the quotation we have just read from his Epistle to the Corinthians, as involved in the fact of Christ's resurrection, which in turn was demonstrated by his having seen him himself. The interviews we read of after this, seem to have been intended for special direction as to his conduct, rather than general instruction. Indeed he seems to have needed no further instruction, for immediately after his conversion he began to preach in the synagogues of Damascus. The narrative tells us, that "straightway he preached Jesus in the synagogues, that he is the Son of God." And afterwards that "Saul increased more and more in strength, and confounded the Jews

that dwelt at Damascus, proving that this is the very Messiah." This seems to be the account which he gives of the matter himself, in his Epistle to the Galatians.. After he had preached to them the principles we have now stated, some Judaizing teachers came down from Judea and taught them, "that unless they were circumcised and kept the law of Moses, they could not be saved." And in order to invalidate Paul's authority, they called in question his apostleship, on the ground, that he had not been of the original number, and must have got his commission at second hand, and not from Christ himself. This imputation he repels with the greatest earnestness. "But I certify you, brethren, that the Gospel which was preached of me is not after man; for I neither received it of man, neither was I taught it, but by the revelation of Jesus Christ." What this revelation was, he goes on to state, referring evidently to the vision and the communication on the way to Damascus. "For ye have heard of my conversation in times past in the Jews' religion, how that beyond measure I persecuted the church of God. And profited in the Jews' religion, above many my equals in mine own nation, being more exceedingly zealous of the traditions of my fathers," and therefore, if any one could be expected to Judaize Christianity, it was he. "But when it pleased God, who separated me from my mother's womb, and called