Life of St. Paul for the Young. XXX–XXXI

LIFE OF ST. PAUL FOR THE YOUNG. BY GEORGE LUDINGTOtf WEED. CHAPTER XXX. FIFTH AND LAST JOURNEY TO JERUSALEM. Plot in Corinth—Philippi—Farewell Meeting—Eutychus—A Lone Walk—Assos— Mitylene—Visit from the Elders of Ephesus—Meeting on the Seashore—Tender Farewell—Rhodes—Colossus—From Patara to Tyre—Paul's Cloak— Paul's Father—Another Farewell on the Seashore—Ptolemais—Caesarea— Hand and Voice—Noble Words—Third Missionary Journey Ended. It was Paul's purpose to leave Corinth and sail from Cenchrea to Palestine as soon as he could get a ship going thither. Rome was still in his mind, but he must visit Jerusalem first, carrying with him the collections made in Macedonia and Achaia for the poor Christians in the Holy City. He knew he was in danger from his enemies, and before being able to leave Corinth, he learned of a plot to slay him, like that in Damascus, and also in Jerusalem where still another awaited his coming. So he changed his route and hastened by land to Philippi, accompanied by several Christians as a bodyguard who have been called the "first Christian pilgrims to the Holy Land." Paul and Luke lingered at Philippi while the rest of the company sailed for Troas, to which the two came in a few days. Paul remained there a week. The last day was the Sabbath. In the evening the disciples were gathered for a farewell meeting as Paul was to depart on the morrow. It was held in an upper room in Copyright, 1899, by George W. Jacobs & Co., Philadelphia.

776 IMPROVEMENT ERA. the third story—the coolest and pleasantest part of the house in eastern countries. As the weather was warm, the windows were open. On the sill of one of them sat a lad named Eutychus. We may think of him as a young Christian so anxious to hear Paul preach that he remained hour after hour until midnight, trying to keep awake through the long sermon which very likely he could not understand, but from which he could learn something. We can imagine Paul's eye upon him as he nodded and his head fell upon his breast, and he fell down into the courtyard below. "There were many lights in the upper chamber." As it was three weeks since the full moon there was darkness where he lay. The sermon was suddenly interrupted. There was great excitement and anxiety for the lad who "was taken up dead." As Jesus said when the daughter of Jairus lay dead, ' 'Why make ye this ado and weep? The damsel is not dead but sleepeth;" so Paul said to the friends of Eutychus, "Trouble not yourselves, for his life is in him." As Elisha ' 'stretched himself upon the child of the Shunamite and the dead came to life;" so when the lad of Troas had fallen, "Paul went down and fell on him and embracing him" received power to restore him to life. "And they brought the lad alive" to the upper chamber, "and were not a little comforted." Then they partook of the Supper, appointed by their Lord in the upper chamber in Jerusalem, and then "He talked a long while, even until break of day." In the morning Paul's companions started by ship to sail around Cape Lectum to Assos, "minding himself to go afoot" and alone across it. That lone walk from Troas to Assos was a pleasing incident in the history of the apostle. Away from the noise of busy streets and the murmurs of synagogues, away even from the sound of worship in Christian homes and upper chambers, away from the voices of all earthly friendship, he sought solitude, as did his Lord on Olivet and the mountains of Galilee. He departed at early dawn on his walk of twenty miles. Was it when the stars disappeared and at last the morning star melted away in the brighter light that streamed over the top of Mount Ida that he noticed how one star differed from another, and how there is one glory of the sun; of which he spoke at another time? As he went along the Roman road that skirted the base of the mountain,

LIFE OF ST. PAUL FOR THE YOUNG. Til shaded by the oak woods—then in fulness of their foliage—did he not recall in contrast the journey through the deserts of Arabia, and remember through what scenes he had passed since that day? His walk ended. He entered Assos and descended to the sea by the streets whose steepness gave meaning to the proverb, "Go to Assos and break your neck." On the shore he found the vessel with his friends, or watched its coming. He went aboard, and soon the theater and citadel perched on a lofty rock was lost to sight, and Mount Ida faded in the twilight. The ship cast anchor, because in the darkness it could not thread its way through the narrow creeks and many islands. The next stopping-place was Mitylene, the chief city of the beautiful island of Lesbos, the largest in the ^Egean sea. After passing the blooming gardens of the island of Chios, Paul was not far from the queen city of Asa, but he "had determined to sail by Ephesus" that it might be ' 'possible for him to be at Jerusalem the day of Pentecost." But as he looked toward Ephesus and remembered the loving Christian friends whom he could not bid farewell when he was compelled to flee, he felt that he could not leave the region without some communication with them. So on arriving at Miletus, Jie sent to Ephesus and called the elders of the church to come to him. What good news was this for it, and what deep regrets there were that all could not meet him. The elders were quick to obey the summons and, bearing the greetings of the Christian band, hastened to Miletus. Joy quickened their steps and shortened their way of twenty miles or more. What a meeting was that between the Apostle and those to whose care had been entrusted the Christian work in that heathen city. The place of meeting was no church building or private home. As Paul had met Lydia and her company of women at Philippi on the river side, he met the Ephesian elders on the seashore. What a contrast this to the neighboring theater of Miletus which today is a silent ruin. What was there said and done, and by whom, has long been forgotten; but that scene on the solitary beach is still distinct, and the words there spoken will echo round the world to the end of time. It was a short sermon by Paul, full of beauty and tenderness. Luke says, "When he had thus spoken, he kneeled down and prayed with

778 IMPROVEMENT ERA. them all. And they all wept sore, and fell upon Paul's neck and kissed him, sorrowing most of all for the words which he spake that they should see his face no more. And they accompanied him unto the ship." Paul's vessel touched at Rhodes, noted for its roses, its Temple of the Sun, and the great Colossus. This last had been greatest of the Seven Wonders of the world. One hundred feet in height, the sailors watched it from afar. Standing across the harbor vessels passed under it. Every finger of the image was as large as a man. An earthquake made this vast monster of human toil to totter and fall upon the beach where Paul must have seen it, and where it lay for ages until the brass of which it was composed was carried away on the backs of nine hundred camels. At Patara, on the southwestern coast of Asia Minor, Paul changed his vessel for one that would take him to Tyre on the Syrian coast. At Troas he had left his cloak for which he longed afterward in his Roman dungeon, but which he did not need these summer nights upon the sea. We may think of him as standing on the deck thinking of the first time he sailed over it, a lighthearted boy on his first journey to Jerusalem with his Jewish father instead of Christian companions. We know not whether that father still lived in Tarsus or was buried in one of its sepulchres; whether he had listened kindly and believingly to the great apostle, his own son; or, in disappointment and sadness—perhaps in bitterness—mourned that his beloved Saul was not numbered among the greatest of the Pharisees and Scribes. The vessel remained seven days at Tyre. This gave time for Paul to visit the church there. His friends besought him not to go up to Jerusalem because of danger from his enemies. But like his Lord in like danger, ''he set his face steadfastly to go up to Jerusalem," believing that his Lord called him thither. As at Miletus, there was a meeting on the seashore. Luke draws the picture for us, saying, "They all brought us on our way with wives and children till we were out of the city; and we kneeled down on the shore and prayed." Paul continued his voyage to Ptolemais, the modern Acre. Here it ended. Following the road at the base of Mount Carmel, thirty-five miles brought him to Caesarea. Here again Christian

LIFE OF ST. PAUL tOR THE YOUNG. 779 friends begged him not to venture himself into Jerusalem. He gave answer in these memorable words, "What mean ye to weep and to break mine heart? For I am ready not to be bound only, but also to die at Jerusalem." He was being guided and encouraged by his Lord. "He saw a hand they could not see Which beckoned him away; He heard a voice they could not hear That would not let him stay." We can think of his repeating entire what he said in Miletus: ' 'And now behold, I go bound in the spirit to Jerusalem, not knowing the things that shall befall me there; save that the Holy Ghost witnesseth in every city, saying that bonds and afflictions abide me. But none of these things move me, neither count I my life dear unto myself, so that I might finish my course with joy, and the ministry which I have received of the Lord Jesus, to testify the gospel of the Grace of God." Seventy-five miles in three days brought Paul to Jerusalem, thus ended his third missionary journey. CHAPTER XXXI. PAUL'S LAST DAYS IN JERUSALEM. Feast of Thanksgiving—Claudius Lysias—Christian Friends in Jerusalem—Enemies —Riot in the Temple Court—Mistaken for an Impostor—Speech on the Stairs —Saved from Scourging—Before the Sanhedrin—Insult Reproved—Vision in the Barracks—Vow of Forty Plotters for Murder—Defeated by Paul's Nephew—Under Guard to Czesarea.' Paul's last visit to Jerusalem was in the season of which David sang unto the Lord—' 'Thou crownest the year with thy goodness; and thy paths drop fatness. Thy pastures are clothed with flocks; the valleys also are covered over with corn;they shout for joy, they also sing.'' Tens of thousands of pilgrims from all parts of the Holy Land and from distant countries were assembling at the Pentecostal feast of thanksgiving. The houses and streets of the city were crowded. Mount Moriah was covered with tents. Many a

780 IMPROVEMENT ERA. youth was making his first visit to Jerusalem full of excited joy. Many a man was making his last: among these was Paul. Claudius Lysias was the Roman commander at Jerusalem. He had many soldiers in the fort of Antonia, adjoining the temple. After his arrival in the city, Paul seems to have spent his first evening with the disciples. The next day he attended a meeting of the officers of the church, led by the venerable Apostle James. Paul and the brethren who had come with him received "the kiss of charity"—the common sign of Christian affection. The money they had brought for the poor Christians in Jerusalem was presented. Then Paul delivered an address, telling what he and his companions had done among the Gentiles in four years With what deep interest they must have listened to his story of the dangers and trials through which he had passed, but much more of his ministry which God had blessed in turning men from the worship of idols; and of the churches he had visited. He spent the next day in the company of his Christian friends. His presence in Jerusalem was soon discovered by his enemies; not only those of former years, but some from the regions in which he had traveled. They were all still full of hate and revenge. One day "the Jews which were of Asia, when they saw him in the temple, stirred up all the people, and laid hands on him, crying out, ^Men of Israel, help. This is the man that teacheth all men everywhere against the people, and the law and this place." These false charges caused great excitement. Paul, probably the holiest man in the temple at that hour, was dragged from it by a shouting'mob. At Csesarea Paul had declared his readiness "not to be bound only, but also to die at Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus.'' The hour had come for him "to be bound only" for he was not "to die at Jerusalem." The doors of the temple, opened for worship, were closed against the murderous throng, that the sacred courts might not be profaned with blood. Paul was rudely taken from one court to another. Roman guards who were pacing the colonnades of the temple hastened to quell the riot. In haste they sent for Lysias the governor. He rushed into the court, sword in hand. The mob "left off beating Paul." Lysias took him and commanded him to be bound with two chains. Once more he was

LIFE OF ST. PAUL FOR THE YOUNG. 781 what he called himself "a prisoner of Jesus Christ." He was hurried along by the excited crowd to the barracks within the castle. Being led up a flight of stairs, he was lifted from his feet and carried en the shoulders of the throng, while they shouted, ' 'Away with him"—repeating the very cry concerning his Lord when Pilate brought him forth before a mob of like spirit. In the confusion, Lysias thought perhaps Paul was the pretended Messiah, an Egyptian who had deceived many people, and made a tumult which Felix had quelled by slaying four hundred of them while their leader escaped. Lysias asked Paul, "Art thou not that Egyptian?" Paul replied that he was a Jew of Tarsus, and added, "I beseech thee suffer me to speak unto the people," Lysias, seemingly awed by his presence, consented. Standing on the castle stairs, he secured the silence of his vast and strange audience. His first words must have sounded equally strange—"Men, brethren and fathers." The storm was for a time changed to a calm. He told them the story of his life, of his years with their honored Rabbi Gamaliel, of his persecution of Christians in Jerusalem, keeping the raiment of them that slew Stephen; of his journey to Damascus and his vision of the Lord Jesus who had said, "I will send thee far hence to the Gentiles." That hated word, Gentiles, angered them so that they would not listen to him any longer. Raging and howling, cursing and gnashing their teeth, flinging their arms wildly about, waving their blue and red robes, and tossing handfuls of dust in the air, they yelled, "Away with such a fellow from the earth; it is not fit that he should live." Lysias, not knowing the Hebrew language in which Paul was speaking, did not understand why the silence was broken, and the angry cries and actions renewed. He imagined that Paul must be guilty of some great crime. So he commanded that he should be taken to the barracks and examined by scourging until he made a confession of guilt. His hands were tied, his back stripped bare, he was made to bend forward to receive the blows near the spot where his Lord had been scourged. Three times his back had already been scarred with Roman lictor's rods, and five times with Jewish thongs; and now the whip was to be added. When speaking of Saul's father being a Roman citizen and his son likewise, it was remarked that this would be a help and pro.

782 IMPROVEMENT ERA. tection to him in trouble. This now became true. A centurion stood by to see that the command of Lysias for scourging was obeyed. Paul cried out, "Is it lawful for you to scourge one that is a Roman and uncondemned?" That question saved him from a cruel beating. It was reported to Lysias who was also afraid after he knew that Paul was a Roman, and because he had bound him. Paul was then untied, the scourge being unused. The next day Lysias called together the Sanhedrin in the same hall where Paul himself had once sat as one of the judges. Ananias, the former high priest, conducted the trial. Probably the two sons of Gamaliel and school-fellows of Paul were there; and Theophilus, the old high priest who gave him the letters to Damascus twenty years before. The innocent Apostle boldly faced his seventy judges. "And Paul, earnestly beholding the council, said, Men and brethren, I have lived in all good conscience before God." Ananias commanded them that stood by to smite him on the mouth. Paul was so indignant at the injustice, and meanness and the insult that in a moment of anger he said, "God shall smite thee, thou whited wall." In another moment he was calm and condemned himself for what he had said. But his words were to come true; God did in justice smite Ananias, who in a few years was driven from Jerusalem and murdered. Paul in his speech spoke of the Resurrection from the dead. This caused a great quarrel between the Sadducees, who did not believe in the Resurrection, and the Pharisees who did believe in it as Paul did. These latter befriended Paul, but he was still in so great danger that the chief captain sent soldiers to bring him to the castle for safety. Thrown into a cell in the Roman barracks, Paul's future appeared very dark. He was ready to die at Jerusalem, but he felt that he "must see Rome." That purpose must now seemingly be abandoned. But at midnight while on his bed of straw, the Lord appeared unto him and said, "Be of good cheer, Paul; for, as thou hast testified for me in Jerusalem so must thou bear witness also at Rome." At a future time of trouble we shall hear him saying, "I believe God." Doubtless he did now, even while asking himself, "How can this be?" Had he known what was passing without, the mystery would

LIFE OF ST. PAUL FOR THE YOUNG. 783 have deepened, and there would have been reason for still greater trust in God. Forty Jews promised each other that they would neither eat nor drink till they had killed Paul. They made known their purpose to the chief priests and elders, and proposed to have them join in a plot for murder. Lysias was to be asked to call another meeting of the Sanhedrin for another trial, which was not to be held, because on the way from the castle to the judgment hall Paul was to be seized and killed. So the bargain was made as had been another with Judas for the betrayal of Jesus. But the horrid oath was not kept secret. It came to the ears of a lad in Jerusalem. He had a special interest in Paul, for he was the son of that sister of whom we knew in the home in Tarsus in the childhood of Saul. His thought was, 'What can I do to save my uncle? I can at least let him know what I have heard." Appearing at the castle gate, he was admitted, and soon was alone with Paul, telling him of the plot. He must have had some fears of what might happen to himself if the forty men learned that he was revealing their fearful secret. Paul called a centurian and asked him to take the lad to Lysias. It must have been a great relief to the nervous and fearful boy when the governor took him by the hand and went with him aside privily and asked, ' 'what is it that thou hast to tell me?" The lad told of the plot of the forty men. The kind manner of Lysias must have given him great confidence, or he would not have dared to say to the most powerful man in Jerusalem, ''Do not yield unto them." He would be careful to obey the charge given him, "See thou tell no man that thou hast showed these things to me." Lysias immediately formed a plan to defeat the plot. He called several officers and told them to be ready at nine o'clock in the night with two hundred soldiers, seventy cavalry and two hundred lancers or spearmen, to take Paul to Caasarea to Felix, the governor. These four hundred and seventy guards of the one Apostle were ready at the appointed hour at the gate of Antonia. The forty sleepless and hungry plotters must have wondered what all this meant, not thinking that Paul was escaping like a bird out of the snare of the fowler. Nor were they thinking of the sleepless ad, who was thinking of them as he heard the tramp of the horse-

784 1MPR0 YEMENI* ERA. men and of the foot soldiers of this night-watch which he had helped to start for his uncle's escape. The journey from Jerusalem to Csesarea was seventy-six miles. The foot soldiers went only part way. The rest, after two hard days, entered Csesarea and delivered the Apostle prisoner to Felix; also the letter Lysias had written to him about Paul. In it he told of the things of which the prisoner was accused, the council in which he was tried, the plot to kill him, and of his giving notice to Paul's accusers to appear before Felix if they had anything to say. Felix read the letter and said to Paul, "I will hear thee