Sermons for the Christian Seasons.

THE CONVERSION OF ST. PAUL.

CONVERSION.

Acrs ix. 3, 4. And as he journeyed, he came near Damascus: and suddenly there shined round about him a light from heaven: and he fell to the earth, and heard a noice saying unto him, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou Me?

NOTHING can be more opposite than the earlier and the later history of St. Paul. We seem almost to be looking on two different men; and though on a closer survey we may trace the same traits of character, such as zeal, warmth, earnestness, and sincerity, yet we feel that the language of Scripture has in his case unusual force, which describes the member of Christ as becoming a

new creature in Christ." In the whole later life of St. Paul he was another man, with objects of desire, with motives of action, with deeds and labours, altogether new, altogether as different from his former objects, motives, ways of life, as if he had indeed been created quite afresh. At first, it was his heart's desire to quench, to stifle,

to suppress, utterly to uproot the doctrine and truth of Christ, to destroy the Church, and to employ any means to crush it. At first, we behold him among the foremost of the enemies of the Cross, spending his strength, his power, his energies, in opposing the mysterious and resistless increase of the Church, taking the lead in every deed done against the faith, standing forth above the rest of the unbelieving Jews as the most ardent, the most determined ravager of Christ's flock, plunging on with all the fury of mistaken zeal, playing a prominent and eager part in the fearful warfare against the faith, and, in the emphatic expression of the Scripture, "breathing out threatenings and slaughter against the disciples." Afterwards, this self-same Saul, so changed and reversed is the picture, appears among the foremost of the disciples of the Lord; takes the front rank in labours, in watchings, in suffering, throwing himself with ever-increasing ardour into the cause of the Christian Church: runs all hazards, seeks by all means, at all risks and sacrifices, to spread abroad, to propagate, the truth in Christ; spends himself and is spent in the service of the Lord; adds whole multitudes to the number of the disciples by his zealous and fruitful toils, and endures as a follower of Christ

such hardships and afflictions that his life in such a cause hung daily by the veriest thread, and he spoke of it as rather being a daily death. What he had hated, he loved; what he had denied, he confessed; what he had resisted, he embraced; what he had trodden under his feet, he clasped to his heart; so that nothing, as I have said, could be more widely different than Saul the persecutor and St. Paul the Apostle of Jesus Christ.

Now to that one great event which gave so complete a turn to his whole life, and had such influence on the world at large, I mean his conversion, the Church turns our thoughts to-day; and as under God we, the sons and descendants of a Gentile race, owe the light of the Gospel and our membership with Christ to those godly labours of St. Paul which were the fruit and effect of his conversion, we have especial reasons for thankfully calling that marvellous act to remembrance.

Let us then consider a few of the more striking points in the conversion of St. Paul. And, first of all, with such a scene before our thoughts, we cannot but be led at once to confess the power of God over the heart, and the love which gives the motion to that power. Who else could have turned backward the strong current of a man's whole life? Who else could have made a man

in a moment adore what he was persecuting, embrace what he would have crushed, call that light which he had believed to be darkness, cast aside as deadly error what he had held to be living truth, give up everything that he held most dear, the principles, opinions of a life, that had grown with his growth, that had strengthened with his strength, and to espouse instead what he abhorred, what he was bent on scattering like the chaff before the wind? Who else could have made the bitter enemy of the Cross in a moment fall on his face and confess the Crucified, in a moment place himself among the persecuted, worship the Object of his enmity, his contempt, and scorn, and tear from his heart whatever had taken root?

The power of Christ, the power of God, was alone sufficient for such a work. It was a work of divine power and love, these two working together for the conversion of a soul, and for that of a multitude of souls through him. To turn the heart, to turn and wrench it from all old objects of desire, all old principles, views, feelings, motives, to turn it so that it should see all things in another light, and be itself quite changed, quite altered, fashioned as it were anew, is indeed within the power of God alone. If we ever find

that we need to be turned and changed, that our hearts are going after wrong things, taking a wrong course, not loving what we should love, not shunning what should be shunned, but running on in a wrong channel and filled with wrong desires, then in any struggles to return to holier ways we should first of all lift up our heart and say, "Turn Thou me, O Lord, and so shall I be turned." We have but little power over ourselves; even when we wish to break from sin, we feel often as it were bound hand and foot, unable to move, looking to the better part, but wanting the will and strength to follow it. But what must it be when the very wish for better things has to be got as well as the power of doing better? What must it be to take the heart as if by violence from evil things, which it both wished for and pursued, and to make it wish for and pursue the very opposite, the very contrary things?

We see then in the case of St. Paul, so greatly changed as to abandon all he honoured, and with a different heart to honour all that he had spurned, the manifest working of the power and of the love of God. But in observing these gracious operations of the Lord, we also see that in the conversion of the Apostle miraculous power was put forth. The conversion must be num