Standing on the steps of the castle, with the angry, surging people in front of him Paul beckoned for silence and then spoke to the most difficult audience he ever addressed. He calmly told them the story of his life. He gave them an account of that great moment on the road to Damascus when Jesus met him and called him to a new life and a new mission. He explained to them how he tried to tell the good news to his own people and how God sent him to the great world of Gentiles. Then, all of a sudden, the people cried out in a fury: “Away with such a fellow from the earth.” They threw off their garments and would have ended his life in a moment if they could have reached him. It was another scene like the one which occurred when Jesus was on his way to Calvary, and when Stephen was being hurried out of the gates of Jerusalem and Paul himself held the garments of the men who threw the stones.

This time the crowd was powerless for they could not get their victim. The soldiers guarded him and took him into the castle where he was to be scourged, that is beaten with rods. The soldiers tied Paul up to the wall with thongs and were ready to begin the terrible scourging when he quietly asked the centurion if it was lawful to scourge a Roman citizen who had not been found guilty of any crime. The centurion went out and told the chief captain that Paul was a Roman, and he immediately stopped the scourging. The next day Paul had an opportunity to address the great council of the Jews in the presence of Ananias, the high-priest, but the council divided in their opinion of Paul, some approving of him and some disapproving, until they nearly tore him in pieces in their excitement. Once more the soldiers saved him by rushing in and carrying him away to the castle. Meantime, a band of men got together and formed a secret plot to kill Paul and have done with him. This time it was not the Roman soldiers who saved him. It was his nephew. Paul, we remember, had a sister in Jerusalem. And in some way her son discovered this plot. He got into the castle and told his uncle, who brought him to a centurion and the centurion took the young man to the chief captain where he told all he knew of the plot. The brave boy saved his uncle’s life, for the chief captain, when he heard the boy’s story, ordered two hundred soldiers and seventy horsemen and two hundred spearmen to take Paul by night to CÆsarea, where the Roman governor had his home and headquarters and where Paul would be safe until his trial was over. He was taken at first to Herod’s palace, though we may be pretty sure that the part in which Paul lived was more like a prison than a palace, but this wonderful man had something in his soul which changed even prisons into palaces.

Soon after his arrival, Ananias, the high-priest, with a lawyer named Tertullus, came down to CÆsarea to lay before Felix, the Roman governor, the charges against Paul. Tertullus made a speech charging Paul with being “a pestilent fellow,” “a mover of insurrections” up and down the empire wherever he travelled. He said Paul was “a ringleader of the Nazarenes” and that he did things contrary to the laws and customs of the Jews. Tertullus made out as bad a case as he could and the other Jews who had come down with him added whatever they could think of against the prisoner.

Then Felix made a sign that Paul might speak in his own defence. He declared, in calm and persuasive words that he had never wilfully stirred up the crowd, or encouraged a riot. He told the governor that his whole business in the world was to live the way of life that God had revealed as the true way. A little later Paul spoke again before Drusilla, a Jewess, who was Felix’s wife. He spoke so powerfully this time of righteousness and self-control and the perfect way of life and of the future of joy and woe, that the old Roman governor trembled as he listened. But he did not change his life. He was weak of will and he had woven a chain of habits which he could not break. He had heard that Paul had brought great sums of money to Jerusalem and he hoped that Paul would offer a large bribe for his liberty so that Felix kept him in prison two years. Felix saw him occasionally and gave him a chance to offer a bribe, which never was offered! Thus two long years dragged by. Paul was longing to go on with the work that had been changing the world. He was eager to see his old friends and to help them in their troubles, but all the time he was fast bound with chains in the strong prison at CÆsarea. There is in the Second Epistle to Timothy a fragment of a letter which Paul may have written from CÆsarea. He asks Timothy to bring him the cloak which he left at Troas. The prison by the sea was a cold place. And more touching still, he asks him to bring his books—I wish we knew the titles of these books—and his pieces of parchment, so that he could write letters to his churches and to his friends. After two years had dragged by, there came a change of governors. Porcius Festus succeeded Felix. The Jerusalem Jews made a great effort to prejudice the new governor against Paul and he proposed to push the trial through at once and have the case settled. It was evident that Paul could hardly have a fair trial in CÆsarea. The Jews were full of passion against him. They were ready to use all the ways known to them to secure his condemnation and death. And Paul saw that he had little chance of escape in the local court, so that as the crisis approached he used his privilege as a Roman citizen and appealed to be tried before CÆsar in Rome, and Festus immediately granted the appeal.

Before the time came for Paul to start on his momentous journey to Rome, King Agrippa and his wife Bernice came to CÆsarea to bring greetings to the new governor and they heard from Festus of the famous prisoner who had appealed to CÆsar. King Agrippa very much desired to see Paul and to hear him speak and Festus arranged for Agrippa to hear him. The king sat on a throne with much splendour. All the distinguished persons of the court were there. Soldiers with helmets and with the Roman eagles were stationed round the hall. And into the midst Paul was led by his guard and then was given permission to speak. It was a great moment for the prisoner. His one thought was to make some of these people understand his great message. Once more he told the story of his life and how the light had shined upon him at Damascus and how he had obeyed the heavenly message which came to him then. He thought he might make the king Agrippa see that God always meant to send His Son to bring light and life to the world and he was telling him about the great prophecies in the Old Testament when suddenly Festus interrupted. He told Paul that he was wild and deluded, that he had thought over these things until he had lost his reason. Unmoved Paul answered and said “I am not deluded. I am calm and sober. I am talking about things which are absolutely certain and real. King Agrippa knows that these things are so.” Then turning to the king, he said, “King Agrippa dost thou believe what our prophets have said? I know that thou must believe.”

Then king Agrippa found it difficult to answer. It would not do to have a prisoner go on talking that way to a king and yet this prisoner seemed to be right. King Agrippa shrugged his shoulders and said: “With a very little argument you seem to think you can make me a Christian!” Paul with dignity raised his chained hands and said: “Whether my argument is little or great, I would to God that not only thou but everybody here who hears me speak to-day might feel what I feel, and see what I see, and have the kind of life I have and become such a person as I am—only without these chains which are on my hands!”

After Paul had retired King Agrippa said to Festus: “If this man had not appealed to CÆsar he might have been set free.”