Acts 26

Acts 26:1-32

THE TRIAL Acts 25-26 “Now when Festus was come, into the province, after three days he ascended from Caesarea to Jerusalem”. THERE are some men whose presence cannot be ignored. This is not due to their personality. It is not accounted for on the ground of their accomplishments; but, it is a resultant of office. The Roman governor might be a despicable character. He often was, but his office was not to be disregarded. It was Paul himself who emphasized this principle. He wrote, “Let every soul he subject unto the higher powers. For there is no power but of God: the powers that be are ordained of God. “Whosoever therefore resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God: and they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation. “(For rulers are not a terror to good works, but to the evil” (Romans 13:1-3). Not once in all the varied and insulting experiences through which Paul passed did he object to his judge. He seemed to hold what is commonly true, that the just man has little to fear from the machinery of justice. He knew the righteousness of his cause and was not afraid to commit it to even the prejudiced, as this whole study abundantly illustrates, for here he passes from Felix to Festus, and from Festus to Agrippa, trusting that when it is all over, if injustice has been done him, Caesar’s court, the highest, will set it right. Imperceptibly, therefore, we pass from the august appearance of Festus to the central subject—Paul, for, after all, Paul is the hero of this entire story. Let us think, then, of Paul Before Festus, Paul Left Over by Felix, and Paul Appealing to Agrippa. PAUL BEFORE FESTUSThe Jews reveal impatience for his indictment. No sooner had Festus arrived than they had their report ready and their plan outlined. He should send for Paul and bring him to Jerusalem, and they would kill him while on the way.The judge’s office has its distasteful side. Litigants are seldom justice-loving people. The judge is not to them the opportunity of justice. He is, rather, the possible medium of selfish plans. When did any litigant go to court, asking only that the truth be found out fully, and justice be meted out fairly? Is he not commonly there, as the priest and chief Jews were here, with a plan? Has he not already told his attorney what course to take, how to entangle the opposition and how to win the victory? We knew a man who had, with another, a mutual contract that called for an arbitration committee in case of disagreement. The disagreement arose and the committee had to be created, and when the man arrived on the ground where the arbitration was to take place, he found that his opponent had already secured the consent of three of his friends to serve in this mutual capacity, and was profoundly offended when told that such was not the intent of the agreement; that it was his privilege to select one, and one only—the second to be selected by the other party, and the third by those two. And when the spirit of the articles was carried out, and the committee created, the man who had expected to make the committee a medium of self-service, discovered, to his chagrin, that he had to suffer justice instead. One of the marvelous things about the Bible is the fact that its history is true to life. In its personalities you see sample men. Its sacred pages are the reflectors of human nature. Festus, however, had a plan of his own.“Festus answered, that Paul should he kept at Caesarea, and that he himself would depart shortly thither. “Let them, therefore, said he, which among you are able, go down with me, and accuse this man, if there be any wickedness in him. “And when he had tarried among them more than ten days, he went down unto Caesarea; and the next day sitting on the judgment seat commanded Paul to be brought” (Acts 25:4-6). A judge should be an independent man—a man who thinks for himself. A judge should be a man who makes his own plans and determines the conditions of his own court. He should neither be swayed by the eloquence of a lawyer, nor by the swelling tides of public opinion. In this country, the people determine, for the most part, at least, their own judges, and when a man sits in this place of importance and power, to be swayed by popular opinion, or legal eloquence, it is the fault of the people as well as the fault of the judge. Particularly is that fault with the people when they re-elect! Office tests men, and tells on the character. The untried are not to be prejudged, but the public servant, who has known years of service, writes his personal history with indelible ink, and the people read. Some years ago, America put into the presidency a man whose literary and legal talents made him appear to be fitted for the office. At the end of four years, his unfitness was fully revealed and the people retired him, even at the expense of a great party. More than once America has elected to her highest office an untried man. At the end of four years, he has proven himself a true man—brave, independent, dependable, and almost uniformly they have returned him for a second term. And in spite of the tradition that no man should serve a third term, it has been almost impossible to keep the people from demanding that the true man continue in this high station. Paul’s appeal to Caesar’s court was a criticism of Festus’ conduct. In Acts 25:6-9 we find the record of official weakness. When the testimony was all in, it amounted to nothing. The complaints were unprovable, and when Paul had denied them in toto,“Festus, willing to do the Jews a pleasure, answered Paul, and said, Wilt thou go up to Jerusalem, and there he judged of these things before me? “Then said Paul, I stand at Caesar’s judgment seat, where I ought to he judged: to the Jews have I done no wrong, as thou very well knowest. “For if I be an offender, or have committed any thing worthy of death, I refuse not to die: but if there be none of these things whereof these accuse me, no man may deliver me unto them. I appeal unto Caesar” (Acts 25:9-11). The highest court is commonly the safest. As a rule, only men of character attain to its honors as judges, and the more character in the judge, the better opportunity for the triumph of truth and right. In fact, in practically all the walks of life, one had best plead his case before the head man. If you want credit at a store, don’t request it of a clerk. Get to the head of the credit department. If you would secure a pass on a railroad, don’t appeal to the chief clerk. Find access to the vice-president. Paul was a judge of men and had a working knowledge of affairs, and he knew the higher up he went the greater likelihood of righteous treatment. It is often more trouble to get to the head man than it is to speak to one of his assistants, but the former is a worth while painstaking. It is rather more expensive to reach a supreme court than to settle difficulties in a squire’s court. But if the case is important, then the judgment involves a master wisdom. For righteousness, Caesar’s court is a thousandfold more satisfactory than the court of Festus. Let us lift the principle a little higher still. There are those who fear the high and holy Judge of all the earth, but we are fully persuaded, both upon the basis of Bible testimony and that of personal experience, that even a sinner stands a better chance before the Most High God than at the court of human society. There is many a man incarcerated in the State penitentiary who fears not the final judgment, since it is more easy to stand before a just and righteous God than it is to appear before unjust and unrighteous society. O, sinner! your hope is not with men, not with the judges of the earth; it is with the Lord—the Judge of all. Paul appealed to Caesar. Your appeal, my appeal, is to Christ. PAUL LEFT OVER BY FELIX“And after certain days king Agrippa and Bernice came unto Caesarea to salute Festus. “And when they had been there many days, Festus declared Paul’s cause unto the king, saying, There is a certain man left in bonds by Felix: “About whom, when I was at Jerusalem, the chief priests and the elders of the Jews informed me, desiring to have judgment against Him. “To whom I answered, It is not the manner of the Romans to deliver any man to die, before that he which is accused have the accusers face to face, and have licence to answer for himself concerning the crime laid against him” (Acts 25:13-16). The judge is often heir to legal troubles. They are passed down to him from predecessors. They are passed on to him from previous dockets. The court sheet is seldom clean. The man going out of office commonly leaves to his successor a vast deal of dirt-cleaning to be done. This is particularly true in American courts. They are cluttered affairs. They remind the inspector of a warehouse into which has been crowded the ill-mated furniture in many homes, and where, as you walk through, you wonder if there will ever be a clean-up. It is now conceded that the cluttered court is both the occasion and explanation of American crimes. In the mother country, when a man commits a crime, he is promptly arrested, promptly indicted, and if guilty, promptly convicted; if innocent, promptly released. The certainty and suddenness of judgment are moral deterrents. “The case continued” custom, so long and so widely obtaining in America, is a State curse. To be sure, ours is a new country and a great territory, and crimes committed in it are more easily covered than in the English isle, or the nations of the continent; but it is very generally conceded that our chief failure in all criminal procedure is that of speedy detection, speedy trial, and speedy judgment. Our criminals are arrested, and either released on bond or flung into jail. Months pass before any trial is had, causing favor toward the guilty, in that the true case against him weakens with time; testimony is ever increasingly difficult to secure, public feeling dies down, and even the judge himself is influenced by the thought that, though this is a crime, it was committed long ago. The impression seems to prevail with the American bench that attorneys are to determine court procedure, time included, rather than the judge. If they want to drag an indifferent case into days, they are permitted to do so, and often, even the judge himself loses interest in the main objective before the end is reached, and must add other days in order to review and freshen his mind on the whole matter. Meantime, justice waits and crime complacently continues. Festus shared his court troubles with the king. (Acts 25:13-22). This is Herod Agrippa, the second. He had been trained in the Royal Palace of the Emperor, but he had not lost his interest in his own people, the Jews; and when, through the tetrarchy, his dominion was extended, it included Judaea. He was brother-in-law of Felix, and his scandal with Bernice was known to Jew and Gentile alike; and yet, his higher office made its appeal to Festus who both flattered Agrippa, and sought to escape his own duty, by asking his judgment in the Paul-in-stance. There is, however, a dual principle here involved that has both its merit and demerit. It is always justifiable for the humbler office to consult the higher, and the man in comparative authority to consult the man of supreme authority. Therein is the justification of prayer, especially such prayer as appeals to God for wisdom. When the King of Glory can be consulted, what folly to rely upon self-judgment. “If any man lack wisdom, let him ask of God”. But in this instance, so even in that, men may make of prayer itself a political procedure. That is to say, when duty is clear, they may delay it on the pretense of consulting God. The judge, in humblest office, who knows what should be done, has little need of consultation. What he needs is courage, decision, and so the man who has a plain path before his feet need not ask God which way. The wiser part is to walk steadily therein. In this action, Festus seems to have favored the separation of Church and State. He described these Jewish questions as “matters of their own superstition”, and “doubted of such manner of questions” for State consideration. It was, in fact, a case in point. The Church and State are separate. The first must not essay to control the second, and the second may not attempt to determine the faith of the first. As between the various religious opinions of the sects, the State has nothing to say; but it is very easy to carry even this principle too far, because, when a religious sect clearly violates the letter and spirit of State law, then it becomes commonly criminal as the King David case in Michigan.

Or, when the individual religious opinion becomes inimical to public interest, then the State has a right to self-protection, as in the Wisconsin U. case. That is the principle on which we have advocated the passing and execution of anti-evolution laws. No servant of the state has a right to teach philosophies injurious to the public weal, and attempt to justify himself by naming such philosophies science. If history is replete with illustrations of anything, it is that all atheistic and materialistic philosophies have been hurtful to men as individuals and to men collectively. France was nearly destroyed by deism in her schools, and Germany has lost her “place in the sun” by following Nietzsche too far in his false philosophy. Russia is, at this present moment, a holocaust of crimes committed in the name of sovietism. Those men in America who are striving to drive the Christian faith from the public school educational system and substitute instead a materialistic philosophy that leaves a term, expressing no fact whatever, as the explanation of all things, are enemies of the social organism, and against such the State has a perfect right to speak, as Tennessee has spoken, and Mississippi and Colorado have spoken. Think of the instance of Loeb and Leopold. They adopted the University’s philosophy of life and then proposed to put it into criminal practice, and the State rose and convicted and incarcerated them, and but for their youth would have justly hung them. The true church is the best friend the State ever had; a false one is forever the State’s enemy. The function of the Church is religion; the function of the State is social administration. Their spheres are different, hence the necessity of their separation. But their interests overlap, hence the necessity of their co-operation. But we conclude with PAUL BEFORE AGRIPPA This record is found in the twenty-sixth chapter. Here again, Paul pleads his own case (Acts 26:1-26). It is an instance of noble self-defense. Some of us are in honest doubt if the world needs attorneys. The attorney is supposed to be an expert in law, and to be able to protect the interests of his clients. But the man who sits in the place of judge ought also to be an expert in law, and no one appearing in his court should need other protection from any source. The judgment of the judge should be the sufficient protection of all parties. It is doubtful if there has been a more conspicuous figure on the American continent than the famed “Justice John” of Richmond, Virginia. For years he performed all the functions of the court. Unless somebody demanded a jury, he was judge, jury and lawyer for both sides. He cross-questioned the witnesses. He did not seek to prejudice them one way or the other, but to discover from them the facts, and the public shortly found out that righteousness was favored in that court, unrighteousness was frowned upon, and few of his decisions were ever reversed. It is our judgment that there is no feature of law more fair than that which privileges every man to plead his own case, if he desires to do so; and it is equally our judgment that when one has a righteous case, it would be better for him to adopt the apostolic method and to make his own statement. The modern custom of asking questions and demanding “yes” and “no” answers, is hardly favorable to a knowledge of the truth. Expert attorneys know how to compel it to cover the truth instead. The straightforward rehearsal of Paul’s experience, as reported in these verses, would impress any just judge, and had Paul stopped with his statement, “This thing was not done in a corner”, we believe he would have won his case. It was his personal question that queered him. “King Agrippa, believest thou the Prophets? I know that thou believest”! Agrippa answered, “Almost thou persuadest me to be a Christian”, has about it the suggestion of scorn. It is so now and apparently it has always been so, that even the believing judge on the bench does not want any reference to his faith made. He knows the public expects him to mete out justice and to be absolutely uninfluenced by religious feelings. Hence his resentment if they are referred to in the slightest.

There is a sense in which this resentment is justified. State questions are not to be settled by religious sentiment. On the other hand, the true Christian man will not be silenced concerning the faith that is in him because he happens to stand before a State official.The completion of the Book of Acts will prove that Paul was never put into any place where he felt it out of order, or even in the slightest degree unbecoming to bear his testimony to the Christ; and it was practically impossible for Paul to deal with any man, in station high or low, without trying to win him to the worship of Jesus. If such an endeavor is resented by the judge, it will not be made an occasion of adverse judgment. Down deep in his heart, the veriest man of the world appreciates Christian consistency, and Christian enthusiasm, and Christian courage. Agrippa seems not to have been an exception; for, when the whole matter was over and “the governor, and Bernice, and they that sat with them”, are gone aside to talk among themselves, they agreed, “This man doeth nothing worthy of death or of bonds”.Paul, then, had triumphed. He had convinced the judge of the justice of his case. He had seemed innocent in the eyes of the king! The innocent are always convincingly eloquent. The profound appeal Paul had made to Agrippa is voiced in the last verse, “Then said Agrippa unto Festus, This man might have been set at liberty, if he had not appealed unto Caesar”.That was an admission, “We find no fault in him”. It carried with it, also, a hint, at least, of contentment in a possible excuse. Felix had had his opportunity to set Paul free and had failed. Festus had had his opportunity to set Paul free and had failed. Now Agrippa has his opportunity to set Paul free, and he fails.

Felix excused himself on the ground that Festus was coming and could hear Paul’s defense. Festus excused himself on the ground that Agrippa was coming and he would wait for the judgment of one in a higher court. And now Agrippa has excused himself on the ground that since Caesar’s court is final, there is no occasion to interfere. Alas, for the maneuvers of men in justifying delay in plain duty. And yet, let it be remembered that the final court will come and it will come for all men. The great day of the Assize will arrive. The final judge will sit in the throne of His glory, “and before Him shall be gathered all nations: and He shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats: “And he shall set the sheep on His right hand, but the goats on the left. “Then shall the King say unto them on His right hand, “Come, ye blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world: “For I was an hungred, and ye gave Me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave Me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took Me in: “Naked, and ye clothed Me: I was sick, and ye visited Me: I was in prison, and ye came unto Me. “Then shall the righteous answer Him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungred, and fed thee? or thirsty, and gave thee drink? “When saw we thee a stranger, and took thee in? or naked, and clothed thee? “Or when saw we thee sick, or in prison, and came unto thee? “And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these My brethren, ye have done it unto Me. “Then shall He say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from Me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels: “For I was an hungred, and ye gave Me no meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave Me no drink: “I was a stranger, and ye took Me not in: naked, and ye clothed Me not: sick, and in prison, and ye visited Me not. “Then shall they also answer Him, saying, Lord, when saw we Thee an hungred, or athirst, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not minister unto Thee? “Then shall He answer them, saying, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of these, ye did it not to Me. “And these shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the righteous into life eternal” (Matthew 25:32-46).

Acts 26:27-29

AGRIPPA SNEERS AT Acts 26:27-29. PAUL, for the most part, did the work of an evangelist. In consequence of that fact he could afford to relate his personal experience very often. It is interesting to note how often he told, even in detail, how, when on the way to Damascus, breathing out threatenings and slaughter against the Christians, he was converted. In the twenty-second chapter of this Book, he told it to the Jews, related it to Agrippa in the lesson read to-night, to the Galatians 1:13-16; again to the Philippians 3:4. There is many a man accomplishing a worthy ministry by merely making known how great things the Lord hath done for him. When the Gadarene published in all Decapolis his personal experience, he was acting upon the command of Christ, and no one questions the fruitfulness of his labors. Coleridge likens the light of experience to lights placed in the stern of a vessel, in that it illuminates only the track that is already passed over. And yet, if a man would lead others to holiness and to heaven, his chief responsibility is to illumine the path along which he himself travels, that those walking after him may be in the light. Dr. R. F. Horton, in his volume, “Verbum Dei”, says, “If God never gives a man a message except the narrative of a limited round of personal experiences, let him speak in a class-meeting, or pour out his soul to this one or another, but let him not attempt to preach. He is certainly not called.” While we might agree with Horton that a successful ministry demands more than the relation of personal experiences, it must not be forgotten, even, that some experiences repeated over and over again to different audiences, have been blessed of God to the salvation of many. Witness the work of the Salvation Army; attend upon the services of Old Clark Street Mission, Chicago; or when in New York, go to the Fulton Street prayer-meeting and see how large, and yet how effective a place personal testimony has in all of these.

But those who depend upon that personal testimony as a sufficient word of witness are not ministers in the sense of being ordained men; not even in the sense of being separated unto the Gospel, but are Gadarenes, out of whom Christ has cast the legions, and who at His command are going about telling how; great things the Lord hath done for them.If a pastor attempts the same, the result would be, as in an instance with which I was familiar in Kentucky, the small boys would kindly learn his story and be found repeating it on the street—a mock service; or else preceding, in half audible tones, his public utterance as he gave it.Coleridge speaks of a sculptor who produced very indifferent works, but in each of them one feature was always excellent. At last it became an open secret that his wife enjoyed that, but no other points of beauty; and while the relation of a personal experience may be extremely effective if introduced into a single discourse, it will not do for a minister to be forever repeating it, lest in the process of time, people conclude that it represents the solitary Divine blessing which he has enjoyed.

Paul, therefore, passed from personal experience to an appeal to the Prophets, and said to his honored auditor, “King Agrippa, believest thou the Prophets? I know that thou believest”.It was that appeal that provokedAGRIPPA’S SCOFF“With but little persuasion thou wouldest fain make me a Christian”. Most of you have been accustomed to hear sermons from this text and from the old version, “Almost thou persuadest me to be a Christian”. But it is not likely that Agrippa was so near conversion. The rendering of the new version is conceded to be the more correct, “With but little persuasion thou wouldest fain make me a Christian”. It was the king’s sneer.It is probable that he had little use for preachers.

While this petty king was a Proselyte of the Gate, and rendered a nominal obedience to the law of Israel, he, like Felix, who had married one of his sisters, was much removed from moral excellence. His sins were of such character, according to the testimony of Juvenal, that it were better to pass them over unspoken.

From such a man you would not expect any particular favor for preachers of plain Gospel truth.A few years ago, Frank Pixley, in an article published in the Argonaut, openly confessed, “As a rule we don’t like preachers,” to which a noble layman made reply, “In this Mr. Pixley has plenty of company; whiskey men, from the tippler to the rum seller, don’t like preachers; the gamblers, thieves, prostitutes, entertain the same antipathy, while prison convicts, and the unconvicted felons who are not in prison, but ought to be, don’t as a rule like them; the infidels in the world, certain of the secular press editors, the scalawags, bilks and frauds of every description, don’t like preachers. As Mr. Pixley has chosen his own company, he can’t blame us for calling attention to them”. But adds this writer, “Good men and virtuous women as a rule like preachers of the Gospel; clean business men, noble philanthropists, great statesmen, the first-class physicians of the land, and judges of renown make of ministers friends and companions.”But Agrippa does not come under these latter. He met the Apostle with a sneer.

He was not so much sneering at Paul, but at Paul’s preaching.It is also likely that he had all too little familiarity with the Prophets. In order to become a Proselyte of the Gate, he must know something of their Scripture and have a degree of familiarity with their traditions.

But it is one thing to know something of the Bible and quite another thing to be familiar with its sacred pages, and I find nothing in this record that indicates that Agrippa was a good Bible student. He was all too perfect a representative, I fear, of a great class of people who read the Scriptures a little, but who study the Scripture seldom, if at all. When Paul wrote to Timothy, “Give diligence to present thyself approved * *, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, handling aright the Word of Truth”, he touched an important necessity. Oh, for such handling of that Word today!Charles Spurgeon says, “I remember reading on one occasion the sacred story of David and Goliath, and there was a person present, positively grown up to years of maturity, who said to me, ‘Dear me! what an interesting story; what book is that in?’ And I recollect a person coming to me in private; I spoke to her about her soul; she told me how deeply she felt, how she had a desire to serve God, but she found another law in her members. I turned to a passage in Romans and read to her, ‘The good that I would I do not, but the evil which I would not, that I do!’ She said, ‘Is that in the Bible? I did not know it.’ ‘Yes, beloved, there are many things in the Bible that would bring untold blessing to your soul and give the needed comfort.’” There are all too many people who treat their Bibles as a certain old woman treated her umbrella.

Her nephew, a youth, was visiting her house, and upon leaving he found it beginning to rain. Rushing to the doorway he caught up this umbrella which was snugly placed in the corner, and was departing when the old woman flew at him, exclaiming, “No, No, that you never shall!

I have had that umbrella twenty-three years and it has never been wet, and it shall not be wetted now.” The likelihood is that time had rotted the cotton, and the ribs would have come through, and it would have proven a poor refuge from the storm. The man who has a Bible on some shelf or center table, and who lets it go unused for years, will discover, when at last the storm breaks upon his soul, that it will not provide him a refuge against the same, because he won’t know how to use it to that end. When Paul speaks to Agrippa saying, “Believest thou the Prophets”? he speaks also to you and to me, and is raising, in a most particular way, the question, “Are you familiar with what they have had to say? Are you versed in the Sacred Word?”His scoff was only an attempt to escape from the Truth! “And with but little persuasion thou wouldest fain make me a Christian”. There is no cheaper way to meet the Truth than by sneering at the same. It is the way some politicians meet an argument.

When they cannot longer answer their opponent by an appeal to truth, and proper emphasis of fact, they cry, “Rebel! traitor”! or hiss, “treason!” It’s the way the mob met the life and words of Christ, “Crucify Him”! It is a custom of the cuttle-fish, when he wants to make attack, to ink the water about him, and thereby escape the just repulse.The sneer is treason to truth; the sneer is fresh conviction of Christ; the sneer is a mere cloud of dust under the shadow of which the vanquished flee.

Young men! if you have nothing better with which to oppose the Word of Prophets than a scoff, remember that “silence is golden,” and by maintaining it you will keep better terms with God. Agrippa, or the man who answers the Pauline argument with the sarcasm of this text, is a subject of profound pity, for in that sentence he places judgment upon his own soul.But if we follow this Scripture to the end, we find another subject that ought to engage us, and that isAGRIPPA’S Many a man convicted of the Truth answers with a sneer. The sneer itself is, in fact, a suggestion of conviction. Why should one who has not been probed by the pungent Word feel it encumbent upon him to scoff? There are two or three things that shine through the language Agrippa employed to half conceal them.First of all, he saw that Paul was innocent. When he was aside, he said to Bernice, and they that sat with him, “This man might have been set at liberty, if he had not appealed to Caesar”.

He agreed in the general feeling of the day, “This man did nothing worthy of death or bonds”.Did you ever stop to consider what a marvelous impression Paul made upon all the men into whose presence he came. Felix listened to him and was filled with fear and promised, when he had a more convenient season, to give further attention to the truths which he had uttered.

He started in as Paul’s judge; he concluded, convicted, himself, by the sentences that had passed the Apostle’s lips. When Festus had this noble prisoner in his presence, he was anxious to have the men of power present when the case should be called, and the only reason the Scripture assigns for his continuing the case at all, was his desire to gain favor with the Jews; and we have just seen what was the opinion of Agrippa, when he had listened to the charges laid against him.There are some men who do not need to be attended by an attorney; they are their own defense, and even if they be convicted, the man that passes sentence upon them quits the judgment seat, annoyed with the thought of the injustice of his sentence. I confess I have always felt a certain amount of suspicion for the man that comes to me with a pack of reference letters and commendatory epistles. The true man is not in need of a whole library of testimony; he does not carry about a trunk of statements. His bearing is his best commendation. When his lips part, you feel that it is his character to which you are listening, and not some shrewdly concocted scheme.

Every one of us, at some time or other, has had come into his presence, unheralded, a stranger who, from the first moment we beheld, we called friend; and though years may have passed since the meeting, they have never disappointed the expectations excited, nor given us reason to regret the confidence shown. The kingly spirits of earth are not made such by their crowns.

Paul stands uncovered before the sceptered Agrippa, and yet, the latter perfectly understood that in this plain Apostle was the spirit of a king.Take a present illustration. A few years since, Count Tolstoi was excommunicated, and he is reported to have said, “The day of my excommunication was the happiest and brightest day of my life.” They may have erased his name from the roll of the Greek Church, but that did not effect his standing with Christ. They removed from him any symbol of Russian honor, but they could not take away from Tolstoi the scepter which he wielded as a man. The students of his town, hundreds in number, plead with the synod to excommunicate them also, while the students of Krieff, to the number of about a thousand, addressed a similar petition to the holy synod. The procurator of the holy synod, whose inquisition almost threw that of Spain into the shadow, spake whatever sentence he pleased against Tolstoi, but even while he was passing it, he must have admired the man. After all is said about position, office, scepter and throne, that can be said, the loftiest title to which mortal may aspire is that of the “true man” And Agrippa knew that in Paul he had seen just such an one.He also appreciated the Apostle’s purpose. “With but little persuasion thou wouldest fain make me a Christian”.

This was just what Paul was attempting to do. While he might have seemed about the defense of self, he was, in fact, about winning Agrippa’s soul to the truth.

He was too magnanimous to ever give himself to the poor, stingy business of trying to defend himself before the judge, or in the public opinion. He had not been called to any such work. His mission was to preach the truth, and win men to God instead.A few years since, Dr. Strong, just then retiring from the Presidency of Carleton College, after a most efficient and noble service of thirty-one years, told me that during the great trial of Henry Ward Beecher, when the council, whose eventual sentence would determine whether he should go through life stained and crippled, or else exculpated from the charges laid against him, was in session, the Sunday came. Instead of inviting some one of the famous brethren, sitting in the council, to preach, Beecher went quietly into the pulpit, as was his wont, and after saying, “Brethren and fathers, I should like to bring you a message this morning that would be a blessing to each,” preached a sermon that lifted every hearer to the heavens and impressed the great audience with the fact that his business was better than that of defending self, namely that of winning souls to God and bringing their characters into likeness to that of Christ. But in that act he had Paul as his example and his predecessor. So plain was the Apostle’s purpose that even Agrippa appreciated it, and by his scornful reply called greater attention to it.THE APOSTLE’S It is expressed in an appeal to God. “Paul said, I would to God, that not only thou, but also all that hear me this day, were both almost, and altogether such as I am, except these bonds” (Acts 26:29). Paul’s appeal to God was no light and thoughtless speech. It was not that thoughtless use of the Lord’s Name that really approaches profanity, but it was a heart cry. His soul was stirred within him at the thought that Agrippa might miss the way, might name God without knowing Him, might lightly treat, or even grossly ignore God’s claims in Christ.Sigismund Goetze placed his famous picture, “Despised and Rejected of Men”, in the Royal Academy in London. It was studied by many, and naturally created a profound sensation. The central figure of the picture is Christ bound to an altar, thorn-crowned and sorrow-faced. Beside Him stands an angel holding a chalice of grief and suffering, from which Christ must drink.

It is probably the bitter cup of Gethsemane. Passing on each side of the altar is a procession made up of the present-day world people, the Roman Catholic priest and the scientist, the politician and the laboring man, the soldier and sport, the society woman, the news lad, the sister of charity, the hospital nurse and others.

Strangely, each one of them is passing the Christ by, save the nurse. On her features is plainly written alarm and grief at the sight. The others were absorbed in their own thoughts. But above all, hovering mid-air, is a circle of cherubim gazing in open-eyed and open-mouthed amazement at the indifferent crowd beneath. The picture is of easy interpretation. Men are constantly forgetting God and His revelation in Christ, and every true Apostle, like Paul, is solicitous, concerned, grieved, and anxious. “Would to God that not only thou, but also all that hear me this day, were both almost, and altogether such as I am, except these bonds”.Paul, then, is no respecter of persons.

He has preached to the crowds; he has dealt with the plain man in tenderness, and now he will deal with the man on the throne with courage. There are hundreds of Christian workers who are more than ready to go to a downtown mission and deal with the harlots and the drunks, and “the down and outs”, and they seem to think that that is the most Christian service conceivable.

We do not know why consecrated men and women should so reason. The hod-carrier is no more in the sight of God than the prime minister; the peasant, drunken and worthless, is no more valuable than the king, and yet, how few there are that ever speak even tenderly or faithfully to queens of fashion, kings of finance, men on the throne.Recently, the newspapers have had a vast deal to say about the fact that a young student pulpit supply should have spoken in the presence of the President without overwhelming embarrassment. But there has not been a hint in the newspapers that that young preacher has dealt with great and vital questions in the President’s presence, appealing to him to remember that he, too, was a mortal, and without embarrassment in any way, setting fully forth the great issues of life and death as established by the Gospel.In history, we have notable instances of faithful dealing with potentates. Savonarola proclaimed the exacting demands of God to Lorenzo, the magnificent. But where in twentieth century preaching is a kindred faithfulness found, and a kindred solicitude felt for people in station both high and humble? And yet, such is the example in the Master’s ministry, and such was the practice of His chief Apostle Paul.He craved the king, a free man in Christ. “Such as I am, except these bonds”.Paul was a prisoner.

His movements were limited; his opportunities were necessarily cut down, and yet, his soul was free in Christ. He craved for Agrippa that full salvation that would liberate his intellect, emancipate his soul, and make even his body to be free, indeed.

Doubtless, he longed for the king and those who sat with him that they might themselves become peripatetics and walk the entire land through, telling to every assembly that gathered about them, how great things the Lord had done for them.The Christian desires freedom, not for its own sake, and certainly not for his sake, but for the sake of an extended influence, for the sake of a wider circle in Gospel testimony, for the sake of the multitudes that might be reached by men as free in body as they are in mind and soul. An apostle is “one sent”. The chief word in Christ’s commission is “Go!” The reach of salvation is to be to “the uttermost parts of the earth”. The freedom of body is to be prized as a Christian opportunity.