2. The scene suggested by the text is worth recalling. It was about the year a.d. 60, and Paul lay a prisoner in the Praetorium of Caesarea. Two years he had been there, suffering on the most vexatious and frivolous of charges. Felix had little doubt of his innocence ; and his conscience had been roused to painful activity by the Apostle's arguments on righteousness, on the duty of self-restraint, and on the certainty of coming judg- ment. But a habit of self-seeking had long asserted its sway over conscience, and, to curry favour with the Jewish fanatics, Felix had gone out of office, leaving Paul bound.
Festus had come. Paul had naturally declined his unfair proposal to be tried at Jerusalem, and had appealed to Rome. Festus may have been annoyed at such rejection, but he was a man of sufficient capacity to recognize the high intellectual gifts and commanding character of the prisoner. Agrippa and his sister Bernice had come to pay court to him, and in conversation Festus mentioned the case of St. Paul. It excited the interest of Agrippa,
212 VISIONS AND OBEDIENCE
who expressed a desire himself to hear the prisoner plead. It was an opportunity for Festus — an opportunity for hearing the opinion of a Jew of distinction upon a question so perplexing to a Eoman official as the law of heresy ; an opportunity, also, for paying a compliment to his distinguished friends, and using Paul to " make a Eoman holiday."
The audience took place in the Praetorian Palace. Very striking the scene must have been. In the chair of state, and in the splendid hall, sat Festus, wearing the robes of office and representing the majesty of Kome. The hall was filled with soldiers ; the procurator was attended by the officers of his guard and of the legions in their military accoutrements, and by the representatives of civic authority in their official robes. Then came the Jewish sovereign and his sister with the fullest pageantry of State. They were young, and Bernice was beautiful with the personal beauty which seemed to belong to the race of the Herods, in striking contrast to their moral depravity. Nothing that could make the occasion splendid and impressive was wanting. When all was ready the prisoner was called.
Paul appeared manacled and was conducted between guards to the judgment-seat, and the hearing began. The prisoner spoke of his earlier life and convictions ; of his unflinching opposition to the nascent Christian sect ; of his treatment of Stephen ; then of the light which flashed upon him, convincing him of his mistake and showing him the truth ; and then of his after action. " Where- upon," he said, as he related the turning-point in his career — "Whereupon, O king Agrippa, I was not disobedient unto the heavenly vision."
L
Visions.
i. The Visions and Ideals of Life.
1. "I was not disobedient," he says, "unto the heavenly vision." St. Paul is speaking of an experience which has come, in some form or other, to all great and good men — the dream, the vision, the sudden illuminating conviction of a Divine strength and a Divine consolation — the sense of a finger pointing and of a voice calling upward to a higher life, " This is the way, walk ye in it." Those moments of light and inspiration will be found,
ACTS xxvi. 19 213
sometimes in strange shapes, in the life of every great prophet or reformer. All the leading men of Old Testament history — Jacob, Elijah, Isaiah, Ezekiel — had some experience similar to St. Paul's : Jacob when he wrestled at Peniel with that mysterious Presence, and would not let Him go until He had blessed him with a new name, a new and serious thought of life and its deep meaning; Elijah when, from the darkness of his lonely cave amid the mountains, he heard a still, small voice, and was comforted ; Isaiah when he saw the Lord sitting enthroned in His temple, and felt the angel lay upon his lips the live coal taken from the burning altar; Ezekiel when, as he sat captive by the river of Chebar, the heavens were opened upon him, and he saw visions of God — the four Cherubim coming out of the whirlwind, and the glory of the sapphire throne.
2. Now, the revelation that is made to the understanding and the heart, to the spirit and the will, is the same whether it be made, as it was to Paul, through a heavenly vision ; or, as it was to the other Apostles, through the facts of the life, death, resurrec- tion, and ascension of Jesus, which their senses certified to them ; or, as it is to us, by the record of the same facts, permanently enshrined in Scripture. Paul's sight of Christ was for a moment ; we can see Him as often and as long as we will, by turning to the pages of Scripture. Paul's sight of Christ was accompanied with but a partial apprehension of the great and far-reaching truths which he was to learn and to teach, as embodied in the Lord whom he saw. To see Him was the work of a moment, to " know Him " was the effort of a lifetime. We have the abiding results of the lifelong process lying ready to our hands in Paul's own letters. And we have not only the permanent record of Christ in the Gospels instead of the transient vision in the heavens, and the unfolding of the meaning and bearings of the historical facts in the authoritative teaching of the Epistles ; but we have also, in the history of the Church founded on these, in the manifest workings of a Divine power for and through the company of believers (as well as in the correspondence between the facts and doctrines of Christianity and the wants of humanity), a vision disclosed and authenticated as heavenly, more developed, fuller of meaning and more blessed to the eyes which see it than was