The Pulpit Commentary — Acts — Volume 1 — Section 320

and the self-<:onfidence th11t "lords it over the faith" or others are just two of the most pronounced pestilences of human nature. From the fright and the fire and the faintness of the "three days" which Saul had now known, it wero well that he should not be brought out at once to the light and "the chearful sun" and the splendid hopes and prospects of_ a great career. It is better that an awn.ealing interval find place. It is ,;afer that his thought and heart find tonic in a Saviour's call and in a Master's demand -that be familiarize himself with the outlook of suffering, and great suffering. 4. Though lastly, yet most of all, Jesus will connect everything in Saul's thought now \\'ith himulf. How great, how true, how kind was this philosophy I Saul has sinned no end against Christ,and he shall suffernoendfor "his Name's sake." What healing for Saul's soul that foretelling announcement I Saul h11S persecuted fiercely those who "'ere dear to Christ unspeakably, and he shall bear the brunt of fiercest persecution for the sake of Christ and in the service of his loved ones, It is the only compewiation for his self-respect, it is some anodyne for his inward smart, and, though an undiscern- ing world would never have thought it, it is the supreme mark of Christ's sweet for- gi\·ingness, of his delicate considerateness, of his tenderest sympathy. "I will show him how great things he must," etc.-B. Vere. 17-19.-A parable in things spiritual. We entertain no doubt that we have here a simplest history of what actually occurred. We doubt no less that the cbiefest interest and significance of the record lie in the spiritual history that underlies it. Kay, more, though we read facts of outer life, they do nothing more than outline those of an inner life, v.hich'.Jesus notices, loves, helps, and even makes. Notice- I. THE CHANGE THAT PASSES ON SAUL. He receives his sight. For three days he had been blind in a bodily sense, but for probably three and thirty years he had been blind in the other sense. And this is just what he had been. He had not been vicious, immoral, sottish, nor an infidel, nor irreverent toward all religious truth and feeling. But he had been blind-blind to the very type of human nature. And his blindness is but the type of that of every one of us, till he "receives his sight from the Lord Jesus." II. THE Hu:l[AN HA2'll il'D VOICE BY A.ID OF WHICH THE BLESSING IS CONVEYED. If Jesus had been in a literal sense upon the earth, he would have spoken to Saul, he would have laid his own hands upon him. The actual ministry, the visible ministry, is passed, however, now into human agency. This was a plain-spoken statement of it. How great the honour laid on men! and how great their responsibility by this devolution of the highest and holiest functions ! How full of solemn antl inspiring suggestion, too little traced out in devout thought by us-that the actual work which for a space of time Jesus' own voice and hand had attended to, are now to be attended to by man, fellow-man. L That work, that ministry of service to the soul of a fellow-creature, finds out very soon and very surely all that is of the nature of 11ympathy. It tries sympathy, it wakes it, it increases it. The fearful Ananias and distrustful of one hour ago Jinds, and no doubt honesay, the word " brother" now on his lip-" Brother Saul." 2. Jesus himself became genuinely a Brother to those he came to save, not by virtue of his Divine power and practical pity only. That his might be the very type of brother• liness, he took our nature on him, and made himself Brother (Heh. ii. 11, 17). And when he ascended, his representatives are to be found in those who were men alone. That what might seem the unnecessary thing is here done, in a man being sent with the mere message of regiven sight, and the mere formality of" laying on hands" where no virtue could pass, must mean all the more to set honour on the spiritual work which one man should do for other11. Ill. THE O~E DJVTh"E SOURCE FRO!II WHICH, :t."EVEBTHELESS, ALL BA VJNG HELP OAME, 1. Jesus sends A.naoias. He has directed him, and where necessary corrected him also. He has fixed the time, and hastens the lingering step of Ananias. 2. Jesus, who "began the good work," perfecl:5 it. The Jesus_ who_ met Sa~l in the_ way and peremptorily reined up his career 1s the Jesus who gives ~m now light and_ liberty and his commission. The miracle is the miracle of Jesus; hie the power, the will, the love, the sovereign grace. Nor can this be too well remembered by the servants of Christ, in ell they do now toward the salvation of a fellow-man. Those who will most readily admit that the touch of their he.nd can do nothing to work sight for the blind, are 0B, IX, 1-43,) 'l'HE AC'lS OF 'fHE APOSTLES. 317