night fell would have been in the grasp of his assassins, had not One above given him in this hour a mouth and wisdom which his adversaries could neither gainsay nor resist :—

'I stand before Cæsar's tribunal, and there ought my trial to be. To the Jews I have done no wrong, as thou knowest full well. If I am guilty, and have done anything worthy of death, I refuse not to die ; but if the things whereof these men accuse me are nought, no man may give me up to them. I appeal unto Cæsar!

Festus conferred a moment with his Council, and saw that he had no power to question the appeal. Thou hast appealed unto Cæsar, to Cæsar shalt thou go.'

Often had this appeal, so powerful in the mouth of a Roman citizen, been heard before; why has it so much more grandeur in the mouth of Paul?-Surely the thought that filled and inspired him at this moment was the thought of Him who had stood beside him in the Fortress of Antonia. 'To Rome,'-he had his Lord's word for it, he must bear his witness. Hence the holy confidence, the solemnity of his appeal. In his thought he was appealing, not to Cæsar, but to Christ.

This word 'appello' suspended all further proceedings in a Roman Court of Law; it only remained for Festus to report the case to the Emperor. But in his ignorance of Jewish theology, he was perplexed, and only too gladly availed himself of the accidental presence on a visit of Herod Agrippa II., king of Chalcis1, who by education was a Jew, to obtain help in explaining the matter to Nero. Agrippa was inter

1 The son of the King Herod Agrippa I., who put to death James the brother of John, and died A.D. 44 (see Acts xii.)

ested, and expressed a wish to hear the prisoner himself.

On the morrow therefore they came with great state; and the audience-chamber was filled with officers and courtiers to listen to the eloquent Apostle.

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It is the last great speech of St. Paul recorded in Holy Scripture, and the greatest. He was speaking not only before rulers and kings,' but also to one who would report his words to Rome. He seems to have felt, too, that it was in some sense his farewell to the land of his fathers; an apologia pro vitâ suâ therefore.

With that gesture of the hand with which the orators of antiquity invited attention1, and turning with marked courtesy to the king as to one 'expert in all Jewish customs and questions,' he proceeded to maintain the perfect consistency of his manner of life from his youth upward. It was he, not his accusers, that was the faithful Israelite. For what was the one constant hope of the twelve tribes? Was it not the hope of a Messiah who should suffer and yet live for ever; and through whom God's true Israel, after all their sufferings, should also rise again to an eternal life? And yet it was for clinging to this hope that he was now accused, and that by Jews'2. Would they know the ground on which he believed that such a resurrection had now been realized? He will tell them.

Then he related in minute detail how the risen Jesus had appeared to him, had convinced him, in spite of all his inveterate and passionate prepossessions, that

1 Wetstein quotes several passages in illustration of this. Apuleius says that pleaders extended the first and second fingers, closing the third and fourth.

2 There is no article in the best MSS.

He was the Messiah, and solemnly commissioned him to publish to all men, Jews and Gentiles, what he had seen and heard, that they too might turn from darkness to light, and by faith in the risen Lord lay hold of the divine life so offered to them.

It was for the discharge of this commission, thus laid upon him by their own Messiah, that the Jews had seized him in their temple and endeavoured to kill him.

Therefore, summing up, he repeated what he had begun by asserting, that in preaching the death and resurrection of Christ, he was but witnessing to the fulfilment of all their holy Scriptures, and approving himself a true and consistent Israelite.

To Festus, fresh from Rome, and ignorant of the Jewish religion, all this was the merest infatuation. To Agrippa therefore St. Paul made one more solemn appeal, but it was in vain. The only answer he got from the voluptuary was a mocking one, 'Thou wilt soon be trying to persuade me to become a Christian.' 'Would to God,' was St. Paul's noble reply,' that, soon or late, not thou only, but all who hear me this day, might become such as I am,-except,' he added, lifting up his chained wrists, ‘except these bonds.'

And so the audience was concluded, all agreeing after conference that he had done nothing deserving death, or even imprisonment; Agrippa adding that the man might have been set at liberty had he not appealed to Cæsar. As it was, they had no option but to put him on board ship with a gang of other prisoners for Rome.

And thus both the rancour of the Jews and the careless indifference of the Romans were alike overruled, in order to secure the fulfilment of the divine purpose. And it was because of his own inspired appeal to Cæsar that he was sent to Rome.

CHAPTER XVIII

The Dopage to Rome

THE ancient merchant ships of the Mediterranean

were not much smaller than our own; the 'Castor and Pollux' carried 276 men1, besides her cargo. They had usually one mast, and one large sail, fastened to an enormous yard, which could be raised or lowered2. They were steered by paddlerudders3, one on either side. Mr. Smith of Jordanhill, whose well-known work on the Voyage and Shipwreck of St. Paul has almost exhausted this subject, thinks that they could sail within seven points of the wind1, and might therefore beat to windward in good weather. Before the wind their rate of sailing seems to have been about seven knots in the hour. But without compass, and without charts, their voyages were usually coasting voyages; and from Michaelmas to Lady Day, when whole days might pass and neither sun nor stars appear', navigation was if possible suspended.

Bearing these few points in mind, we shall understand St. Luke's journal of the voyage, for he as well

3 Ibid.

1 Acts xxvii. 37. There were 600 on board the ship in which Josephus was wrecked. See his Life, ch. 3. 4Acts xxvii. 15. Corresponding with the Fast, i.e. the day of Expiation : Acts xxvii. 9.

2 Acts xxvii. 40.

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Acts xxvii. 20, and Livy xxxvi. 9.

as Aristarchus of Thessalonica accompanied St. Paul.

Touching at Sidon, where the courtesy of the centurion Julius allowed the Apostle to see his friends, they coasted northward till the hills of Cilicia, which he knew so well, rose before them. Then, rounding Cyprus, under the lee of the island, they reached Myra, where the centurion transferred his prisoners to an Alexandrian vessel bound for Rome. The northwesterly gales continuing, they, imprudently perhaps, ran to the south to get under the lee of Crete.

By this course they were committed to an open sea voyage on leaving Crete; and the Fast-day1 being already passed, Paul warned them they had best winter where they were, at 'Fair Havens,' else there might be much damage and loss of life. But the sailors thought they might at least hold on as far as Phoenix. And, a south breeze springing up, they 'thought they had obtained their purpose ;' when, without a moment's warning, a furious wind2 from the mountains3 struck the ship, and, whirling her round, drove her out to sea. Fearing lest this terrible Levanter should carry them right across to the dangers of the African coast, they took advantage of a brief lull under the lee of the island of Clauda, to make all tight for weathering the storm. With difficulty they got their boat on board; then they secured their timbers by undergirding; and lastly they lowered

1 See note on preceding page.

2 Called Eurakylon' (ie., Euro-aquilon in Latin), for such is the reading of the best MSS.,-North-easter.

The words against it' in our translation ought to be rendered down from Crete.'

4

Passing ropes round the hull, to keep the planks from starting under the strain of rough weather.