have descended to posterity, themselves followed the most common secular employments. We have, accordingly, an instance of a great and eminent critic, who was a carpenter, another an ironfounder, with many similar examples. It was, indeed, a well-known proverb among the Jews, "If a man does not teach his son a trade, he teaches him to steal."

In addition to the employment to which we have referred, St. Paul had been well instructed in secular learning, as is evident from his allusions to the manners and customs of Greece and Rome, and his citation of heathen poets, as well as from the use of Platonic phrases in his Epistles. This, however, was not all; an elaborate religious education had been superadded to those instructions, and at the feet of Gamaliel, the great Jewish teacher of those days, St. Paul had become a Pharisee and a zealot.

It would be difficult to picture to ourselves a process less likely, according to

human apprehension, than that to which St. Paul was subjected, to have prepared the way for a meek, and humble, and selfdenying reception of the doctrines of the

cross.

Pride of birth, pride of intellect, pride of knowledge, and though last, the deadliest and the worst of all these serpents, which are nurtured in the human heart, pride of religious profession, miscalled religious pride, all raised their hydra heads against the entrance of the Lamb of God into his soul.

Of St. Paul (or as he was at that time called, Saul,) we hear but little in his unconverted state, yet that little is enough to appal the mind at the thought of the deeply-rooted corruption and hostility to God of the natural heart, under the most favourable habits, and the most refined education.

The first mention made of him in holy writ is as follows. When the blessed proto-martyr, Stephen, had borne his solemn testimony to the guilt of his judges

before the assembled Sanhedrim; and, in pursuance of their iniquitous sentence, was carried forth to be put to death for the name of Jesus, "the witnesses," who by the Jewish law were obliged to cast the first stone, having disrobed themselves for the more active discharge of their horrible office, "laid down their clothes at a young man's feet, whose name was Saul."

How astonishing an introduction is this to the history of one of the most devoted of the saints of God! Picture for a moment to your imagination this first scene in the life of Saul, with which the pen of inspiration has presented us: it will assist you in forming a less inadequate idea of the power of divine grace, when you thus learn to appreciate the tremendous obstacles over which it shortly after so instantaneously and completely triumphed.

Behold the meek and lowly-minded Stephen, his countenance still glowing with that angelic lustre which had for a

time awed even his bitterest persecutors · into mute attention; his soul filled with the glorious vision which he had thus described before the astonished Sanhedrim, "Behold, I see the heavens opened, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God:" his heart supported by the felt presence of Him, whom his bodily eyes had in that beatific vision gazed upon: his frame sinking beneath the murderous efforts of his executioners, who were casting stone after stone upon that poor, broken, agonized body, and yet the blessed martyr bearing all calmly, contentedly, peacefully, and praying for his murderers, "committing himself to Him who judgeth righteously," and sweetly falling "asleep in Jesus." Now, observe for a moment the chief spectator of this dreadful scene : "a young man," compelled by no necessity to be present, but delighting to gratify his animosity against the followers of the Crucified, and rejoicing in the thought that he himself should soon become, in

stead of a mere spectator of such atrocities, an actor and a leader.

Can it be true, can it be possible, that conduct so guilty, so abhorrent to every better feeling, even of the natural heart, should form the opening scene in the life of him, of whose lofty attainments in spiritual things, of whose holy and consistent conduct, of whose glorious testimony to the truth as it is in Jesus, we shall hereafter have to speak? It is most possible, most true. Then, blessed be God, who shall despair? who has sinned past forgiveness? whose heart is too hard to be broken by the power of divine grace, to be melted by the love of Christ, if this be indeed the first incident which the Spirit of God has bequeathed to us in the life of St. Paul? Am I now addressing any who have ever said, 'There is mercy with God, but it is not for me: there is compassion with Christ, but it cannot reach my case: there is a powerful influence in the Spirit, but it will never