PAUL HEALS A CRIPPLE.

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aware of it, and fled unto Lystra and Derbe, and there they preached the gospel. And there sat a certain man at Lystra, impotent in his feet, being a cripple from his mother's womb, who never had walked: the same heard Paul speak; who stedfastly beholding him, and perceiving that he had faith to be healed, said with a loud voice, Stand upright on thy feet. And he leaped and walked. And when the people saw it, they lifted up their voices, saying, The gods are come down in the likeness of men and would have done sacrifice; which when the apostles heard, they rent their clothes, and ran in among the people, saying, Sirs, why do ye these things? We also are men of like passions with you, and preach unto you that ye should turn from these vanities unto the living God.'-ACTS xiv.

fickle is human nature, and such were the vicissitudes of the apostles' lives, that they, who but now were accounted as gods, and no less deities than Jupiter and Mercury, were presently assailed with stones to the danger of their lives. 'And there came thither certain Jews from Antioch and Iconium, who persuaded the people; and, having stoned Paul, drew him out of the city, supposing he had been dead. Howbeit, as the disciples stood round about him, he rose up, and came into the city and the next day he departed with Barnabas to Derbe.' This outrageous treatment was alluded to by Paul, in the eleventh chapter of the Second Epistle to the Corinthians, 'Once was I stoned:' again, in the third chapter of the Second Epistle to Timothy, 'Persecutions, afflictions, which came unto me at Antioch, at Iconium, at Lystra.'-Acts xiv.

THE CONVERSION OF LYDIA.

OND on the Sabbath we went out of the city by a

river side, where prayer was wont to be made;

and we sat down, and spake unto the women which resorted thither. And a certain woman named Lydia, a seller of purple, of the city of Thyatira, which worshipped God, heard us: whose heart the Lord opened, that she attended unto the things which were spoken of Paul. And when she was baptized, and her household, she besought us, saying, If ye have judged me to be faithful to the Lord, come into my house, and abide there. And she constrained us.'-ACTS xvi.

AND

ND it came to pass, as we went to prayer, a certain damsel possessed with a spirit of divination met

:

us, which brought her masters much gain by soothsaying the same followed Paul and us, and cried, saying, These men are the servants of the most high God, which show unto us the way of salvation. And this did she many days. But Paul, being grieved, turned, and said to the spirit, I command thee, in the name of Jesus Christ, to come out of her. And he came out the same hour. And when her masters saw that the hope of their gains was gone, they caught Paul and Silas, and drew them into the market-place unto the rulers, and brought them to the magistrates, saying, These men, being Jews, do exceedingly trouble our city, and teach customs, which are not lawful for us to receive, neither to observe, being Romans. And the multitude rose up together against

THE SPIRIT OF DIVINATION.

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them and the magistrates rent off their clothes, and commanded to beat them. And when they had laid many stripes upon them, they cast them into prison, charging the jailor to keep them safely.' It is surprising that persons of rank and station, who could not have been ignorant of the miracles continually wrought by the apostles of Jesus Christ, should have thought either that their conduct was worthy of bonds and of stripes, or that petty powers of magisterial oppression, or even the infliction. of death itself, could stop the progress of a religion that was evidently commenced, sustained, and blessed from above. The wonder is, that the persecutors of the Church were not themselves afraid, lest the divine agency, acting through the apostles in undeniable efficiency for the relief of suffering humanity, should suddenly be turned against themselves, and pronounce their doom in thunder. such is the benign nature of the Christian religion, and such the patience under sufferings of its first and genuine teachers, that very few instances occur through the whole New Testament, of vengeance or even malediction taking place, though under the most aggravated provocation.— ACTS xvi.

But