Cordial Welcome-Paul's Appearance before James and the Brethren-Advice of the Brethren to Conciliate the Jews- The Great Silence-St. Paul's Presence of Mind-Analysis of the JEWISH DISSENSIONS AT JERUSALEM. Paul a Prisoner-The Sanhedrim-Isolation of Paul-Paul's supposed Dimness of Sight-Conscientiousness of Paul- Anger of Ananias-Course taken by St. Paul in dividing his Arrival of the New Governor Festus-Continued plotting of the Jews-Paul before Festus-Finally Appeals unto Cæsar- Religion in Common Life-Julius the Centurion-Ancient Navi- gation-Passage to Myra-Alexandrian Corn-ships-Arrival St. Paul's Bay-History of Malta-The "Barbarians" and their Journey from Puteoli to Rome-The Appian Way-Happy Meet- ings-Description of Rome-Paul in the Prætorium-Burrus and Seneca-Visit from the Jews-They reject the Gospel and the Lord rejects them-Two Years of Peace-Christian Inscriptions in Rome-The Epistles of the Imprisonment to the Ephesians, the Colossians, Philemon, and the Philippians -Release of St. Paul—First and Second Epistles to Timothy and to Titus-Apprehension of Paul and Martyrdom at Rome -National Poetry the Interpreter of a Nation's Feelings- Shakspeare, Tennyson, Goldsmith-Reasonable Freedom CHAPTER I. THE PREPARATION FOR THE GOSPEL. "The Church's one foundation Is Jesus Christ her Lord; She is His new creation By water and the Word: From Heaven He came and sought her To be His holy bride, With His own blood He bought her, And for her life He died." S. J. STONE. THE first words that fall from the writer of the Acts of the Apostles reveal doctrinally a fact of the greatest interest and importance, one of which it will be our care never to lose sight throughout the whole of this work. He intimates at once that his former treatise, well understood to have been the Gospel according to St. Luke, tells of the beginning only of the Lord's acts and of His teaching: "The former treatise have I made, O Theophilus, of all that Jesus began both to do and to teach" (Acts i. 1). Here then is a first principle on which we take our stand; a principle which shall lead us to see and hear Jesus Himself in all the recorded acts of those few of His Apostles who are selected by the Holy Ghost to give future generations some knowledge of the way in which His Church was founded upon earth. Up to the Ascension, we have, then, in the Gospels a record of that which Jesus began to do and to teach. The |