In the Regions Beyond
145
Starting up in alarm, he saw with dismay that all the prison doors
were open, and the fear flashed upon him that the prisoners had es-
caped. He remembered with what explicit charge Paul and Silas had
been entrusted to his care the night before, and he was certain that
death would be the penalty of his apparent unfaithfulness. In the bit-
terness of his spirit he felt that it was better for him to die by his own
hand than to submit to a disgraceful execution. Drawing his sword, he
was about to kill himself, when Paul’s voice was heard in the words
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of cheer, “Do thyself no harm: for we are all here.” Every man was in
his place, restrained by the power of God exerted through one fellow
prisoner.
The severity with which the jailer had treated the apostles had not
aroused their resentment. Paul and Silas had the spirit of Christ, not
the spirit of revenge. Their hearts, filled with the love of the Saviour,
had no room for malice against their persecutors.
The jailer dropped his sword and, calling for lights, hastened into
the inner dungeon. He would see what manner of men these were
who repaid with kindness the cruelty with which they had been treated.
Reaching the place where the apostles were, and casting himself before
them, he asked their forgiveness. Then, bringing them out into the
open court, he inquired, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?”
The jailer had trembled as he beheld the wrath of God manifested in
the earthquake; when he thought that the prisoners had escaped he had
been ready to die by his own hand; but now all these things seemed of
little consequence compared with the new, strange dread that agitated
his mind, and his desire to possess the tranquillity and cheerfulness
shown by the apostles under suffering and abuse. He saw in their
countenances the light of heaven; he knew that God had interposed in
a miraculous manner to save their lives; and with peculiar force the
words of the spirit-possessed woman came to his mind: “These men
are the servants of the most high God, which show unto us the way of
salvation.”
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With deep humility he asked the apostles to show him the way of
life. “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy
house,” they answered; and “they spake unto him the word of the Lord,
and to all that were in his house.” The jailer then washed the wounds
of the apostles and ministered to them, after which he was baptized by
them, with all his household. A sanctifying influence diffused itself