Trial at Caesarea
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words were true. Memory went back over the guilty past. With terrible
distinctness came up before him the secrets of his early life of lust
and bloodshed, and the black record of his later years,—licentious,
cruel, rapacious, unjust, steeped with the blood of private murders and
public massacres. Never before had the truth been thus brought home
to his heart. Never before had his soul been thus filled with terror. The
thought that all the secrets of his career of crime were open before the
eye of God, and that he must be judged according to his deeds, caused
him to tremble with guilty dread.
But instead of permitting his convictions to lead him to repentance,
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he eagerly sought to dismiss these disagreeable reflections. The in-
terview with Paul was cut short. “Go thy way for this time,” he said,
“when I have a convenient season, I will call for thee.”
How wide the contrast between the course of Felix and that of the
jailer of Philippi! The servants of the Lord were brought in bonds to the
jailer, as was Paul to Felix. The evidence they gave of being sustained
by a divine power, their rejoicing under suffering and disgrace, their
fearless calmness when the earth was reeling with the earthquake’s
shock, and their spirit of Christlike forgiveness, sent conviction to the
jailer’s heart. He did not, like Felix, banish these convictions, but
with trembling and in deep humility inquired the way of salvation;
and having learned the way, he walked in it, with all his house. Felix
trembled, but did not repent; the jailer with trembling confessed his
sins and found pardon. Felix bade the Spirit of God depart; the jailer
joyfully welcomed it to his heart and to his house. The one cast his lot
with the workers of iniquity; the other chose to become a child of God
and an heir of Heaven.
For two years no further action was taken against Paul, yet he
remained a prisoner. Felix several times visited him, and listened at-
tentively to his words. But the real motive for this apparent friendliness
was a desire for gain, and he intimated to Paul that by the payment of a
large sum of money he might secure his release. The apostle, however,
was of too noble a nature to free himself by a bribe. He was innocent
of all crime, and he would not stoop to evade the law. Furthermore,
he was himself too poor to pay such a ransom, had he been disposed
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to do so, and he would not, in his own behalf, appeal to the sympathy
and generosity of his converts. He also felt that he was in the hands of