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Sketches from the Life of Paul
to be fastened by his head in the pillory, and to be scourged to death.
The monster who had delighted to inflict upon Christians the most
inhuman torture, shrank with horror at the mere thought of enduring
like torture himself. He seized a dagger, and again endeavored to nerve
himself to plunge it into his heart; but the prick of the instrument was
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all that he could endure. As he threw it aside with a groan of despair,
horsemen were heard approaching. His retreat was discovered; a few
moments, and he would be in the power of his enemies. Terrified
alike at the thought of torture and suicide, he still hesitated, and was
compelled at last to let a slave help his trembling hand force a dagger
into his throat. Thus perished the tyrant Nero, at the early age of
thirty-two.
God in his infinite mercy bears long with the transgressors of his
law. In the days of Abraham he declared that the idolatrous Amorites
should still be spared until the fourth generation; for their iniquity was
not yet full, and he could not give command for their destruction. For
more than four hundred years he spared them, but when, instead of
turning to repentance, they hardened their hearts in iniquity, and made
war upon his people, their day of probation closed, and the mandate
went forth for their utter extinction. With unerring accuracy, the Infinite
One keeps a record of the impiety of nations and individuals. Long is
his mercy tendered to them, with calls to repentance; but when their
guilt reaches a certain limit, which he has fixed, then mercy ceases her
pleadings, and the ministration of wrath begins.
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