Excerpt from The Biblical Illustrator, or Anecdotes, Similes, Emblems, Illustrations, Vol. 2: Expository, Scientific, Geographical, Historical, and Homiletic, Gathered From a Wide Range of Home and Foreign Literature, on the Verses of the Bible

Disciplea - Saul, a persecutork - Saul was an educated young man, and that he should engage in the work of persecution strikes us as anomalous and unnatural. In young men we naturally expect a frank concession of freedom to think and generous and chivalrous impulses. We are not much surprised when we find in tolerance as men advance in life, for age is conservative, and may be narrow and bigoted. Young men are often sceptical and unsettled in their notion they ques tion the correctness of opinions long held to be true, and employ t emselves in adjusting new discoveries to received truths. But the very nature of this process tends to make them liberal, for they cannot deny to others the liberty they claim for themselves. Old men, however, are confirmed believers or unbelievers; and hate to be opposed or unsettled. Hence we are not surprised that the Sanhedrin should be composed in a great part of elders, nor that the principal functionaries of the holy office, should be men of advanced years. Yet few men, young or old, have been so furious in persecution as was Saul (chaps. Viii. 8; xxii. 4; xxvi. 9 - 11; Gal. I. 13; 1 Tim. I. 13; 1 Cor. Xv. 1. Tim psnvansncn or pnasnou'rron. The manner in which new views have been received is one of the most remarkable things in history. The public tears of Pericles were necessary to save Aspasia, suspected of philosophy; but all his eloquence could not save Anaxagoras for having taught that there was an intelligent cause of all things. Socrates was put to death for teaching the same thing. Aristotle only saved his life by flight in order, as he said, to save the Athenians a new crime against philosophy. Plato was twice thrown into prison, and once sold as a slave. Galileo was imprisoned for maintaining that the sun is the centre of the universe. The Saviour was cruci fied, and in almost every country His religion has encountered opposition and secured a triumph only as the result of a baptism of blood and fire. II. He causes. 1. The war of Opinion. A man's Opinions are a part of himself, and become as dear as life or liberty. They are the measure of his reputation and' influence, and are the result of all his experience and studies. To attack them is, therefore, to attack him; to overthrow them is to take away all that constitutes his claim to notice while living, or to remembrance when dead. This remark has additional force, if the matter is connected with religion. To attack this is to assail that which must be dearest of all to the heart of man, inasmuch as it may leave man in aworld indisputably wretched with no hope of a better. Religious opinions, therefore, have been among the slowest to make progress; the strife in regard to them has been the most bitter; and freedom of religious speech has been among the last of the victories secured by the conflicts of past ages. 2. Vested interests. There are institutions, endowments, orders of men, customs and usages, that grow out of forms of doctrine. All the religions of ancient and most of modern times were sustained by law. Rome indeed recognised those of other nations, but then it was a principle that while each country recognised the rest, it allowed no attack on its own. When, therefore, Christianity attacked all forms of idolatry, it arrayed against itself all the malice of a mighty priesthood, and all the power of the State; and the result is well known. 3. The sanction given by religion to the corruptions of the human heart. The plan of the Prince of darkness has been to 1.

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