eard of His work and teaching made him feel that in
stamping out all the followers of the so-called Messiah, he would be
doing God service. But we remember how the Saviour Himself appeared to
Saul on his way to Damascus, and how his heart was changed, and his
eyes were opened.

We can scarcely imagine the transformation which came over his mind.
Together with all the other learned Jews he had considered Jesus of
Nazareth to be an impostor, and to blaspheme the words of God's Holy
Book when He applied them to Himself. Now Saul the Pharisee understood
that he and his countrymen, not Jesus of Nazareth, were at fault. As
he read the old prophesies he understood their true meaning, '_and
straightway he preached Christ in the synagogues, that He is the Son of
God._' (Acts ix. 9.)

Then the full tide of Jewish anger turned upon him. That he should
join the followers of the despised Nazarene and forsake the sacred
traditions of the Law made all the Jews scattered through the
then-known world into his bitterest enemies.

Paul, as he was afterwards called, loved his countrymen with a
passionate love. He would gladly have died for them,[1] and that he
should be unable to show them what was so clear to himself, was
certainly the greatest sorrow and disappointment of his life. But
though he was unable to help his countrymen, as a nation, God made him
the most successful missionary-traveller the world has ever known, and
to him was given the privilege of writing a large part of the New
Testament.

Before we think about his writings, however, let us look at the
condition of the great heathen cities of the world at the time when he
lived.

In the year A.D. 54, that is, twenty years after our Saviour's death
upon the cross, the Emperor Nero, who is still remembered as one of the
worst men who ever lived, began to reign in Rome.

For many years the Roman Emperors had been masters of all the
then-known nations, and for awhile they had ruled justly; but ever as
the Roman Empire increased in power and riches, the Roman rulers grew
more haughty and selfish, until at last they cared for nothing but
their own pleasures, and spent their days in drinking and feasting,
wasting enormous sums in senseless extravagance, while thousands of
their subjects starved.

A dreadful city Rome must have been in those days, though to look at
she was beautiful indeed.

A city of marble palaces, of fair white statues and green gardens; of
huge