rst persecutions of the Christians began, Saul, for
that was his name then, was chosen by the high priest for this work.
Everything he did, he did with his might. He gave the Christians no
rest, he hunted them from village to village, from house to house,
because he thought this was his duty. He was on one of these
expeditions, riding hard to Damascus, when he had a vision of Jesus, who
called to him and demanded the reason for the persecutions. Blinded by
the vision he fell from his horse, and when he came to himself he was a
changed man. Some time he spent in solitude, thinking the matter out and
preparing for the new life. Then he came out ready to do anything and go
anywhere for the Master. The time was ripe for a man of his ability, his
boldnesss, and his knowledge of the world. A man was needed with those
qualities which make a great general, to plan and execute the work. All
the apostles were Jews, born in Palestine, men who had never traveled
outside the narrow boundaries of their native land. They were naturally
timid, and failed to realize at first the importance of the new faith as
a {369} world power. Paul was the man for the crisis,--the hero who was
destined to carry the new faith to the farther bounds of the empire. His
great missionary journeys by land and sea are really campaigns. He had
adventures without number, he was beaten and stoned, sometimes he was
left on the ground for dead by those who thought they had at last put
him out of the way. Often he went on his journey scarred and sore and
bruised. The country over which he traveled is the most interesting and
romantic in the world, the scene of the stories of mythology, the battle
ground of armies. He sailed the seas which were furrowed by the keel of
Homer's hero Ulysses. He visited the famous capitals of antiquity. He
spoke in cultured Athens, the city of Socrates and Plato. He founded
churches in Philippi, where Caesar won his great battle, and in Corinth,
one of the richest and wickedest cities of all the Roman empire. He went
to Rome, and there, even while in prison, he won for the new faith
members of the royal household and officers of the imperial guard. We do
not know certainly, but there are traditions to the effect that he
visited Spain, and even found his way far beyond the "Pillars of
Hercules" out upon the stormy Atlantic to Great Britain. It must not be
supposed that he met with no opposition. Even among the members of the
Christian ch