A city of marble was Cesarea--wharves of marble, houses of marble,
temples of marble. This being the ordinary architecture of the place, you
may well imagine something of the splendor of Governor Felix’s residence.
In a room of that palace--floor tesselated, windows curtained, ceiling
fretted, the whole scene affluent with Tyrian purple, and statues, and
pictures, and carvings--sat a very dark-complexioned man by the name of
Felix, and beside him sat a woman of extraordinary beauty, whom he had
stolen by breaking up another’s domestic circle.
She was only eighteen years of age, a princess by birth, and unwittingly
waiting for her doom--that of being buried alive in the ashes and scoria
of Mount Vesuvius, which in sudden eruption, one day, put an end to her
abominations.
Well, one afternoon Drusilla, seated in the palace, weary with the
magnificent stupidities of the place, says to Felix:
“You have a very distinguished prisoner, I believe, by the name of Paul.
Do you know he is one of my countrymen? I should very much like to see
him, and I should very much like to hear him speak, for I have heard so
much about his eloquence.
“Besides that, the other day, when he was being tried in another room of
this palace, and the windows were open, I heard the applause that greeted
the speech of Lawyer Tertullus, as he denounced Paul. Now, I very much
wish I could hear Paul speak. Won’t you let me hear him speak?”
“Yes,” said Felix, “I will. I will order him up now from the guard room.”
The clank of a chain is heard coming up the marble stairway, there is a
shuffle at the door, and in comes Paul--a little old man, prematurely old
through exposure--only sixty years of age, but looking as though he were
eighty.
Paul bows very courteously before Governor Felix and the beautiful woman
by his side. They say:
“Paul, we have heard a great deal about your speaking. Give us, now, a
specimen of your eloquence.”
Oh, if there ever was a chance for a man to show off, Paul had a chance
there!
He might have harangued them about Grecian art, about the wonderful
water-works which he had seen at Corinth, about the Acropolis by
moonlight, about prison life in Philippi, about “What I Saw in
Thessalonica,” or about the old mythologies.
But, instead, Paul said to himself: “I am now on the way to martyrdom,
and this man and woman will soon be dead; so this is my only opportunity
to talk to them about the things of eternity.”
And, just there and then, there broke in upon the scene a peal of
thunder. It was the voice of Judgment Day speaking through the words of
the decrepit apostle. As the grand old missionary proceeded with his
remarks, the stoop begins to go out of his shoulders, and he rises up,
and his countenance is illumined with the glories of a future life, and
his shackles rattle and grind as he lifts his fettered arm, and with it
hurls upon his abashed auditors the bolts of God’s indignation.
Felix grew very white about the lips. His heart beat unevenly. He put his
hand to his brow, as though to stop the quickness and violence of his
thoughts. He drew his robe tighter about him, as under a sudden chill.
His eyes glare and his knees shake, and, as he clutches the side of his
chair in a very paroxysm of terror, he orders the sheriff to take Paul
back to the guard room.
“Felix trembled, and said: ‘Go thy way for this time; when I have a
convenient season, I will call for thee.’”
I propose to give you two or three reasons why I think Felix sent Paul
back to the guard room and adjourned this whole subject of religion.
The first reason was: He was unwilling to give up his sins. He looked
around; there was Drusilla. He knew that, when he became a Christian, he
must send her back to Azizus, her lawful husband; and he said to himself:
“I will risk the destruction of my immortal soul sooner than I will do
that.”
Delilah sheared the locks of Samson; Salome danced Herod into the pit;
Drusilla blocked up the way to Heaven for Felix.
Another reason why Felix sent Paul back to the guard room and adjourned
this subject was: He was so very busy. In ordinary times he found the
affairs of state absorbing, but those were extraordinary times. The whole
land was ripe for insurrection. The Sicarii, a band of assassins, were
already prowling around the palace, and I suppose he thought: “I can not
attend to religion while I am so pressed by affairs of state.” It was
business, among other things, that ruined his soul.
Aye, with thousands of the present day, it is the annoyance of the
kitchen, and the sitting room and the parlor--the wearing economy of
trying to meet large expenses with a small income. Ten thousand voices of
“business” drown the voice of the Eternal Spirit.