If it had been a mere optical illusion on the road to Damascus, was not Paul just the man to find it out? If it had been a sham and pretense, would he not have pricked the bubble? He was a man of facts and arguments, of the most gigantic intellectual nature, and not a man of hallucinations; and when I see him fall from the saddle, blinded and overwhelmed, I say there must have been something in it. I have been reading this morning, in my New Testament, of a Mediterranean voyage in an Alexandrian ship. It was in the month of November. On board that vessel were two distinguished passengers--one, Josephus, the historian, as we have strong reasons to believe; the other, a convict, one Paul by name, who was going to prison for upsetting things--or, as they termed it, “turning the world upside down.” This convict had gained the confidence of the captain. Indeed, I think that Paul knew almost as much about the sea as did the captain. He had been shipwrecked three times already, and had dwelt much of his life amid capstans, yardarms, cables and storms, and he knew what he was talking about. Seeing the equinoctial storm was coming, and perhaps noticing something unseaworthy in the vessel, he advised the captain to stay in the harbor. But I heard the captain and the first mate talking together. They say, in effect: “We can not afford to take the advice of this landsman, and he a minister. He may be able to preach very well, but I do not believe he knows a marlinespike from a luff tackle. All aboard! Cast off! Shift the helm for headway. Who fears the Mediterranean?” They had gone only a little way out when a whirlwind, called Euroclydon, made the torn sail its turban, shook the mast as you would brandish a spear, and tossed the hulk into the heavens. Overboard with the cargo! It is all washed with salt water and worthless now, and there are no marine insurance companies. All hands, ahoy, and out with the anchors! Great consternation comes on crew and passengers. The sea monsters snort in the foam, and the billows clap their hands in glee of destruction. In the lull of the storm I hear a chain clank. It is the chain of the great apostle as he walks the deck or holds fast to the rigging amid the lurching of the ship. The spray drips from his long beard as Paul cries out to the crew, in tones of confidence: “Now, I exhort you to be of good cheer, for there shall be no loss of any man’s life among you, but of the ship. For there stood by me this night the angel of God--whose I am and whom I serve--saying: ‘Fear not, Paul. Thou must be brought before Cæsar; and lo, God hath given thee all them that sail with thee.’” Fourteen days have passed, and there is no abatement of the storm. It is midnight. Standing on the lookout, the man peers into the darkness, and, by a flash of lightning, sees the long white line of breakers, and knows they must be coming near to some country, and fears that in a few moments the vessel will be shivered on the rocks.