Even in worldly matters, it is a good maxim, never to put off till to-morrow what ought to be done to-day. Infinitely more does it apply to spiritual things; to repentance, to abstaining from what we feel to be wrong, to making the sacrifice we know we ought to make, to doing the duty which we perceive we ought to do. Never let us put off such things, and thus quench the Spirit of God speaking in our hearts. If we wilfully let one opportunity slip, we may never have another given to us. There is no "season" so "convenient" for doing right as the moment in which we feel what _is_ right. Felix stifled the voice of conscience, which answered to St. Paul's teaching; and we have no reason to believe that the convenient season ever came, for, though he often talked with him after this, we hear of no good results from such meetings; nor could any good results be expected, from a course in which covetousness had so great a share; for one of the governor's motives for keeping the Apostle still in some sort as a prisoner, was the hope that he or his friends would purchase his liberty, by giving money. But Felix ought to have felt, that St. Paul would never offer a bribe, which it was very wrong for any Judge to take. However that may be, we read, "He hoped also that money should have been given him of Paul, that he might loose him: wherefore he sent for him the oftener, and communed with him." Chapter XXVI.--ST. PAUL BEFORE FESTUS. "But after two years, Porcius Festus came into Felix' room: and Felix, willing to shew the Jews a pleasure, left Paul bound." Felix might now at least have let the Apostle go, for he could no longer hope for any advantage by leaving him still a prisoner. This governor had never tried to please the Jews by a just and kind government: then he preferred pleasing himself: now, that it does not interfere with his own gratification, he was willing to do the Jews a pleasure, by committing another sin, in the detention of an innocent man, whom he well knew ought to have been set free long ago. The Bible says truly, that "the fear of man bringeth a snare," and the same may be said of the wish to please him, when we cannot do so without doing wrong or neglecting our duty.