patient hearing from the king, the Apostle continued, "My manner of life from my youth, which was at first among mine own nation at Jerusalem" (where he was brought up at the feet of Gamaliel), "know all the Jews; which knew me from the beginning, if they would testify, that after the most straitest sect of our religion I lived a Pharisee. And now I stand and am judged for the hope of the promise made of God unto our fathers: unto which promise our twelve tribes, instantly serving God day and night, hope to come. For which hope's sake, king Agrippa, I am accused of the Jews." The "promise" here spoken of, was that made by God Himself to Abraham and the patriarchs, and repeated more plainly by the prophets, that the Messiah should come upon earth, and by His rising from the dead, prove the truth of the promise of a future life for all men. This promise had always been believed, and its fulfilment looked for, by all true Israelites. So far, then, there was no difference of opinion. But the Apostle had been convinced, by unmistakable signs, that the promise was fulfilled in Jesus Christ. For declaring that Jesus of Nazareth was the Messiah, the hope of Israel, for whom the twelve tribes had ever been looking, and that He had risen from the dead according to the promise, St. Paul was "accused" and persecuted by the Jews: some denying that there could be any resurrection at all; others, who allowed that, denying that Jesus Christ had risen. Agrippa as a Jew ought to have learnt from all the wonderful things that had been done for his forefathers, that with God nothing was impossible; whilst his study of the Jewish Scriptures should have taught him, that the Resurrection was more than a possibility. St. Paul now, therefore, speaking to him as a Jew, asks, "Why should it be thought a thing incredible with you, that God should raise the dead?" The doctrine of the Resurrection--or rather the great Truth that Jesus Christ had really risen from the dead--was the one especial point of St. Paul's teaching: because all by whom that was once acknowledged, could not fail to see, that He was indeed the promised Messiah, worthy of all the love and service His creatures could give Him.