In Damascus--yes:--in Damascus, where were the only persons, with whom, for the purpose of his dominion, he could with safety communicate: that is to say, persons, whom his commission from the Jerusalem authorities had placed under his power. In Arabia--yes: where, though he had made no progress of which he saw any advantage in giving any account--he at any rate had not experienced any opposition, of such a sort as to engage him to drop his scheme. In those comparatively distant countries--yes. But, in Jerusalem--the birthplace of Jesus and his religion,--in that metropolis, within which, or the near neighbourhood of it, all the witnesses of its rise and progress--all the proselytes, that had been made to it, were collected,--and from whence, and to which, the votaries of that religion, out of which it had sprung, would be continually flocking from all quarters;--in this place, for a man, known so notoriously to them all as a persecutor, in whose scheme of persecution they had all of them been involved,--for such a man to have, all on a sudden, begun preaching and acting, in the name of that Jesus, whom, to use his own language, he had persecuted--such an enterprise as this, which, even with the utmost support which it was in their power to give, would have been audacity, would, without some sort of countenance from them,--have been downright madness. To perfect success it was necessary, that not only these shepherds of the Church pasture, but, through them the whole flock, should thus be brought under management. So far as regarded those same _rulers_, we shall find him, in a certain degree,--and even, with reference to his purpose, in a sufficient degree,--successful. But, with reference to the Disciples in general, and to all those rulers but three,--it will be seen to have completely failed.