As for Paul,--from the moment of his conversion, notwithstanding the ill success of his first attempt,--the prime object of his ambition--the situation of President of the Christian Commonwealth--had never quitted its hold on his concupiscence. Occasions, for renewing the enterprise, were still watched for with unabated anxiety:--a more favourable one than the one herein question, could not have presented itself to his fondest wishes. The entire produce, of the filial bounty of the Daughter Church, was now to be poured into the bosom of the necessitous Mother. For the self-destined head of that rising Church, two more acceptable occupations, than those which one and the same occasion brought to him, could not have been found:--First, the collection of the contributions;--and then the conveying of them, to the place of their destination. Of the labours of such agents, in such circumstances, the success, we are told, they found, was a natural result. "Then," says the Acts 11:29, 30, "Then the disciples, every one according to his ability, determined to send relief unto the brethren which dwelt in Judea:--Which also they did; and sent it to the elders by the hands of Barnabas and Saul." Thus much as to the _public_ purpose. Very different was the lot of Paul's _personal_ project. What the elders could not have any objection to the receipt of, was--the money. But, what they had an insuperable objection to, was--the receipt of the yoke of this their outwardly-converted, but once already rejected, persecutor. This second enterprise,--though still under the same powerful leader, and produced by such flattering prospects,--succeeded no better than the first. Five-and-twenty verses after, we are told of the _termination_ of this their second Jerusalem visit; and this is all we hear of it: "And Barnabas and Saul," says the Acts 12:25, "returned from Jerusalem, when they had fulfilled their ministry, and took with them John, whose surname was Mark." This same John Mark they got by their expedition: and this, for anything that appears, was all they got by it. Between the mention of their arrival at Jerusalem, and the mention of their departure from thence,--comes the episode about Peter:--his incarceration and liberation under Herod; and the extraordinary death of the royal prosecutor,--of which, in its place. As to the interval,--what the length of it was, and in what manner, by Paul, under the wing of the Son of Consolation, it was occupied,--are points, on which we are left altogether in the dark: as also, whether the _time_ of these adventures of Peter, the _mention_ of which stands inserted between the mention of the two occurrences in the history of Paul, was comprised in that same interval. FOOTNOTES: