Supposing this story to have had any foundation in fact,--of the appearance of blindness thus exhibited, where shall we look for the cause? In a suspension of the laws of nature, performed by the author of nature, to no other assignable end, than the conversion of this Roman governor? At no greater expense, than that of a speech from this same Paul, the conversion of a king,--King Agrippa--if the author of the Acts is to be believed, was nearly effected. "Almost," says Agrippa, "thou hast persuaded me to become a Christian." So often as God is represented, as operating in a direct--however secret and mysterious--manner, upon the heart, _i.e._, the mind, of this and that man,--while the accounts given of the suspension of the laws of nature are comparatively so few--to speak in that sort of human language, in which alone the nature of the case admits of our speaking, if the expense of a miracle were not grudged,--might not, in the way above mentioned, by a much less lavish use of supernatural power, the same effect have been produced? viz., by a slight influence, exercised on the heart of governor Paulus? Whatsoever may have been the real state of the case,--thus much seems pretty clear, viz., that at this time of day, to a person whose judgment on the subject should have, for its ground, the nature of the human mind as manifested by experience,--another mode of accounting for the appearance in question will be apt to present itself as much more probable. That is--that, by an understanding between Paul and Elymas--between the ex-persecutor and the sorcerer--the sorcerer, in the view of all persons, in whose instance it was material that credence should be given to the supposed miracle,--for and during "_the season_" that was thought requisite, kept his eyes shut. The sorcerer was a Jew:--Paul was also a Jew. Between them here was already one indissoluble bond of connection and channel of intercourse. Elymas, by trade a sorcerer, _i.e._, an impostor--a person of the same trade with Simon Magus, by whom so conspicuous a figure is cut in the chapter of this history--was a sort of person, who, on the supposition of an adequate motive, could not naturally feel any greater repugnance, at the idea of practicing imposition, at so easy a rate as that of keeping his eyes shut, than at the idea of practicing it, in any of the shapes to which he had been accustomed:--shapes, requiring more dexterity, and some, by which he would be more or less exposed, to that detection, from which, in the mode here in question, it would be altogether secure.