These companions, if, on this occasion, any such or any other companions he had, had each of them a name. To this vision, such as it was, they being each of them respectively, as well as himself, whether in the way of sight and hearing both, or in the way of sight alone, percipient witnesses, their names, in the character of so many percipient witnesses, ready upon every proper occasion to answer in the character of _reporting_ witnesses, would have been of no small use: of use, were it only for the giving to this story a little more substance than it has in the form we see it in. As to Ananias--the supposed principal actor in the scene next to Paul--for him, indeed, supposing any such person to have existed, a name, it is seen, was found. But, with a view to any purpose of evidence, how little that name amounted to, will be seen likewise. In this vision of Paul's, as it is called,--was any person seen, or anything but light--light at midday? No; positively not any person, nor as far as appears, the light excepted, anything whatsoever. Per Acts, chap. ix:8, when "his eyes were opened,"--so it is expressly said,--"he saw no man." This was after he had fallen to the earth; for it was after he arose from the earth. But, it was before he fell to the earth, and thereupon heard the voice, that, according to this same account, he saw the extra light--the light created for the purpose: and, forasmuch as at the conclusion of the dialogue with the five speeches in it--forasmuch as at the conclusion of it, such was the effect produced upon him by the light, as to render him at that time stone-blind, requiring to be led by the hand, it could not from the first have been anything less effective. Per Acts, in this state he continues all the way as far as Damascus, and for three days after his arrival there. So likewise in the supposed unstudied speech, Paul 1st. But in the studied speech, Paul 2d, there is no blindness; the blindness is either forgotten or discarded. But the curious circumstance is, his being led by the hand--all the way to Damascus led by the hand:--led by the hand by these same companions. Now these same companions, how was it that they were able to lead him by the hand? All that he saw was the light, and by that light he was blinded. But all that he saw they saw: this same light they saw as well as he. This same light, then, by which he was blinded--were they not blinded likewise by it? Was it a privilege--a privilege reserved for a chosen favourite--a privilege which it cost a miracle to produce--the being blinded when nobody else was blinded? Blinded then as they were, how came he to be led by them, any more than they by him? Can the blind lead the blind? Let Jesus answer. Shall they not both fall into the ditch?