Such is the colour, put upon the matter by the author of the Acts. Now, what is the truth--the manifest and necessary truth, as related--explicitly related--by Paul himself? related, in the second of his letters to his Corinthians, on an occasion when the truth would be more to his purpose than the false gloss put upon it by his adherents as above? The peril, by which he was driven thus to make his escape, was--not a murderous conspiracy, formed against him by a set of individuals provoked by his preaching;--it was the intention, formed by the governor of the city. Intention? to do what? to put him to death against law? No; but to "_apprehend_" him. To apprehend him? for what? Evidently for the purpose of bringing him to justice in the regular way--whatsoever was the regular way--for the offence he had so recently committed: committed, by betraying his trust, and entering into a confederacy with the offenders, whom he had been commissioned, and had engaged, to occupy himself, in concert with the constituted authorities of the place, in bringing to justice. "In Damascus," says he, 2 Cor. xi. 32, 33, "the governor under Aretas the king kept the city of the Damascenes with a garrison, desirous to apprehend me. And through a window in a basket was I let down by the wall, and escaped his hands." And on what _occasion_ is it, that this account of the matter is given by him? It is at the close of a declamation, which occupies ten verses--a declamation, the object of which is--to impress upon the minds of his adherents the idea of his merits: viz. those which consisted in labour, suffering, and perils: merits, on which he places his title to the preference he claims above the competitors to whom he alludes:--alludes, though without naming them: they being, as he acknowledges therein, ministers of Christ, and probably enough, if not any of them Apostles, persons commissioned by the Apostles. Greater, it is evident, must have been the danger from the ruling powers of the place, than from a set of individual intended murderers:--from the power of the rulers there could not be so much as a hope of salvation, except by escape: from the individuals there would be a naturally sufficient means of salvation; the power of the rulers presenting a means of salvation, and that naturally a sufficient one.