I am now ready to be offered, and the time of my departure is at hand. I have fought a good fight; I have finished my course; I have kept the faith. Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day; and not to me only, but unto all them also that love his appearing.--2 Tim. iv. 6-8. I go back eighteen centuries and a half into the past, and find myself in a grand old Syrian city. About midday I ride out at a western gate along a great highway looking toward a picturesque group of mountains. Straight before me towers the white head of Hermon, like that of a patriarch amidst his children. On my right and left are groves and gardens and smiling villas, a paradise of verdure and beauty, as far as the eye can reach. On this road marched Abraham two thousand years before me, and Jacob returning from Padan-Aram, and Jonah going to Nineveh, and all Israel in chains to Babylon. Enough, surely, in these objects, to stir the dullest brain and kindle the coldest heart. Thus occupied, my attention is suddenly arrested by a troop of horsemen riding briskly toward the city. Their leader is a young man, of rather low stature, with keen black eye, and stern and determined aspect. A single look is sufficient to assure me that he is no common man, and here on no common errand. It is the tiger of Tarsus, in fierce pursuit of some of the lambs of the Good Shepherd. A few Christians from Jerusalem, driven out by persecution, have come hither for refuge; and Saul, with full authority, self-solicited, is on their track, "breathing out threatening and slaughter." You know the rest. Blessed be the lightning-stroke that consecrated what it smote, and made the bold persecutor the bravest apostle of the Crucified!