I think it a happy circumstance that, in this Church, placed, as it is, under the patronage of the great names of St. Peter and St. Paul, the special feast days of these two Apostles (for such we may account the 29th of June as regards St. Peter, and to-day as regards St. Paul) should, in 5 the first year of our assembling here, each have fallen on a Sunday. And now that we have arrived, through God's protecting Providence, at the latter of these two days, the Conversion of St. Paul, I do not like to forego the opportunity, 10 with whatever misgivings as to my ability, of offering to you, my brethren, at least a few remarks upon the wonderful work of God's creative grace mercifully presented to our inspection in the person of this great Apostle. Most unworthy 15 of him, I know, is the best that I can say; and even that best I cannot duly exhibit in the space of time allowed me on an occasion such as this; but what is said out of devotion to him, and for the Divine glory, will, I trust, have its use, 20 defective though it be, and be a plea for his favorable notice of those who say it, and be graciously accepted by his and our Lord and Master. Now, since I have begun by contrasting St. Paul with St. John, and by implying that St. 25 John lived a life more simply supernatural than St. Paul, I may seem to you, my brethren, to be speaking to St. Paul's disparagement; and you may therefore ask me whether it is possible for any Saint on earth to have a more intimate 30 communion with the Divine Majesty than was granted to St. Paul. You may remind me of his own words, "I live, now not I, but Christ liveth in me; and, that I now live in the flesh, I live in the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and delivered Himself for me." And you may refer to 5 his most astonishing ecstasies and visions; as when he was rapt even to the third heaven, and heard sacred words, which it "is not granted to man to utter." You may say, he "no way came short" of St. John in his awful initiation into the 10 mysteries of the kingdom of heaven. Certainly you may say so; nor am I imagining anything contrary to you. We indeed cannot compare Saints; but I agree with you, that St. Paul was visited by favors, equal, in our apprehensions, to 15 those which were granted to St. John. But then, on the other hand, neither was St. John behind St. Paul in these tokens of Divine love. In truth, these tokens are some of those very things which, in a greater or less degree, belong to all Saints 20 whatever, as I said when I began; whereas my question just now is, not what are those points in which St. Paul agrees with all other Saints, but what is his distinguished mark, how we recognize