He decided to go to Arabia for his period of quiet and of meditation. Perhaps he went, as Moses had gone, to Sinai, or to some other region of this strange, mysterious land of wilderness, mountains and deserts. He has not told us a word about his life in Arabia and none of his friends has given us any reports of these months of solitude and meditation. To-day, if any man wished to prepare for a great career of ministry or missionary service, he would go to some college or university or seminary or training school and learn how to do the work which lay before him, and he would train his body with games of skill and athletic courses, so as to be at his very best in mind and heart and body. Saul had nothing of this sort open to him. He had finished his years of study but they only prepared him to be a Jewish Rabbi, a teacher of the law. Now he wanted to learn how to tell the world the full message, the good news, which Jesus had brought to men. There was no school where this was taught. There were no Christian colleges or universities or seminaries yet. There were only a few followers of Jesus. Most of them lived in Jerusalem, and they were ignorant people—fishermen, and tax-collectors—who had had no chance to study. The best thing Saul could do was, therefore, to go away alone and read and think and let God teach him. At first he supposed that the good news which Jesus had brought was for his own people alone but as he meditated and studied and listened he began to see that God’s love reached everybody and that the great Galilean had come to bring new life to all people in the world. It was many years perhaps before Saul fully realised all that this meant, but I think he began to see it in Arabia. Another thing kept coming before him all the time. He was eager to find out why Jesus had died on the cross, why He had suffered, and what it all meant. That also took years of thought before he understood it, but here in the quiet of the mountains he began to _see_. How we wish he had written some letters from Arabia and told what he was doing and thinking! If he had only written to his mother once a week, or even once a month, and she had preserved the letters, how eagerly we would read them now! But there is not a word about it all. We only know that in the stillness his spirit was gathering power and his soul was growing richer. At last he felt that he was “ready.” This is one of his great words—“I am now ready.” The time of quiet was over and the busy life must begin. He felt sure he could make everybody believe in his Christ. It was all so plain and wonderful that people would be bound to listen as he told them what he had seen and known and felt! He decided to go back to Damascus and begin there—near the place where he had first seen Jesus and where the great change in his life had come.