Arriving there, he laid his hand on Saul, saying that God had sent him that he might receive once more his sight and be filled with the Holy Ghost; and at once, by the power of the Almighty, he was blind no longer, and, by the direction of Ananias, he received baptism, and avowed himself from henceforth to be among the followers of Christ. {23} Having recovered his strength, Saul entered the Jewish synagogue in Damascus to proclaim the message of the Son of God whom he had before rejected and despised, and the people there asked each other in amazement if this could be he who had come to the city as the enemy of Christians. Their surprise served only to animate Saul with still greater zeal in preaching that the promised Messiah, so long expected, had really dwelt upon the earth in the person of Jesus of Nazareth, the crucified God. Shortly after his conversion, Saul travelled into the desert regions of Arabia, to fit himself by prayer and solitude for his future work; to learn those lessons of self-knowledge and self-distrust, without which no active work can be done for God's sole glory; and--separated from the business of this world--to hold communion with his Creator. {24} Three years of silence and retirement--years in which the once well-known Pharisee was almost forgotten by the crowd who had followed him in his old days of influence and power--and then Saul came forth to do his Master's work imbued with those deep principles of spiritual life which should sustain and guide him in the arduous labours which he was about to undertake on his return to Damascus, and the Jewish people there. But just as fiercely, just as deeply as Saul had once hated the holy Stephen, so did the Jews in the city hate and resolve to destroy him. A plot was laid for his apprehension, and three men were stationed at the different gates of Damascus in order to slay him if he should try to escape; but his friends placed him in one of the large, strong baskets common in the East, and let him down by ropes from the window of a house close to the city wall; and thus freed he made his way to Jerusalem. {25} Arrived there, Saul asked eagerly for the disciples of Jesus, but they were afraid that he only sought to betray them; for, although three years had passed since his conversion, it had not become known in Jerusalem, and neither St. Peter nor St. James, who were there, believed that Saul was a Christian. It was a fresh humiliation for that proud, lofty nature to be thus mistrusted and rejected by Christ's own Apostles, but it served to deepen his contrition for his former bitter persecution of the Church. One friend was raised up for him in St. Barnabas, who, remembering the honour and distinction which had attended Saul's departure from Jerusalem, pitied him in this humiliating return, and undertook to make known the wonderful story of his change of heart to the other Apostles. {26}