It is a fact that when the time came for the opening of the kingdom of heaven to the Gentiles, it was the apostle Peter who had the honor of performing this important act. He was the first minister of Christ who ever preached the gospel to a Gentile, and made to him the offer of eternal life. He did this when he preached to Cornelius, the Roman centurion, and received him into the church by baptism. We read about this great event in the tenth chapter of the Acts. It is a fact that, after this, Peter was put in prison by Herod, who was persecuting the Christians. He had just put the apostle James to death and intended to do the same with Peter. But his friends united in earnest prayer to God for him; and God sent an angel, who struck off his chains, opened the prison door, and set him free. Acts xii: 1-20. After this we have no clear account of the ministry of St. Peter. We only know that he spent the rest of his life in going about from place to place, preaching the blessed gospel of the great Master whom he loved so well. It is a fact, however, that he wrote the two epistles which bear his name and which have been such a comfort and blessing to the church for more than eighteen centuries. And then, the last fact in his history is that he suffered martyrdom, by crucifixion, in the city of Rome. We have no definite information about the time when this event took place, or about the particulars connected with it. It is generally believed that the death of St. Peter occurred about the same time as that of the apostle Paul; and, that they both took place during the persecution that arose under the cruel and bloody emperor Nero. The tradition is that when St. Peter came to the place of execution, he requested to be crucified with his head downwards, because he felt that he was not worthy to suffer in the same way in which his great Master was put to death. Here we have woven together more than twenty facts that make up the history of the apostle Peter. _The next thing for us to do is to notice some of the more important lessons taught us by this history._ _The first lesson we may learn from the history of this apostle is, about—THE DANGER OF SELF-CONFIDENCE._