him as a madman, an infidel, an enemy.  To an affectionate man, and St. Paul was an extremely affectionate man, what a bitter struggle that must have cost him.  But he faced that struggle, and conquered in it, like a brave and honest man.  And the consequence was, that he had, in time, and after many lonely years, many Christian friends for each Jewish friend that he had lost; and to him was fulfilled (as it will be to all men) our Lord’s great saying, ’There is no man that hath left house, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands for my sake, and the gospel’s, but he shall receive an hundredfold now in this time, . . . and in the world to come eternal life.’

Next; we may take comfort, in the hope that God will not impute to us these early follies and mistakes of ours; if only there be in us, as there was in St. Paul, the honest and good heart; that is, the heart which longs to know what is true and right, and bravely acts up to what it knows.  St. Paul did so.  God, when he set him apart, as he says, from his very birth, gave him a great grace, even the honest and good heart; and he was true to it, and used it.  He tried to learn his best, and do his best.  He profited in the Jews’ religion, beyond all his fellows.  He was, touching the righteousness which was in the law, blameless.  He was so zealous for what he thought right, that he persecuted the Church of Christ, as the Pharisees, his teachers, had taught him to do.  In all things, whether right or wrong in each particular case, he was an honest, earnest seeker after truth and righteousness.  And therefore Christ, instead of punishing him, fulfilled to him his own great saying,—­’To him that hath shall be given, and he shall have abundance.’  He had not yet, as he himself says, again and again, the grace of Christ, which is love to his fellow-men; and therefore his works were not pleasing to God, and had, as the article says, the nature of sin.  His empty forms and ceremonies could not please God.  His persecuting the Church had plainly the nature of sin.  But there was something which God had put in him, and which God would not lose sight of, or suffer to be lost; and that was, the honest and good heart, of which our Lord speaks in the parable of the sower.  In that Christ sowed the word of God, even himself, and his grace and Holy Spirit; and, behold, it sprang up and bore fruit a hundredfold, over all Christian nations to this day.

Keep, therefore, if you have it, the honest and good heart.  If you have it not, pray for it earnestly.  Determine to learn what is true, whatever be the trouble; and to do what is right, whatever be the cost; and then, though you may make many mistakes, and have more than once, perhaps, to change your mind in shame and confusion, yet all will come right at last, for the grace of Christ, sooner or later, will lead you into all truth which you require for this world and all worlds to come.