“He reasoned,” in short, “of judgment to come.”  And here he would magnify his ministry.  When our discourses are regarded as connected only with the present period, their force, I grant, is of no avail.  We speak for a Master who has left us clothed with infirmities, which discover no illustrious marks of Him by whom we are sent.  We have only our voice, only our exhortations, only our entreaties.  Nature is not averted at our pleasure.  The visitations of Heaven do not descend at our command to punish your indolence and revolts:  that power was very limited, even to the apostle.  The idea of a future state, the solemnities of a general judgment, supply our weakness, and St. Paul enforced this motive; he proved its reality, he delineated its luster, he displayed its pomp.  He resounded in the ears of Felix the noise, the voices, the trumpets.  He showed him the small and the great, the rich man and Lazarus, Felix the favorite of Caesar, and Paul the captive of Felix, awakened by that awful voice:  “Arise, ye dead, and come to judgment.”

But not to be precipitate in commending the apostle’s preaching.  Its encomiums will best appear by attending to its effects on the mind of Felix.  St. Jerome wished, concerning a preacher of his time, that the tears of his audience might compose the eulogy of his sermons.  We shall find in the tears of Felix occasion to applaud the eloquence of our apostle.  We shall find that his discourses were thunder and lightning in the congregation, as the Greeks used to say concerning one of their orators.  While St. Paul preached, Felix felt I know not what agitations in his mind.  The recollection of his past life; the sight of his present sins; Drusilla, the object of his passion and subject of his crime; the courage of St. Paul—­all terrified him.  His heart burned while that disciple of Jesus Christ expounded the Scriptures.  The word of God was quick and powerful.  The apostle, armed with the two-edged sword, divided the soul, the joints, and the marrow, carried conviction to the heart.  Felix trembled, adds our historian, Felix trembled!  The fears of Felix are our second reflection.

What a surprizing scene, my brethren, is here presented to your view.  The governor trembled, and the captive spoke without dismay.  The captive made the governor tremble.  The governor shuddered in the presence of the captive.  It would not be surprizing, brethren, if we should make an impression on your hearts (and we shall do so, indeed, if our ministry is not, as usual, a sound of empty words); it would not be surprizing if we should make some impression on the hearts of our hearers.  This sanctuary, these solemnities, these groans, this silence, these arguments, these efforts,—­all aid our ministry, and unite to convince and persuade you.  But here is an orator destitute of these extraneous aids:  behold him without any ornament but the truth he preached.  What do I say? that he was destitute of extraneous aids?  See him in a situation