PAUL’S FIRST PRAYER

GOD has many methods of quenching persecution. He will not allow His church to be injured by its enemies, or overwhelmed by its foes. And He is not short of means for turning aside the way of the wicked, or of turning it upside down. In two ways He usually accomplishes His end—sometimes by the confusion of the persecutor and at others in a more blessed manner, by his conversion. Sometimes He confuses and confounds His enemies—He makes the diviner mad. He lets the man who comes against Him be utterly destroyed, allows him to drive on to his own destruction and then, at last, turns round in triumphant derision upon the man who hoped to have said aha! aha! to the church of God. But at other times, as in this case, He converts the persecutor.