charged Paul with offenses which it is said they could not prove. When Festus asked him whether he would go to Jerusalem to be tried by him, Paul replied that he ought to be tried at Cæsar's judgment-seat, as he had done the Jews no wrong, and that he appealed to Cæsar. The policy of this appeal was questionable, for after a time Festus was visited by King Agrippa, to whom he related the facts of the case; and the king, having heard the statement of the prisoner himself, declared that he might have been set at liberty had he not appealed to Cæsar (Acts xxv. xxvi).
Paul therefore was now sent with a gang of prisoners to Rome, on the way to which the ship he was in was wrecked off the island of Melita, where the winter months were accordingly passed. Here he cured numerous inhabitants of diseases, and received high honors in consequence. After three months an Alexandrine vessel conveyed the shipwrecked company to the capital. Arrived at Rome, Paul summoned the Jews to come to the house where, guarded by a soldier, he was allowed to live, and endeavored to convert them. Meeting with indifferent success, he dismissed them with insulting words drawn from Isaiah, and roundly informed them that the salvation of God was now sent to the Gentiles, and that these would hear it (Acts xxvii. xxviii). What was the ultimate fate of this great teacher of Christianity, whether his case was ever heard, and if so, how it was decided; whether he lived a prisoner, or was set free, or died a martyr, we have no historical information, and it is useless, in the absence of evidence, to attempt to conjecture.
Subdivision 2.—The Epistles.
In the epistles which have been preserved to us, and which are no doubt but a few rescued from a much larger correspondence, the apostolic authors enforce upon their respective converts or congregations the doctrines of Christianity as understood by them. They explain the relation of Jesus to the Jewish law; they inculcate morality; they reply to objections; they hold out the prospect of the speedy revolution which they expect. Since their opinions on all the topics upon which they touch cannot, within the limits of a general treatise, be dis-
