The Book of Missionary Heroes | Page 6

not harm yourself," shouted Paul. "We are all here."
"Torches! Torches!" yelled the jailor.
The jailor, like all the people of his land, believed that earthquakes were sent by God. He thought he was lost. He turned to Paul and Silas who, he knew, were teachers about God.
"Sirs," he said, falling in fear on the ground, "what must I do to be saved?"
"Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ," they replied, "and you and your household will all be saved."
The jailor's wife then brought some oil and water, and the jailor washed the poor wounded backs of Paul and Silas and rubbed healing oil into them.
The night was now passing and the sun began to rise. There was a tramp of feet. The lictors who had thrashed Paul and Silas marched to the door of the prison with an order to free them. The jailor was delighted.
"The pr?tors have sent to set you free," he said. "Come out then and go in peace."
He had the greatest surprise in his life when, instead of going, Paul turned and said:
"No, indeed! The pr?tors flogged us in public in the Forum and without a trial--flogged Roman citizens! They threw us publicly into prison, and now they are going to get rid of us secretly. Let the pr?tors come here themselves and take us out!"
Surely it was the boldest message ever sent to the powerful pr?tors. But Paul knew what he was doing, and when the Roman pr?tors heard the message they knew that he was right. They would be ruined if it were reported at Rome that they had publicly flogged Roman citizens without trial.
Their prisoner, Paul, was now their judge. They climbed down from their marble seats and walked on foot to the prison to plead with Paul and Silas to leave the prison and not to tell against them what had happened.
"Will you go away from the city?" they asked. "We are afraid of other riots."
So Paul and Silas consented. But they went to the house where Lydia lived--the home in which they had been staying in Philippi.
Paul cheered up the other Christian folk--Lydia and Luke and Timothy--and told them how the jailor and his wife and family had all become Christians.
"Keep the work of spreading the message here in Philippi going strongly," said Paul to Luke and Timothy. "Be cheerfully prepared for trouble." And then he and Silas, instead of going back to their own land, went out together in the morning light of the early winter of A.D. 50, away along the Western road over the hills to face perils in other cities in order to carry the Good News to the people of the West.
_The Trail of the Hero-Scout._
So Paul the dauntless pioneer set his brave face westwards, following the long trail across the Roman Empire--the hero-scout of Christ. Nothing could stop him--not scourgings nor stonings, prison nor robbers, blizzards nor sand-storms. He went on and on till at last, as a prisoner in Rome, he laid his head on the block of the executioner and was slain. These are the brave words that we hear from him as he came near to the end:
+-----------------------------+ | I HAVE FOUGHT A GOOD FIGHT; | | I HAVE RUN MY COURSE; | | I HAVE KEPT THE FAITH. | +-----------------------------+
Long years afterward, men who were Christians in Rome carried the story of the Kingdom of Jesus Christ across Europe to some savages in the North Sea Islands--called Britons. Paul handed the torch from the Near East to the people in Rome. They passed the torch on to the people of Britain--and from Britain many years later men sailed to build up the new great nation in America. So the torch has run from East to West, from that day to this, and from those people of long ago to us. But we owe this most of all to Paul, the first missionary, who gave his life to bring the Good News from the lands of Syria and Jud?a, where our Lord Jesus Christ lived and died and rose again.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 2: The dates are, of course, conjectural; but those given are accepted by high authorities. Paul was about forty-four at the time of this adventure.]
[Footnote 3: The plateau on which Lystra, Derbe, Iconium, and Antioch-in-Pisidia stood is from 3000 to 4000 feet above sea-level.]
[Footnote 4: The aqueduct was standing there in 1914, when the author was at Antioch-in-Pisidia (now called Yalowatch).]
[Footnote 5: A Bible with maps attached will give the route from Antioch in Syria, round the Gulf of Alexandretta, past Tarsus, up the Cilician Gates to Derbe, Lystra, Iconium, and Antioch-in-Pisidia.]
[Footnote 6: Compare Acts ix. I-8, xxvi. 12-20.]
[Footnote 7: St. Paul's motive and message are developed more fully in the Author's Paul the Dauntless.]

CHAPTER II
THE MEN OF THE SHINGLE BEACH
Wilfrid of Sussex (Date,