“Anyway I shall try, mother. It isn’t any harder is it than going into a den of lions or into Nebuchadnezzar’s fiery furnace?”
“Ah, but my Saul will never have any such dreadful things to do, for he is born a Roman citizen and he can always appeal to Cæsar. Now it is time little boys were in bed.”
The days grew to weeks and the weeks to months; the months added themselves and made years in Tarsus in the first century just as happens now where my young reader lives. Time and the multiplication table go on in one century exactly as in another, no matter what else changes. Before the father and mother could quite realise it, or believe it possible, Saul, once our little boy, who looked out on his world and wondered, was old enough to go away from his home to a great school in Jerusalem where perhaps all his questions could be answered though only for a little while. His sister had married now and lived in Jerusalem and it was arranged for Saul to have his home with her while he was studying with the famous Rabbi Gamaliel, who knew better than almost any one else the law, and the rules by which the daily life of a strict Jew should be guided so that he might be perfect.
Through the Syrian Gate in the Amanus ridge, Saul had gone with his father on their way to the holy city for the Passover and for a short time of sight-seeing and visit before the hard work of the school began. They came on through Antioch of Syria, the first great city which Saul had ever seen and one which some day he would know much better; then they journeyed on by hard and dangerous roads until they saw Damascus, with its two beautiful rivers and its high city walls. Some day Saul would know this city better too! And the time would come when he would find out how high those city walls were! Every foot of the road from Damascus was crowded with interest and excitement for this fifteen-year-old boy who was seeing the holy land for the first time. Now he thrilled in a new way as he actually saw with his eyes the scenes which before he had only pictured in imagination. When they crossed the Jordan, just south of the blue lake of Gennesareth, he could hardly contain himself. More than once he threw himself on the ground with his arms outspread as though he were trying to grasp the country and embrace it.