April 15

Lord, what wilt thou have me to do? — Acts 9:6

The story of Paul’s conversion is wonderful. He was the fiercest of the persecutors.

When he set out for Damascus he was “breathing threatening and slaughter against the disciples.” Yet the picture of Stephen’s murder never faded from his vision, and at last did much to bring him to Christ’s feet.

“Saint, did I say? With your remembered faces,
Dear men and women, whom I sought and slew.
Ah! When we mingle in the heavenly places,
How will I weep to Stephen and to you!
“Oh for the strain that rang to our reviling
Still, when the bruised limbs sank upon the sod!
Oh for the eyes that looked their last in smiling,
Last on this world here, but their first on God!”
It is earnestness like Paul’s that the Church needs today.