Page:Lives of the apostles of Jesus Christ (1836).djvu/163

 but low employments in their miserable province, and had come down to Jerusalem with their Master, on the likely enterprise of overturning the established order of things in church and state, and erecting in its place an administration which should be managed by the Nazarene and his company of Galileans. In this seditious attempt their Master had been arrested and punished with death, and they whose lives were spared by the mere clemency of their offended lords, were now so little grateful for this mercy, and so little awed by this example of justice, that they had been publicly haranguing the people in the temple, and imposing on them with a show of miracles, all with the view of raising again those disturbances which their Master had before excited, but too successfully, by the same means, until his death. In this light would the two apostles stand before their stern and angry judges, as soon as they were recognized as the followers of Jesus. And how did they maintain their ground before this awful tribunal? Peter had, only a few weeks before, absolutely denied all connection and acquaintance with Jesus, when questioned by the mere menials in attendance on his Master's trial. And on this solemn occasion, tenfold more appalling, did that once false disciple find in his present circumstances, consolations to raise him above his former weakness? Peter was now changed; and he stood up boldly before his overbearing foes, to meet their tyranny by a dauntless assertion of his rights and of the truth of what he had preached. Freshly indued with a courage from on high, and full of that divine influence so lately shed abroad, he and his modest yet firm companion, replied to the haughty inquiries of his judges, by naming as the source of their power, and as their sanction in their work, the venerated name of their crucified Master. "Princes of the people and elders of Israel, if we to-day are called to account for this good deed which we have done to this poor man, and are to say in whose name this man has been cured; be it known to you all, and to all the people of Israel, that in the name of Jesus Christ, the Nazarene, whom you crucified, and whom God raised from the dead, this man now stands before you, made sound and strong. This crucified Jesus is the stone which, though rejected by you builders, has become the chief corner stone; and in no other name is there salvation, (or healing;) for there is no other name given under heaven, among men, by which any can be saved," (or healed.) When the judges saw the free-spoken manner of Peter and John, observing that they were unlearned men, of the lower or