Page:Lives of the apostles of Jesus Christ (1836).djvu/224

 trowsers,) "and tie on his sandals," (put on his shoes or boots.) The next direction given to Peter, also, "Cast thy garment about thee," (put on thy coat,) would be equally appropriate. The meaning of all this particularity and deliberation was, no doubt, that there was no need whatever of hurry or slyness about the escape. It was not to be considered a mere smart trick of jail-breaking, by which Peter was to crawl out of his dungeon in such a hurry as to leave his coat and shoes behind him, but a truly miraculous providence insuring his deliverance with a completeness and certainty that allowed him to take every thing that belonged to him. Having now perfectly accoutred himself in his ordinary style, Peter immediately obeyed the next order of his deliverer,—"Follow me." Leaving his two bed-fellows and room-*mates sleeping hard, without the slightest idea of the evacuation of the premises which was so deliberately going on, to their great detriment, Peter now passed out through the open door, following the divine messenger in a state of mind altogether indescribable, but still with just sense enough to obey the directions which thus led him on to blissful freedom. The whole scene bore so perfectly the character of one of those enchanting dreams of liberty with which painful hope often cheats the willing senses of the poor captive in slumber, that he might well and wisely doubt the reality of an appearance so tempting, and which his wishes would so readily suggest to his forgetful spirit. But passing on with his conductor, he moved between the sentinels posted at the doors, who were also equally unaware of the movement going on so boldly under their noses, or rather over them, for they, too, were faster bound in slumber than their prisoner had been in his chains; and he now stepped over their outstretched bodies as they lay before the entrances. These soldiers, too, evidently looked upon their duty as a sort of sinecure, rationally concluding that their two stout comrades on the inside were rather more than a match for the fettered and manacled captive, and that if he should be at all obstreperous, or even uneasy, the noise would soon enough awake them from their nap. And thus excessive precaution is very apt to overshoot itself, each part of the arrangement relying too much on the security of all the rest. The two passengers soon reached the great iron gate of the castle, through which they must pass in order to enter the city. But all the seeming difficulties of this passage vanished as soon as they approached it. The gate swung its enormous mass of metal