the hearts of Christians, the same effects St. Paul produced on the
soul of this heathen; but may it have a happier influence on your
lives. Amen.

Paul preached before Felix and Drusilla "on righteousness, temperance,
and judgment to come." This is the first subject of discussion.
Before, however, we proceed further with our remarks, we must first
sketch the character of this Felix and this Drusilla, which will serve
as a basis to the first proposition.

After the scepter was departed from Judah, and the Jewish nation
subjugated by Pompey, the Roman emperors governed the country by
procurators. Claudius filled the imperial throne while St. Paul was
at Caesarea. This emperor had received a servile education from his
grandmother Lucia, and from his mother Antonia; and having been
brought up in obsequious meanness, evinced, on his elevation to the
empire, marks of the inadequate care which had been bestowed on his
infancy. He had neither courage nor dignity of mind. He who was raised
to sway the Roman scepter, and consequently to govern the civilized
world, abandoned his judgment to his freedmen, and gave them a
complete ascendency over his mind. Felix was one of those freedmen.
"He exercised in Judea the imperial functions with a mercenary soul."
Voluptuousness and avarice were the predominant vices of his heart. We
have a proof of his avarice immediately after our text, where it is
said he sent for Paul,--not to hear him concerning the truth of the
gospel which this apostle had preached with so much power; not to
inquire whether this religion, against which the Jews raised the
standard, was contrary to the interest of the State; but because he
hoped to have received money for his liberation. Here is the effect of
avarice.