consciences left felt that some terrible punishment must come if the
world went on as it was going. And we know that the punishment did
come; and that for about twenty years, towards the end of which St.
Paul was beheaded, the great Roman Empire was verily a hell on earth.
If Felix lived ten years more he saw the judgment of God, and the
vengeance of God, in a way which could not be mistaken. But did
judgment to come overtake him in his life? We do not altogether
know; we know that he committed such atrocities, that the Roman
Emperor Nero was forced to recall him; that the chief Jews of
Caesarea sent to Rome, and there laid such accusations against him
that he was in danger of death; that his brother Pallas, who was then
in boundless power, saved him from destruction. That shortly
afterwards Pallas himself was disgraced, stripped of his offices, and
a few years later poisoned by Nero, and it is probable enough that
when he fell Felix fell with him: but we know nothing of it
certainly.

But at least he saw with his own eyes that there was such a thing as
judgment to come, not merely thousands of years hence at the last
day, but there and then in his own lifetime. He saw the wrath of God
revealed from heaven against all unrighteousness of men. He saw the
wicked murdering and destroying each other till the land was full of
blood. He saw the Empress-mother Agrippina, who had been the
paramour of his brother Pallas, murdered by her own son, the Emperor
Nero; and so judgment came on her. He saw his own brother first
ruined and then poisoned; and so judgment came on him. He saw many a
man whom he knew well, and who had been mixed up with him and his
brother in their intrigues, put to death himself; and so judgment
came on them.