‘And there were many lights in the upper chamber where we were gathered together. And there sat in the window a certain young man named Eutychus, borne down with deep sleep, and as Paul discoursed yet longer, being borne down by his sleep he fell down from the third story, and was taken up dead.'
But the weather was hot, many lamps were burning and letting off their vapours and contributing to the heat, (and burning up the oxygen in a crowded room), and even possibly having an hypnotic effect, Paul's teaching was deep, and the sermon was long, and many who were there had come from a day of hard toil. This was possibly so with Eutychus as well, a teenager who may have gone to sit in the window in order to obtain some air. And being sat on the sill of the unglazed open window on the third floor, and becoming very sleepy, he fell to the ground and was ‘taken up for dead'. What had been a wonderful fellowship evening had suddenly turned into a nightmare. During the preaching of life there had come death, and the life of a promising young Christian had prematurely come to an end.