And brought them out, and said, Sirs, what must I do to be saved?
And brought them out, and said. How graphic this rapid succession of minute details, evidently from the parties themselves-the prisoners and the jailor-who would talk over every feature of the scene once and again, in which the hand of the Lord had been so marvelously seen!
Sirs, what must I do to be saved? If this question should seem in advance of any light which the jailor could be supposed to possess, let it be considered, first, that the "trembling" which came over him could not have arisen from any fear for the safety of his prisoners, for they were all there; and if it had, he would rather have proceeded to secure them again, than leave them and fall down before Paul and Silas. For the same reason, it is plain that his trembling had nothing to do with any account he would have to render to the magistrates. Only one explanation of it can be given-that he had become all at once alarmed about his spiritual state, and that though, a moment before, he was ready to plunge into eternity with the guilt of self-murder on his head-without a thought of the sin be was committing and its awful consequences-his unfitness to appear before Cod and his need of salvation now flashed full upon his soul, and drew from the depths of his spirit the cry here recorded.
If still it be asked how it could take such definite shape, let it be considered, secondly, that the jailor could hardly be ignorant of the nature of the charges on which these men had been imprisoned, seeing they had been publicly whipped by order of the magistrates, which would fill the whole town with the facts of the case, including that strange cry of the demoniac from day to day - "These men are the servants of the most high God, which show unto us the way of salvation" - words proclaiming not only the divine commission of the preachers, but the news of salvation they were sent to tell, the miraculous expulsion of the demon, and the rage of her masters. All this, indeed, would go for nothing with such a man, until roused by the mighty earthquake which made the building to rock; despair then seizing him at the sight of the open doors, the sword of self-destruction was suddenly arrested by words from one of those prisoners such as he would never imagine could be spoken in their circumstances-words evidencing something divine about them. Then would flash across him the light of a new discovery: 'That was a true cry which the Pythoness uttered, "These men are the servants of the most high God, which show unto us the way of salvation!" This I now must know, and from them-as divinely sent to me-must I learn that "way of salvation!"'