One reading inserts in Acts 24:24 the statement that Drusilla wished to see Paul, and that Felix summoned him in order to gratify her. Very probably she, as a Jewess, knew something of the Way,' and with a love of anything odd and new, which such women cannot do without, she wanted to see this curious man and hear him talk. It might amuse her, and pass an hour, and be something to gossip about.
She and Felix got more than they bargained for. Paul was not now the prisoner, but the preacher; and his topics were not wanting in directness and plainness. He reasoned of righteousness' to one of the worst of unrighteous governors; of temperance' to the guilty couple who, in calling themselves husband and wife, were showing themselves given over to sinful passions; and of judgment to come' to a man who, to quote the Roman historian, thought that he could commit all evil with impunity.'
Paul's strong hand shook even that obdurate soul, and roused one of the two sleeping consciences. Drusilla may have been too frivolous to be impressed, but Felix had so much good left that he could be conscious of evil. Alas! he had so much evil that he suppressed the good. His convenient season' was then; it never came again. For though he communed with Paul often, he trembled only once. So he passed into the darkness.
