CHAPTER XIII. THE APOSTLE LED INTO EUROPE. ACTS xv. 41; xvi. 1-13. A.D. 51. Rulers as in Chap. XI. "Our indiscretion sometimes serves us well, When our deep plots do pall; and that should teach us Rough-hew them how we will."—Hamlet. RUST in the Lord with all thine heart, and lean not "TRUST unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct thy paths" (Prov. iii. 5, 6). If there is one thing which more than another draws a distinct line between the lives of the saints, children of God, and those who care not for the Divine guidance, it is that the former are always able sooner or later to trace the finger of God in all His dealings with them. Disappointments minister to their best interests, trials become blessings, hindrances are unrecognised helps. But this is not seen at once. "What I do thou knowest not now, but thou shalt know hereafter." Bitterly indeed must Paul have felt his separation from Barnabas, and all the unkindness attendant upon it; a feeling of desolation and of loneliness and of apprehension of failure must have crept with coldness into his heart at thus parting from his oldest and best-tried friend. Yet was all this working for the good of the Gospel. It is clear to us who view the case impartially, that Barnabas, with his frequent vacillation, Barnabas who could dissimulate at what seemed his need, was not the man to carry the Gospel to the shrewd and clever Greeks or the stern and unyielding Romans. If Paul should put to him the question, "Is thine heart right, as my heart is with thy heart?" could he have answered, " It is; I give thee mine hand"? (2 Kings x. 15.) It was better every way that he should continue with those who still clung to ritual and ceremonial. He might not teach the whole truth purely and frankly; but God uses instruments of every sort: "The Lord hath made all things for Himself, yea, even the wicked for the day of evil" (Prov. xvi. 4). How much more the Son of Consolation, the blemishes in whose character do but impart lustre to its intrinsic loveliness. Paul and Silas, therefore, now gird themselves for the strife. How little do they know what is before them! People are apt to think that there is something quite extraordinary and exceptional in the devious and uncertain course of this journey. It is no such thing. Every man of God who places his trust in God, is similarly moved from place to place, less by his own will and for his own pleasure than by the loving direction of his Father. Paul and Silas start for Asia Minor, probably intending to go no further, but they are carried on far beyond, to Philippi, Thessalonica, Corinth, Athens, and Ephesus. So we, who lay out our plans, shall surely find ourselves eventually carrying out the better plans of God. He leads us, as He led Paul and Silas, by the hand. The Spirit of Jesus goes with us, and it is for our happiness if we frankly recognise and cheerfully follow Him. The road again lay north, through Syria and the pass in Mount Amanus, called the Syrian Gates, to Alexandria and Issus. The road is broad and well-paved, one of those magnificent Roman roads of which the remains to this day require less repair than many of our finest modern roads. By this grand way Paul and his companion round the Bay of Issus, on the shores of which Alexander defeated Darius, pass into Cilicia, visiting Mopsuestia, Adana, and other places as they proceed, and arrive at Tarsus. Throughout this short tour of Syria and Cilicia, St. Paul is engaged in confirming, that is, in strengthening, the Churches; giving instructions, ordaining elders, receiving and baptizing converts young and old. He had never seen Tarsus since he had left it, in company with his best friend Barnabas, fourteen years before, and he must have recognised a very great change. It was a highly civilized city then, but now, from a blind and irrational mythology it had turned to the religion whose three graces are Faith, Hope, and Charity, whose simple emblem is the Cross of Christ, whose pride is in the highest, the noblest, and best sentiments of which human nature is susceptible. The effect of the change of the heart must have been visible in the countenance, the manners, the language of those who had embraced the Gospel, and whose influence would daily tell upon their kindred, friends, and associates.* Christian churches were rising everywhere side by side with, if not superseding, the heathen fanes; the idols were cast away in heaps, of which the dishonoured remnants are frequently found to this day in the neighbourhood of the temples. So we see it now in India and Africa, so we shall find it in China and Japan. What took place then is repeated now; God did not exhaust His grace at the first; we shall want it abundantly to evangelize what is left of heathenism in the world; and that is five-sixths of it! * What does Renan mean when in his closing chapter he morosely limits the Churches founded by St. Paul to the persons to or from whom he sends his salutations, multiplying at the most by five? Could anything but ill-will (certainly right reason could not) dictate so absurd and so childish a conclusion? From Tarsus Paul might have pursued the coast road, through a fresh country, by the Cilician Gates, Seleucia, and Side, but his heart yearned for his dear Churches of Lycaonia, beyond those towering mountains that shut them in on the north. By the high-road, then, the missionaries went, taking the long and often perilous journey through the terrible Cilician Gates, a huge and precipitous pass, 4,000 feet above the sea-level at its highest point, and no less than eighty miles in extent, hemmed in by vast crags, with so narrow a space between them in some places that chariots must go through in single file. Through this awful pass, one of the grandest in the world, conquering armies and vanquished armies have proudly tramped or hurriedly fled as far as the records of history go back. Cyrus and Alexander in ancient, the Crusaders in medieval, Ibrahim Pasha in modern, times have all passed the Cilician Gates, with its impending limestone crags crowned with pines, and its roadway here undermined, there overflowed by the streams that swell the Cydnus. He might have reached Derbe, the home of his friend Gaius, by a more direct but less frequented and a worse constructed road, but the wellknown track was that which he would prefer. Tyana is first reached, the birthplace of the philosopher Apollonius; then the Roman road turns sharply to the west, and he reaches Cybistra, the modern Eregli, and then Derbe, the quiet resting-place where he had paused two years ago before retracing his steps to the Pisidian Antioch. After the first warm greetings at Derbe, and kindly mutual inquiries after each other's welfare, a well-known face would be missed at the side of St. Paul by the Christians of that place. Instead of Barnabas, whom they loved, they saw a stranger, Silas, and the question would be asked, "But where is Barnabas?" awaking sorrowful remembrances, not unaccompanied, perhaps, by considerable self reproach. Explanations would be offered, and we would hope satisfaction expressed by the questioners. Here Paul will again perform his apostolic or episcopal office of confirming the Churches; and as he has done through Syria and Cilicia, he will exhibit the apostolic decrees from Jerusalem, fully explaining that there was no need for Gentiles to conform to the Jewish Law in matters pertaining to mere ceremony and outward observances. Still there was liberty, not bondage. Those who chose to tie themselves to ceremonial observances might do so unblamed. As he afterwards taught in Romans xiv., so he told them now: "Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind." Thence to Lystra, where the same course of events nearly would arise as before, and as will afterwards in all those places where the Judaising influence had made itself felt. But here the apostolic company received a welcome accession in the person of a youth named TIMOTHEUS (see p. 172), who is introduced with the ejaculation "Behold!" as if setting before our eyes a special gift of God. In this youth there was manifestly a pleasing and attractive grace and modesty which won the affectionate heart of the Apostle in a moment. He had believed probably from his earliest childhood. His father was a Greek There is no more reason for thinking him a heathen than for setting him down as a Christian. We are not told. But this we do know, that his excellent mother Eunice, and his grandmother Lois, whose pure, unfeigned faith Paul calls to remembrance with tears of joy, and is persuaded is in the son also, trained him up in the truth. Yet, as Paul expressly calls him "his son in the faith" (1 Tim. i. 2), "his dearly beloved son" (2 Tim. i. 2), we may not give to the mother the whole credit of bringing up her son a Christian. The remembrance of his own early career of violence and impiety (1 Tim. i. 13) seemed to lead him to dwell upon Timothy's greater advantages and privileges as one of |