of life, and the possession of those Christian graces which commend and dignify the Christian profession.* * Gal. i. 14, "profited in the Jews' religion" (Authorized Version) is old English for "made advances," from profiteor, to make progress. Foxe writes, "He continued a scholar three years, and profited very much in learning and knowledge " ("advanced," Revised Version.) The French have preserved this meaning. A child is exhorted profiter, that is, to learn and improve. CHAPTER XIX. EPHESUS. ACTS xix. A.D. 54-57-Nero, Emperor-Herod Agrippa II., Titular King- "Fie, lords! that you, being supreme magistrates, King Henry VI., Part I., i. 2. HE traveller in the East who now lands from the THE P. and O. steamer at Smyrna would, had he lived in the time of the Apostle, probably have preferred to steer his course farther south, past the islands of Chios and Samos, to the splendid port of Ephesus. Not that Smyrna was much inferior in beauty, in importance, or even in antiquity, to her proud sister. Indeed, the two cities, standing in the front of the peninsula facing the Ægean at an almost equal distance from each angle of it, were often called the two eyes of Asia Minor. The ancient and flourishing city of Smyrna had, in early times, made it her glorious boast to be at the head of the cities which claimed to have given birth to Homer; and at a later date she might boast, if boasting were permitted, of being one of the only two out of the seven Churches of Asia whose message from the Lord Jesus was unaccompanied with a rebuke. Its harbour was magnificent, and its admirably planned streets lined with edifices in the purest Greek taste. And Smyrna is a prosperous city still, has a British consul, to watch over British interests in the first |