ments in the prison; he washed their stripes. -sat meat before them, and was baptized, he and his. And 2. We have the testimony of God; for in the 34th verse of the sixteenth chapter of Acts, which contains the account of these transactions, the history of the jailer concludes with this striking observation, he rejoiced, "believing in God, with all his house."

All these things occurred in one night; and truly it was a night of wonders, in which God displayed his care for his servants-his power in the earthquake, and his grace in the conversion of the jailer and his family.

When the morning came, the magistrates appear to have become somewhat alarmed at their unjust proceedings, for they had condemned Paul and Silas without the least shadow of reason. To hush up the matter, as they supposed, they sent the sergeants or under-officers to tell the jailer that he might let the prisoners go. The keeper of the jail carried the message to Paul and Silas, and advised them to depart, and take the liberty to which they were restored. But Paul judged that it would not be for the honour of the cause of Christ to let the matter rest. He said,

"They have beaten us openly, uncondemned, being Romans, and have cast us into prison, and now do they thrust us out privily? Nay, verily, but let them come themselves and fetch us out." They conceived, that if they went away from the prison quietly, it would be a kind of acknowledgment that they had been justly used. So Paul said to the officers who were sent to release them, we will not go upon these terms; we have been shame. fully treated and abused, and all without any cause; we are determined that our innocence shall be publicly acknowledged by the very persons who have put us into prison-they must come and take us out themselves. took care to let them know that they were Romans, that is, as we have stated, Paul be. ing a native of Tarsus, had the privilege of a Roman citizen. As soon as the magistrates heard that Paul was a Roman citizen, they were as much frightened as they had before been insolent; and they had good reason, for Cicero, a great Roman lawyer, tells us, in a very celebrated oration of his against a ty rannical governor of Sicily, who had shame. fully treated a person named Gavius, that by

Paul

the laws, called the Porcian and Sempronian laws, a Roman citizen could neither be bound nor beaten. These laws the magistrates had grossly violated, and Paul knew it, and he used this knowledge to make them come and confess his innocence. We find that they did this; they came and besought Paul and Silas, that is pleaded with them, that they would forget and forgive the insult which they had received. The Apostles had no malice, all they wanted was that their characters should be vindicated; and when this was done, they freely forgave all that had happened; and at the earnest solicitation of the magistrates, they consented to go out of the city. The business for which they went to Philippi had been accomplished. They had preached the Gospel there, and the very circumstances of their imprisonment, the earthquake, the conversion of the jailer, and finally the acknowledgment of the officers themselves, all operated in favour of the Christian religion, and rendered their stay less necessary. After they were brought out of the prison by the magistrates, in this public and honourable way, they entered into the house of Lydia, where

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they had been previously so hospitably entertained, and after they had met with certain persons who are called brethren, and comforted them, and encouraged them, they departed from that city where they had suffered so much, and yet where they had found so much cause of rejoicing in the prosperity of the work of the Lord. From this visit, a church was founded, the members of which are addressed by St. Paul in his epistle to the Philippians, which he afterwards wrote to them from Rome.

CHAPTER VIII.

Containing an account of St. Paul's mission, from the time that he left Philippi, until he arrived at Athens.

IN any other cause than that of the Lord, and in any other persons than those so zealously engaged in the work of the Lord, it would seem as if the circumstances which took place at Philippi might have been sufficient to produce complete discouragement. But it seemed rather to inflame the zeal of the holy men of God, who were engaged in

this earliest missionary work.

When the Apostles went from Philippi, they stopped for a moment at a place called Amphipolis. This town had been built about five hundred years, but had never risen to be a place of much consequence. The name signifies the "city of both;" and it took this name from the singular circumstance, that the river Strymon, which separated Macedonia from Thrace, completely surrounded it; so that, although it actually belonged to Macedonia, it seemed built on the boundary between both these divisions. It is at present called Emboli, by the Turks. It does not appear that the Apos tles preached here, but merely passed through it. The same appears to be true of Apollonia, of which nothing important is recorded, except that Augustus Cæsar, who was emperor of Rome when our Saviour was born, had, in his youth, gone to school in this place, for the purpose of learning the Greek language. The first place of any consequence where the Apostles stopped, was a city called Thessalonica, a very large and populous city, and worthy of being particularly noticed, because here a church was founded. Thessa