a great crop of flowering grass, and then receives the grass back into its own bosom, to enrich it more for the growth of the following year, an effort to give the gospel to others is the best of all means to obtain more of it for ourselves.

The element of novelty in the report which Paul and Barnabas brought home was, that God had opened the door of faith to the Gentiles. Hitherto, although converts from beyond the pale of the Jewish nationality had been freely admitted, they had been accepted as individuals, on profession of their faith, into communion with believing Jews. But now, in Gentile cities, churches were constituted mainly of Gentile converts. The door was open, and the gospel, overleaping the boundaries of Israel, had obtained access to the world.

The Church at Antioch while Paul and Barnabas resided there, after their return from the Greek cities of Asia, seems to be no longer a lodge in the wilderness, but one of the golden streets of the New Jerusalem. There was so much of faith, and love, and joy, and that of so long continuance, that they might well begin to think they had already passed through the great tribulation-that the kingdom in its glory would soon appear. But a dark cloud suddenly overshadowed the bright landscape. "Certain men came down from Judæa, and taught the brethren," &c. Alas! the ailment under which we suffer to-day, afflicted the Church in that early age. Certain men with narrow superstitious notions attempted to thrust their own crotchets down the throats of their brethren. How much has the kingdom been obstructed in the world by men within the Church attempting to impose unnecessary beliefs or practices upon the consciences of their brethren? This baleful spirit manifested itself at an early date, and it has not yet been cast out. These men, acting like all other creatures after their kind, did not go to the heathen to proclaim the gospel where it was unknown; they came to those who were already Christians, and zealously proselytized in favour of their own sectarian watchword. They settled among the disciples at Antioch, and taught in a very positive form, that unless the Gentiles conformed to the Mosaic ritual, their trust in Christ could not save them. The apostles perceived at once that this question was vital. Here they must take their stand. The entrance of this leaven, they saw, would corrupt the whole body. It would introduce another gospel.

It was one thing for converted Jews to continue for some time the practice of the Mosaic ritual, with which they had been familiar from their childhood; and it was all another thing to impose that ritual on the Gentiles as if it were necessary to salvation. The question was keenly discussed for some time at Antioch, between Paul and Barnabas on the one side, and the Judaizing teachers from Jerusalem on the other; but as there was no authority competent to decide between the parties, no progress was made. In these circum

stances, the whole Church resolved to lay the matter before the apostles and elders at Jerusalem. Accordingly it was arranged, with common consent, that a deputation, including Paul and Barnabas, should proceed to the Mother Church of Judæa, to state their case and maintain their interests.

In adopting this resolution they were wisely led. A right and authoritative decision on this subject was necessary, not only for the immediate peace, but also for the future prosperity, and even the ultimate existence of the Church. To have admitted, as authoritatively binding the consciences of believers, that something additional to faith in Christ crucified was necessary to justification, would have essentially changed the nature of the gospel. It would have been to draw the pen through the glorious word, "It is finished," and to throw despairing sinners back on their own resources, as if no Redeemer had undertaken and accomplished the work. We owe much to the watchful faithfulness of these primitive missionaries in asserting for themselves and transmitting to us "the simplicity that is in Christ."

THE COUNCIL OF JERUSALEM.
ACTS XV.

WHEN the deputies arrived at Jerusalem, the interest in the missionaries and their accomplished work among the heathen was so great, that the dispute on a point of doctrine was in the first instance thrown into the shade. Even on their way through Phenicia and Samaria every town claimed a meeting, and every church rejoiced in the glad news. In the capital, too, the desire to hear of the Lord's work predominated over all other claims; and nothing was done towards the adjudication of the appealed case, until first the disciples were all satisfied with the details of the mission in Cyprus, and throughout the cities of the lesser Asia. When this great appetite was satisfied, then the apostles and elders made preparation for an assembly to sit in judgment on the question, whether the Mosaic rites should be inposed upon the Greek converts. The Christian Pharisees lost no time in bringing the question up, and pressing for a decision in their own favour. Whether these were the same men now returned from Antioch, or others resident in Jerusalem, who entertained the same opinions, is not made clear. "The apostles and elders came together to consider of this matter." The assembly was called to order, the case was introduced, and the debate began. After a good deal of preliminary discussion, Peter took occasion to narrate his own experience, and to express his views. He had, at an early date, been divinely called to carry the gospel to Gentile families residing within the territory of Judæa; and reasoning by analogy, he held strongly the view, that Paul and Barnabas were justified in admitting the Greeks on a foreign soil directly and simply into the

privileges of the Church, without enjoining the observance of the law of Moses. The next step was to hear a narrative of the facts from the lips of the two missionaries. A great impression seems to have been made by the intelligence from foreign parts. "All the multitude kept silence, and gave audience to Paul and Barnabas." It is clear that besides the apostles and elders, a very great number of Christians were present when this report was submitted.

Immediately after the address of the missionaries, and while the assembly were under the solemn and tender impressions of the scene, James, the Lord's brother, who seems to have acted as a kind of president, summed up the evidence, and proposed the decision of the court. The proposal submitted by James was unanimously adopted. It unequivocally condemned the demand made by the Pharisaic Christians upon the Gentile converts. It maintained for the Church an absolute freedom from the bondage of the ceremonial law. It enjoined abstinence from certain pollutions which were common among idolaters, but prescribed no ritual as necessary to salvation. This is the charter of the Church's liberty to the present day. No man or body of men has a right to prescribe for Christians, as of authority, any observance or any form. The conscience is not subject to human law.

It is well worthy of observation in our own day, that when a schism was threatened between two portions of the Christian Church, the difficulty was overcome, and the breach prevented, by refusing to adopt a new and additional term of communion. The introduction of new dogmas as essential to salvation, necessarily rends the body of Christ. Christians must hold and profess all that their Saviour gave them, even at the risk of division; but woe to those who on any pretext disturb the brotherhood by imposing any yoke which the Master did not impose!

The Council at Jerusalem deputed Judas and Silas, two of their own number, to accompany Paul and Barnabas on their return to Antioch. These two confirmed the testimony of the missionaries, and certified the authenticity of the letter which they bore. The Christians at Antioch greatly rejoiced in the consolidation of their liberty, and the suppression of the threatened schism.

Silas, one of the deputies from Jerusalem, having become interested in the foreign work, remained at Antioch with the missionaries when his colleague returned. The work of evangelization was now prosecuted with renewed zeal in the great Syrian capital. The foundation of the Church in that city must be laid deep and broad, that it may serve as a basis for carrying the mission into Europe. But the spirit of Paul could not long submit to the conditions of a settled ministry. He longed for labour on the foreign field. His restlessness was of the Lord for the good of the world. It would have been an unspeakable loss to the Western nations if this man had grown indolent, and settled down in comfortable and honourable employment at home.

Accordingly, after a period of united effort in Antioch, Paul proposed to Barnabas that they should revisit the Churches which they had planted in Western Asia. Barnabas acquiesced heartily in the main features of his brother's plan; but a hitch occurred in the choice of a junior assistant. Barnabas preferred Mark, his own nephew; and Paul refused to concur in the choice, on the ground that Mark had prematurely deserted the mission in its time of need before. This weakness, against which the good Barnabas was not proof, has wrought much mischief both in Church and State. It has obtained a name,-nepotism,-from the very relation in which Mark stood to the senior missionary. So greatly has it interfered with every good work in the world, that those men have always been held in special honour who have been able to resist it, and have appointed the fittest men to important trusts, without respect to family connections.

But when a decisive difference of judgment occurred, although the altercation was sharp at the moment, these two men ultimately adopted a wise resolution, and permanent good sprang from incidental evil. Two well-appointed missions sprang from one, and the benefit was doubled. So the Lord over all makes the wrath of even his own servants to praise him, and the remainder of that wrath he restrains. How tender and long-suffering is our Father in heaven! Instead of punishing us for our quarrels, he oftens turns them to the furtherance of bis own cause. He served himself of the weakness, as well as of the strength, of these two primitive missionaries.

Barnabas, with Mark as his companion, went by sea to Cyprus; Paul, with Silas as coadjutor, travelled overland westward through Syria and Cilicia, confirming the Churches.

Thus each of the two senior missionaries on that occasion visited the home of his youth; for Tarsus, the place of Paul's nativity, was the chief city of Cilicia.

Nothing is said of Paul's reception as a prophet in his own country. It is evident that he did not linger long about Tarsus. Probably he found too much curiosity among the people there regarding himself personally. He disliked and resented everything that turned the people's attention from the Christ whom he preached. He pressed accordingly westward through the province, and tarried nowhere long till he reached Derbe and Lystra, the scenes of his success and his sufferings on his former tour.

At Lystra on this occasion occurred his first interview with Timothy. This young man was already a Christian of high reputation in the neighbourhood, and we know that the early religious training of the youth had been quickened into positive spiritual life by Paul's word spoken during the former journey. This must have been a glad and tender meeting. When Eunice, Timothy's mother, introduced her son to Paul, and informed him of the youth's conversion, the spirit of the laborious missionary must have been greatly refreshed. Here was

evidence that his labour and his sufferings had not been in vain. At sight of Timothy, Paul would thank God and take courage. The history is fresh and full of consolation still. It contains encouragement to every sower of the good seed, down to the end of the world. Many seeds which go out of the sower's sight, take root and bear fruit unto eternal life.

XI.

WESTWARD HO! ACTS xvi. 8-13.

HERE the history of the Church reaches a great crisis. The missionaries of the Cross pass the narrow sea that separates Asia from Europe, and the gospel is introduced among the nations of the growing West. In the person of "the man of Macedonia," Greece and Rome invite the apostles of the Cross. Weary and empty, the warriors, artists, and philosophers of the Empire thirst for the living water. Europe on the west, as Ethiopia on the south, dumbly stretches out her hands to God.

At Lystra the apostle of the Gentiles had been gladdened by the accession of Timothy to the missionary band. At that place he had suffered more than elsewhere; but there, as elsewhere, the blood of the martyrs had become the seed of the Church. From the seed of his own suffering and testimony at that place a goodly fruit had secretly sprung. By the time of his second visit the fruit was ripe, and he who sowed was permitted also to reap. In the former visit he had gone forth weeping, bearing precious seed: now when he leaves Lystra, moving westward to new fields, he bears his sheaves rejoicing. Faithful is he that promised: the missionary is sustained in his work. "His heart is lifted up in the ways of the Lord." Let all men know that the sad things which happened to the preacher at Lystra have turned out for the furtherance of the gospel.

Paul invited his son Timothy to join the mission, and Timothy consented. Having in his bag a supply of parchments containing the decrees of the council which refused to bind circumcision on the conscience of the Gentile converts, Paul was at liberty to yield to the feelings of the Jews from motives of expediency; and so he circumcised Timothy at the outset. He had contended earnestly and successfully for the liberty of Christians; but he was not the man to put all his rights in force, without regard to circumstances. He delighted to concede in tenderness to brethren that which he would not surrender to the legalists who demanded it as of right. He refused to circumcise the Greek Titus at the demand of Jewish Christians, because they demanded it on the ground that it was necessary to salvation; but Timothy, by the mother's side and by education a Jew, he readily circumcised, in order to smooth his way into the synagogues, and enlarge his opportunities of preaching Christ.

Providentially prevented from prolonging their stay and penetrating to the northern provinces of Lesser Asia,

they soon arrived at Troas, the extreme western point of the continent. There Paul's spirit was stirred within him as he saw the isles of Greece in the foreground, and the continent of Europe in the distance. He longed to preach Jesus and the resurrection in Athens, the eye of Greece and the centre of European civilization.

At Troas a fourth missionary joined the group-Luke, the beloved physician. From this point the narrative proceeds in the first person plural, because from this point the historian was personally a witness of the events which he records.

By two stages they made the passage across the straits. The first day's sailing brought them to the island of Samothracia, and next day they landed on the European shore at Neapolis. Thence they journeyed inland to Philippi, the nearest city of importance. Here they opened their commission and began. The Church of Philippi is thus the metropolitan Church of Europe. The seed of the kingdom imported from the East, first fructified there, and thence spread through the neighbouring regions.

Philippi was a colony. This was doubtless one of the reasons why the missionaries selected it as their first station. It brought them into contact with the peculiar institutions of the Roman Empire. Located in the provinces, it was colonized by native Italians, and enjoyed the privileges of an Italian city. Chiefly inhabited by discharged soldiers, it was a stronghold of defence on the frontiers. In that city the missionaries abode some days, apparently without meeting an opportunity of prosecuting their work. At this rate Paul will not linger long in the place. Life is short; and he must be about his Master's business. But when the Sabbath arrived an opportunity occurred. The few Jews who resided at Philippi seem not to have possessed a synagogue; but a station had been provided in a sequestered spot by the side of the river where the worshippers of God, whether native Jews or proselytes, were wont to meet for prayer.

Some women resorted to the spot: on this Sabbath, women only were there. The Roman veteran, lording it on the soil of Macedonia, would sneer at the humble group as he saw them passing to the conventicle: perhaps a philosophic Greek, himself oppressed by the military conquerors, uttered a sarcasm at the expense of the women-worshippers. No matter: those who win have the right to laugh. These women were on the winning side, and a windfall of great gain will meet them to-day at the trysting-place.

Among the worshippers was Lydia, a Gentile proselyte from Thyatira in Asia, settled in Philippi as an agent for the sale of purple, the staple manufacture of her native place. There is abundant evidence from other sources, that Thyatira was celebrated as a seat of this manufacture. Inscriptions have been recently found on the spot, which show that the guild of dyers were an important corporation in the city. Perhaps Lydia's husband had emigrated on this business, and died at Philippi; and the trade being prosperous, the widow

had braced herself to the effort of conducting it, until her boys should come of age.

The ancient "Turkey-red" dyers of Thyatira sent their goods westward for sale in the Roman colonies of Greece and Macedonia, as our manufacturers send theirs to India and China. Each great factory in Asia must have accredited agents in the several marts of Europe. Probably the ship that bore the missionaries across the strait a week before, had carried some bales of purple cloth for the Roman residents of Philippi; and the heavy goods might at that time have been slowly winding up the ascent from the shore to the city. Commerce and Christianity in those days, as now, gravitated to the same centres, and flowed in the same channels.

This honourable woman prosecuted a lawful industry. She went into a far country to earn bread for herself and her children; and in that far country she found the life of her soul. Labour is honourable and healthful. Merchandise is specially honourable when it is conducted with truth and righteousness. Merchants are channels through which the precious products of the earth flow and reflow, to the places where they are needed, to minister to the necessities and the comforts of men. Blessed are those buyers and sellers who, like Lydia, find in the intervals of ordinary business the pearl of great price. When they have obtained the true riches their souls will not again cleave to the dust. When they have obtained the peace of God in Christ to keep their hearts and minds, they will not be too much oppressed by care, and not too much distracted by fluctuations in the market.

XII.
LYDIA.

ACTS xvi. 14, 15.

ALTHOUGH Lydia attended to her business, she did not allow it to occupy her whole heart, and absorb all her time. She took advantage of the Sabbath to rest awhile from labour; and her time of rest she filled with the worship of God, and the society of the good. He who lays out one talent well, will get it redoubled soon. A shed for shelter in a sequestered spot, and a few Jewish women for fellow-worshippers, and probably a parchment containing some of the Scriptures as Sabbath lessons— these constituted the extent of her privileges. She used her little well, and more was given to her.

Paul and Silas went to the place on that Sabbath-day. It was a place for prayer. Perhaps there had never been any preaching in it. The women had often met, and prayed, and parted, with none to speak to them. They would read the Scriptures, and, like the Ethiopian prince, would bend, and sigh, and weep over "the Lamb led to the slaughter;" but there was no one near who could answer their question, "Of whom speaketh the prophet this?" They could not understand, and there was none to guide them. But they persevered. At last a distinguished preacher appeared-the greatest of

all preachers-led to the spot by the same divine Spirit who conducted Philip from a city of Samaria to the desert of Gaza. At last a sermon was preached in the praying place, and it took effect.

One design of this history is to show believers in all lands and all ages, that the Redeemer is near his people still, and orders all things for their sakes. The meeting: between Paul and Lydia was arranged in heaven. When the missionaries desired to prolong their stay in Asia, and to evangelize another province there, the Spirit suffered them not: for the same reason that at a former time the Spirit had not suffered Philip to remain in Samaria, but sent him into the desert. Paul was not permitted to remain in Asia, but forwarded hastily across to Europe; for a group of women convened in a shed near the town of Philippi, gave the Lord in heaven no rest until he should send them a messenger to open the way of salvation. The Hearer of prayer could not bear that cry another week without an answer; and so the missionaries must leave all other work behind, and hasten to the spot. There some inquiring souls were thirsting like dry land for the living water; and Paul was the vessel chosen to contain it and bear it to the spot.

The Lord opened Lydia's heart so that she attended to the things that were spoken by Paul. Although no report of the sermon has been preserved, we know well what its burden would be. The missionary, not knowing whether he should have another opportunity, would preach Christ crucified. He would make plain the way of pardon through the blood of the Lamb. Now it is. intimated that Lydia's heart needed opening ere she could attend to the doctrines of grace. Probably the opening was a process that had been going on for a long time. From day to day her heart longed more for God; from day to day her prayer rose more eagerly to the throne. This was the opening: she was growing ready for receiving the gospel.

I think Lydia's heart was opened in some such way as the gates of a canal-lock are opened. It is by water coming in secretly below, and gradually swelling up within, that at length the folding-doors allow themselves to be opened. As long as the water presses from above and from without, the pressure tends to shut the gates more firmly, rather than to open them. The lock keeps itself empty, and resists the offer of the water to comein. But when by secret channels the interior is nearly filled, then the resistance ceases, and the gates are thrown wide. Ah, many an empty heart resists the offer of mercy from God; the offer of that mercy rather shuts the gates more firmly! But when secretly some grace finds its way in, and more follows, and the empty space gradually fills, then the enmity disappears, and the whole soul opens out to Christ.

It was by receiving some grace within her heart, that Lydia was opened to receive more. She was made willing in the day of the Lord's power.

But the Lord has other keys at hand by which he sometimes opens closed hearts. There are diversities

of operations. The resistance is sometimes gently overcome by droppings gentle as the dew; and sometimes the bolts that barred an unbelieving heart are broken by terrible things in righteousness. Some sorrow may have crushed this industrious widow, and so prepared her for taking in the healing balm of the gospel. Was her son disobedient, or her foreman unfaithful; or was the current of trade changing its channel, and threatening to leave her business to break in pieces like a stranded ship? By any of these operations, or by others different from all these, the Lord may have conducted the process of opening, so that when the word of the kingdom came, it found ready entrance.

It is good to wait on the Lord, both for our own refreshing and for the quickening of those whom we love. Watch and pray. We do not know when the Bridegroom may pass. Let us and ours be ever ready to follow him into the marriage-supper. The Bridegroom passed the place of prayer that day on the outskirts of Philippi, and Lydia, with her lamp well-trimmed, was on the alert to hear his approaching footsteps, and follow him to the feast.

Even the preaching of Paul did not save unless an opened heart attended to it and took it in. In this example of primitive preaching, it is made clear that more depends on the preparation of the hearer, than on the preacher's skill. The Master, in the parable of the Sower, has clearly shown the necessity of two conspiring things-the good seed sown, and the ground broken soft to receive it. Alas! how much precious seed falls on the beaten wayside, and bears no fruit, when hearers' hearts are trodden hard and smooth by a week of cares and pleasures, and the preaching on the Sabbath takes no effect! We have in our day, through God's good hand upon us, much good seed; oh for broken ground! The preparation of the heart is from the Lord.

Lydia and her house were admitted into the Church by baptism. Glad and grateful, she offered hospitality to the strangers, and pressed them to accept it. From them, or at least through them, she had received an immeasurable spiritual good; and it is the instinct of her new nature to take pleasure in imparting temporal things to the servants of her Lord. Here, in Lydia's opened heart, rises the spring which the Master has provided to supply the temporal wants of his ministers, in all lands and all times.

XIII

THE PYTHONESS.

ACTS xvi. 16-24.

HITHERTO in the experience of the missionaries persecution had always originated with the Jews. At this place, however, they were few and destitute of influence. In these parts of the empire the Jews were themselves crushed, and so they lacked the power to crush the

Christians. Here the opposition sprang directly from the Gentiles.

As they went on some subsequent occasion to the place of prayer, a slave damsel, "possessed with a spirit of divination," followed them, uttering a remarkable testimony in favour of the apostles as the servants of the Most High God. This slave was owned by a company of speculators. Great gains might be made from the oracles, half mad and apparently half inspired, which she uttered. A copartnership was formed to manage the concern. They bought the slave, and | farmed out her oracles to the credulous. This was the ordinary form of the heathen oracles. A priestess either permanently possessed, or artificially thrown into a raving condition at certain times, was concealed in the shrine. From her mouth ambiguous answers issued, and skilful attendants wrote them down for the superstitious inquirers. Wicked men fabricated the imposture, and the wicked spirit availed himself of the prepared deceit. The people were both deceiving and being deceived. Such was the moral condition of the community into which the gospel of Christ was making its entrance. Such was the corruption of that earth upon which the salt was about to be spread.

The raving Pythoness followed Paul and his company, crying out in an excited and passionate voice, but emitting an unexpectedly sober and far-reaching testimony in favour of the missionaries and their work. Such a witness was borne by the possessed man to Jesus when he cried out, "I know thee who thou art, the Holy One of God." These testimonies were perhaps expressions of the victims, emitted at momentary intervals of freedom contrary to the will of the possessing spirit. Perhaps the hope of the captive somehow revived at the approach in the one case of the Master, and in the other of his servant Paul. So the captives lately held in cruel bondage by the Emperor of Abyssinia remained quiet, and seemed submissive to the tyrant, while no help was near, but changed their tone and defied him when the British army appeared at Magdala. This enthralled human spirit seemed to speak out with courage when deliverance was nigh.

When this had continued many days Paul was grieved at the interruption, and had compassion on the captive. Remembering the commission given by the Lord to his ministers, he cast the evil spirit out by the name and power of Jesus Christ. The slave was restored to her right mind. No more the wild rolling eye, and no longer the fitful, incoherent ravings which the evil spirit had palmed upon the people as superhuman inspirations. But the investment of the greedy shareholders had lost its value. "We paid so many thousands to her owner for this woman, and now, though we possess the legal right to her services as a slave, all that she will bring in that capacity will not reimburse us for a tithe of our outlay." Here is a predicament. The gains are gone; Paul and Silas are the cause of all the loss. A mob is gathered; a tumult is excited; an assault is made upon