If Gallio, instead of Pilate, had been proconsul in Judæa when the priests conspired to put Jesus to death, what would have been the result? But we need not speculate. I have put the question in order to intimate that it should not get an answer. Christ, our Passover, was sacrificed for us. He offered himself; and all things conspired to fulfil his great design. If it had been his will to avoid the cross and leave mankind to perish, he could have placed a Gallio on Pilate's judgment-seat.

XXVIII

MANY SHALL GO TO AND FRO, AND KNOWLEDGE SHALL BE INCREASED.

ACTS xviii. 18-28.

UNDER cover of this providential deliverance, the missionaries were enabled to prosecute their work until a Church was organized in Corinth. Then Paul took leave of the brethren,-perhaps of Timothy and Silas, as well as of the native converts. His work in Europe for that time was accomplished. Four Churches had been founded. He had completed a square in the Roman provinces of Macedonia and Greece. There stands the “Quadrilateral,” — Philippi, Thessalonica, Berea, and Corinth,-erected on the soil of Europe, and manned by soldiers of Jesus Christ, who will hold it for him against all assaults. The true Heir of the world is infeoffed now in possession of its brightest continent. Here already in germ dwell the ruling race. Here the plenipotentiary of the Great King has planted the royal standard; and although there may be many recedings and advancings, as in a prolonged battle, it may be assumed that the Lord will find that signal still floating when he comes again.

Paul "took leave" of his friends at Corinth. Though a strong man, he was also a tender one. Tears fell on the shore at Cenchrea that day, as afterwards at Miletus. Although this apostle seemed to be a man of iron when endurance for the sake of the gospel was required, he manifested an almost feminine softness in his intercourse with those who loved him. No letter that I am acquainted with, either ancient or modern, contains such a list of special and distinguishing love-messages as the Epistle to the Romans. The Jewish-Christian couple with whom he lodged and laboured in Corinth accompanied him in his journey. Besides their desire to continue longer in the company of their instructor, they may have found that their trade could be more advantageously prosecuted in Asia, the seat of the manufacture.

I do not think that much importance should be attached to the fact, incidentally mentioned here, that he had his head shorn in Cenchrea, before embarking, on account of a vow. Paul's idea of liberty under the gospel did not go the length of forbidding liberty. He bore witness that those who made any of these observances their righteousness before God, shut themselves out

from Christ: but when any one was justified through faith in the Redeemer, Paul and his fellow-apostles allowed the convert unlimited liberty to observe or not observe the Jewish ceremonial. It is pleasant to suppose that Paul himself would rejoice to practise occasionally some of these rites, now that he knew their typical meaning. He had often toiled through them when they were to him a dead letter: I could conceive that it might be a refreshment to him to observe some of the old ordinances after they had become to him spirit and life through faith in Jesus.

We have much to learn yet in the matter of the liberty which the gospel brings. We have an inveterate tendency to lay bonds on ourselves and our neighbours, where Christ meant that we should be free. The tightness of this binding confines and weakens the life. The principle of the rule laid down regarding the second marriage of a widow might be extended so as to reach many other cases: "She is at liberty; only in the Lord."

"He came to Ephesus." Corinth and Ephesus were the great commercial centres of Greece and Asia, the New York and Liverpool of those times and regions. Cicero made the passage by sea in fifteen days, but he considered the voyage a long one: thirteen days were occupied in the return.

On his arrival at the city Paul separated from his fellow-travellers, and instantly began his work, in the usual way, by reasoning with the Jews in the synagogue. His ministry at Ephesus on this occasion, however, was very brief. Determined, for some reason not explained, to be at Jerusalem during the approaching feast, probably Pentecost, he resisted the entreaties of his friends, and took ship for Cæsarea.

He reached Jerusalem according to his plan, but the record is silent as to his occupation and experiences there. Did he call the Christians together, and “rehearse" all that the Lord had done by him among the Gentiles? Did he make a pilgrimage to Calvary! Did he stand and weep on the spot where Stephen died? We do not know: not one word of information is given on these subjects. Probably no result bearing on the kingdom sprang from that visit to Jerusalem; and the Spirit, not ministering to our curiosity, passes it over in silence. To Antioch again the attention of the reader is directed, for that great capital had now become the point of departure and return for the mis sionaries of the cross.

Paul did not retrace his steps to Antioch in order to remain there. After getting and giving refreshment through intercourse with the Church for a time, he set out on another missionary tour. Nor did he on this occasion take a new route. He traversed Asia Ming westward on the track of his own former journey. Ile revisited the Churches that he had formerly planted. To cherish and instruct and edify young and feeble be lievers is recognized as worthy occupation for an apostle, even although the work of bringing in the heathen shetli

Incidentally we learn (1 Cor. xvi. 1) that on this journey he requested contributions for the poor Christians in Jerusalem. This is at least one fruit of his brief visit to that city. Like his Lord, he went about doing good.

Here the history leaves Paul for awhile, and introduces some things that happened at Ephesus in his absence. Apollos, a Jew of Alexandria, intellectually trained in the celebrated schools of his native city, learned and accepted the gospel through a true but defective ministry. This man came to Ephesus, and began to preach with great acceptance and power. He only knew the testimony borne to Christ by John the Baptist but he pressed the truth, as far as he knew it, with great eloquence and great zeal. Priscilla and Aquila heard him, and discerned his spirit. At a glance they saw three things: 1st, that he was a true disciple of Christ; 2d, that he had great power as a reasoner and orator; and, 3rd, that he was defective in his knowledge of the gospel. Here was an opportunity for the tent-makers. They could not teach in the synagogue; but they could instil their knowledge privately into the mind of Apollos. They could not preach; but they could make a preacher.

Here we discover the reason why the Lord in his providence, when this pair were expelled from Rome, guided their steps to Corinth, where they learned the gospel from Paul; and then induced them to go with Paul to Ephesus, and remain in that city after their great instructor left it. The same divine care that brought Philip and the Ethiopian prince together in the desert, brought the tent-makers and Apollos together in the city of Ephesus. He was a capacious vessel; and they possessed that word of the Lord with which the vessel must be charged. As soon as they met, they imparted, and he received, what was lacking to make him an able minister of Jesus Christ. This meeting which took place on earth was arranged in heaven. It is not in man that walketh to direct his steps; He who directs them hath done all things well. "Whoso is wise and will observe these things, even he shall understand the loving-kindness of the Lord." When disciples of Christ, coming from different directions, meet and hold intercourse, let them watch and pray. They may expect to give or to get: perhaps they may both give and get reciprocally.

After profiting by his intercourse with Aquila and Priscilla, Apollos crossed over into the province of Achaia, and was of great use to the infant Churches there. Paul had planted; but he was not able to remain long beside his work. The plants in the scorching of that season were ready to die: Apollos arrived pportunely to water them. Paul planted the Church in Corinth; Apollos watered it; and God gave the in

crease.

XXIX.

CONVINCING AND PERSUADING.

ACTS xix. 8.

WHILE Apollos was ministering in Corinth, Paul, in fulfilment of his promise, returned to Ephesus. He had hastened eastward to Palestine, landed at Cæsarea, hurried up to Jerusalem, and saluted the brethren there. Thence he travelled quickly northward to Antioch. From Antioch he started on his third missionary circle. Passing through Asia Minor, doing a little everywhere, but remaining long nowhere, he again came to Ephesus, the principal city of the whole region, on the western coast. It was the entrepot between Greece and Asia.

The missionaries of the earliest age always found their way to the great cities. It was a wise method. The cities were the pulsing hearts of their several provinces; and principles deposited there soon spread by natural arteries to all parts of the land. The missionaries skilfully seized the chief centres of influence and power.

On his arrival at Ephesus, he found a little company of disciples in the heart of the great heathen city. All the Christianity of the place gravitated toward Paul. Like draws to like. The apostle in Ephesus was like a bar of loadstone thrust into a great heap of rubbish : forthwith all the filings of real steel that existed in the miscellaneous mass were found adhering to its sides. The attraction and cohesion of kindred spirits is a beautiful and beneficent law of the new kingdom.

We discover in this far-off region some direct results of the Baptist's preaching in the wilderness of Judea. Some of those who heard that preacher must have emigrated before the death of Christ and the descent of the Spirit at Pentecost. They had beheld, at John's invitation, the Lamb of God, and believed to the saving of their souls; but they had not obtained the fuller knowledge of the gospel which came after the resurrection to the chosen witnesses. To these men, and in answer to their prayers for greater light, the apostle of the Gentiles was sent, as a vessel, bearing the name of Christ more fully revealed. As Philip was sent to the desert of Gaza, with the water of life to the thirsting Ethiop, Paul was sent on the same errand to those twelve men and their companions who panted for the living water in the desert-place of a huge idolatrous city. The Lord knoweth them that are his, and how to find them out. He will never leave them, nor forsake them.

He entered the synagogue as usual, and "spake boldly for the space of three months." In this Book much is made of boldness. The early disciples felt their need of it, longed for it, prayed for it, and obtained it. Courage displayed by the preacher implies a cruel persecution by the enemies of the cross. Strange that when a message from heaven is about to be proclaimed, great courage should be requisite in the herald who bears it. The message is peace and pardon. Surely a servant of the government may risk himself in the very

heart of a convict prison alone, if he is the bearer of a royal pardon for all the inmates. In such a case, it would not be necessary to look out for a man of rare courage, who might dare to carry the proclamation to the convicts. Give him but the message of free pardon, and he may go in unarmed with all safety, like Daniel in the den of lions.

When Christ himself came to the world-the great convict prison of the universe-came the ambassador from God, bringing peace, they said, This is the heir; come, let us kill him. He came unto his own, and his own received him not; and the servant is not greater than his Lord.

Do preachers of the gospel need courage still? Not in the same sense and of the same kind. They are not put in prison for faithfulness in declaring the whole counsel of God. But as long as the carnal mind is enmity against God, there must be opposition to the gospel from some quarter. You may as well expect to escape from the law of gravitation when you travel to China, as expect that, when so many centuries have run their course, courage is no longer necessary to a preacher of the cross. The Jews opposed the gospel at an earlier stage. They opposed the publication of the doctrine: we allow the doctrine to pass freely from the preacher's lips, but do not permit the kingdom to come in power over our hearts and lives. If we should denounce as boldly that form of opposition to Christ which is rife amongst ourselves, as the apostles denounced that which prevailed in their day, perhaps we should taste some of their experience.

In those days the testing-point lay higher up; in our days it lies lower down. Then the real struggle occurred at the profession; now it occurs at the practice. The cross then was to own themselves the disciples of Christ; it was this step that cost: the cross with us is not there; it is easy for us to own his name; the difficulty lies in so following him that our lives shall be a continual reproof. Their temptation was to fall into the track of the first son whom the father ordered to work in his vineyard--to say, "I will not." Our temptation is to copy the answer of the second, "I go, sir ;" and then to spend the day in seeking our own pleasures. The stress for them lay in the promise; the stress for us lies in the performance. If modern ministers were as bold in demanding performance, as the apostles were in demanding profession, perhaps their course would not flow so smoothly.

The theme of the preacher was "the kingdom of God." The preaching of these men was a new thing in the world. They were not contented with a niche in the temple for another idol, a day in the calendar for an additional saint. They demanded the overthrow of all idols, and the establishment of another throne in their stead. They proposed a King who should be absolute and sole.

The things that Paul preached did, no doubt, concern the kingdom in its final glory; but this kingdom in

heaven afar, he uniformly presented as the legitimate and certain issue of a kingdom now established in believing hearts. First, the kingdom of heaven in you; and next, you in the kingdom of heaven. Let Christ reign in you now, and you will reign with him in that day. If I leave him standing at the door knocking throughout the day of grace, he will leave me standing at the door knocking when the day of grace is done.

Mark the manner of the apostolic preaching: "disputing and persuading." The first makes the matter clear to the intellect, and the second makes it powerful on the will. The first enables you to know the true, and the second induces you to do the right. These are the two elements of which all right preaching consists. The proportions may vary indefinitely with circumstances; but every sermon should contain, in some measure, both constituents.

On the one hand, a discourse should not be merely exposition of doctrine; it ought to persuade as well as unfold. The preacher may not meet the hearers again, until he is called to give an account. He ought to beseech them to be reconciled unto God. On the other hand, mere exhortation will not suffice. God, who has given us understanding, expects us to exercise it in the highest of all concerns. He who would persuade his brethren to serve the Lord, should endeavour to convince them that it is a reasonable service.

Disputing means reasoning; but this does not imply that religion is founded on reason. Reason is the builder, not the foundation. Reason constructs religion, not on itself, but on the Scriptures. There is a good deal of pretence on this subject at the present day. Those who affect to be philosophers, freely insinuate that religious people put reason aside when they ap proach the spiritual sphere, and proceed upon faith instead. This is a false issue. Reason and faith are not antagonistic, so that, in accepting the one, you discard the other. Reason is no more discarded from religion than from philosophy. In former times human reason occupied too exalted a place in philosophy. It was made the foundation; and the structure, consequently, crum| bled and fell. Bacon introduced a radical reform. He removed reason from its usurped position as a foundation, and gave it the place of operator. For basis he substituted ascertained facts; on these, as a foundation, reason was permitted to rear her fabric, and a goodly palace meets our view to-day as the result of this new method. By the Reformation a parallel process was established in the sphere of religion. As the facts of the material or mental creation constitute the basis on which reason builds a philosophy, so the doctrines and facts of revelation constitute the basis on which reason builds a theology. On both spheres reason is the builder, not the basis.

In regard to the place of reason in the domain of religion, two opposite extremes exist. Positivism makes reason everything; Popery makes it nothing. The one will make it master; the other will not permit it even

to serve. The Protestant principle stands midway between these extremes. It permits, and demands the free exercise of human reason, but limits it in this domain to what is revealed in the Word: precisely as the Baconian philosophy permits and demands the exercise of human reason in the sphere of philosophy, but limits it to the observed facts and laws of nature. After expounding the truth, the preacher persuades his auditors to comply with it. Exposition is necessary, lat not sufficient; without it you must fail, but even with it you may fail. Though the understanding be anvinced, the will may remain perverse. A man may be convinced that God is lovely, and yet not love God. You may own that Christ is offered to you, and yet not accept Christ. You may know truth, and yet follow lies. This is a fact in history; it cannot reasonably be denied, and should not be carelessly overlooked. It is a startling and solemnizing discovery. Paul was greatly Loved when he found "a law in his members" warring against the law of God which was in his mind. His understanding was carried; but his heart still resisted. In his own experience he found out the power which Fas able to control the will and mould the life. The love of Christ constrained him, when all other motives failed. This power, accordingly, he was always ready to apply when he found reasoning to be impotent. He will beseech his Roman correspondents to yield themselves a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God; but he beseeches them "by the mercies of God." He depends on this weight to overcome the inertia of the carnal mind, and set heart and life in motion like a running stream in the service of God and man.

The two great constituents of the Christian ministry are to convince and persuade; to enlighten the understanding, and to win souls.

XXX.

THE STRONG MAN CAST OUT BY THE STRONGER. ACTS xix. 9-17.

JESUS, preached by Paul in Ephesus, did not bring peace to its people. In the first instance there was a sword. "Divers were hardened and believed not." These Jews spoke evil of the "way." Christ announced Limself as the way, and the only way, to the Father; at when he came to his own, they received him not. They would have none of him. The servant retired from those who rejected his Master. He obtained accommodation in the school of one Tyrannus, and tanght there for two years. It is not certain whether Tyrannus was a Jew or a Greek. In either case his academy was independent of the synagogue, and thus he was enabled to shelter the preacher of the cross. All that dwelt in Asia heard the gospel. The people from the surrounding country and the adjacent towns tek an opportunity of hearing the new doctrines when they came to the capital on business. This method

prevailed in the times of the Reformation. The country people, after having sold their produce in the marketsquare, crept into the neighbouring church and heard the Scriptures expounded. Then they returned to their homes with both gains-one in their hearts, and the other in their pockets. Thus the Word had free course, and was glorified throughout the neighbouring provinces.

Besides the preaching of the Word, special miracles were wrought in Ephesus. The passage is somewhat obscure. There may have been some testimony given to Paul's word in that heathen city, on account of the magicians who plied their craft there, similar to the signs wrought by Aaron in presence of the Egyptian wonder-workers. In any case, this was not the ordinary experience of Paul. It was peculiar and extraordinary. An exceptional testimony is vouchsafed to him once in exceptional circumstances, and it is wide as the world apart from the degrading and tricky traffic in spurious relics, which has become a permanent institution of the Рарасу.

As the Egyptian magicians in some form imitated the signs wrought by Moses, the soothsayers of Ephesusin this case disreputable Jews-attempted to work wonders in imitation of Paul by pronouncing the name of Jesus. There is much material for thought in the answer given by the possessed maniac to these sorcerers: "Jesus I know, and Paul I know; but who are ye?" It is the same in kind with the response of the Pythoness at Philippi. It is a remarkable declaration. It is not only out of the mouth of babes and sucklings that the Lord can draw forth his own praise: he can make the wicked praise him, as well as the weak. Such a testimony was borne by an unclean spirit to the Lord himself: "I know thee, who thou art, the Holy One of God."

An application of this Scripture is possible to our own day and our own circumstances. The evil spirit seems to possess, and energize, and wield at will, certain classes and sections of the people. They seem like the man who cut himself and wore no clothes, and dwelt among the tombs. They are a torment to themselves, and a terror to their neighbours. They might have clothes, and food, and home; but they wildly cast all these away, and live like the beasts.

The evil spirits of the present time, like those of Paul's day, are subject only to one power. They do not give way before reading and writing. New houses and good wages will not drive them out. Even the prison and the gibbet fail to scare them. A goodly number of the legion have in our sight been cast out; but the work is done by the name of Jesus. Many of them are even now sitting at his feet, clothed and in their right mind. There is no healing for these wounds of the body politic except in the gospel of Christ, borne to the hearts and homes of the outcasts by the self-sacrificing love of them that believe.

None other than He who made the world at first can make it new again. "Jesus I know:" this witness is

true, even though the evil spirit utter it. Yes, prince of this world, thou knowest him to be the Holy One of God. Thou hast felt him crushing thy head each time that a slave of sin has been ransomed and renewed. Thou, strong man, holding a human soul captive, bound in the thongs of its own lusts, hast felt the power of the Stronger, wrenching one by one a multitude of victims from thy grasp. Thou knowest, too, this Jesus in his mercy to men; for often, when thou hast set a snare for a believer's feet and made him stumble, and when there was a shout in the camp of the adversary as if one of Christ's saved were lost again, thou hast been compelled to relax thy hold and yield up the backslider to the Lord that bought him at the first, and has healed again his backsliding.

Nor is it only Jesus the Saviour whom the evil spirits know and acknowledge; they know in the same way the ministers whom he employs. "Jesus I know, and Paul I know." Christ has personally ascended; it is by his servants, as his instruments, now that he reaches down to the lost and saves them. The powers of darkness know all who yield themselves instruments of righteousness unto God. In this respect the servants share the Master's lot: "If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you."

The first Atlantic cable was broken and lost. It sank to the bottom where the sea was several miles deep. Though buoys were left at the spot, they drifted away. Who shall now find the spot in that pathless ocean where the precious line is lying; and who shall bring it up, although the place were known?

They find the spot, not by marks on the sea, but by the lights that are fixed in heaven. Hovering over it,

they drop their grappling-irons, and pay out line till they strike the ground. They feel in that dark abyssfeel for the lost. By the instrument sent down they grasp the broken cable and haul it up. They bring the dead to life, and through it thought throbs again in pulses of unseen fire from shore to shore.

That lost line seems like a human soul in its sin. This creature that God has made for himself, and qualified to receive and transmit his own divine will, has fallen, has fallen. The prey seems secure in the jaws of the pit. But down in that abyss an instrument of salvation touches the lost. The powers of darkness who thought their victim secure, learned to know both the Living One on high who planned redemption, and the instrument which he employed in his work. "Jesus I know, and Paul I know."

Lend me your imagination for a moment, that by aid of it I may go yet one step further on the line of this analogy. Suppose that broken, lost line a conscious intelligence, cut off from all communion with his kind in that dark abyss despairing. It is dark; there is none who can reach him to save. Lost, for ever. Now imagine that this despairing creature feels some instrument touching him from above-touching him with intelligence, power, and love-touching him with intent to save. Suppose he feels himself grasped, and drawn up-up, and ever up, through the dark waters. At length light begins to dawn overhead, and increases as he rises, like the morning. At length he emerges int the light of heaven, is restored to life, and enters the society of his kind again.

Such is the lost estate of the sinful; and such the redemption that Jesus brings.

"I know that deadly evils compass me, Dark perils threaten; yet I would not fear, Nor poorly shrink, nor feebly turn to flee, For thou, my Christ, art buckler, sword, and spear." T was a summer evening in the year 1432, and a happy family party were assembled in Miretown Castle. There were changes there since the time we wrote of in the last chapter-when Maude Dunmore and William Miretown met after years of separation on the rocky beach of Crail. The old laird was dead, and young Miretown,

F

as he was so long termed, is laird now; and the fair young matron, with the baby girl in her arins, is Mande Dunmore, though she no longer bears that name, but has been for two years and more the Lady of Miretown. She stands now with her husband at an open casement, looking out with admiration at the peaceful scene before them. The bright crimson tints in the sky are reflected on the deep-blue waters of the Firth of Forth as they lay that evening still and quiet. In Maude's heart very grateful feelings were stirring as she gazed. There was peace in inanimate nature, and peace, Christ's parting legacy to his own, in her breast; and she was thinking, truly to her the "lines had fallen in a very pleasant place." And through her husband's mind thoughts