dence which he was bound to claim should involve the slightest breach or loosening of the bonds of the uni- versal brotherhood.
Having discharged their errand, Barnabas and Saul returned to Antioch, bringing with them another helper, John surnamed JNIark, sister's son to Barnabas. The work of proiiliesying and teaching was resumed. Sev- eral of the oldest and most honored of the believers in Jesus were expounding the way of God and organizing the Church in that busy metropolis. Travellers were incessantly passing to and fro. Antioch was in con- stant communication with Cilicia, with Cyprus, with all the neighboring countries. The question must have forced itself upon hundreds of the " Christians" at An- tioch, '• What is the meaning of this faith of ours, of this baptism, of this incorporation, of this kingdom of the Son of God, for the zcoiid? The Gospel is not for Judica alone : here are we called by it at Antioch. Is it meant to stop here?" The Church was pregnant with a great movement, and the time of her delivery was at hand. We forget the whole method of the di- vine work in the nurture of the Church if we ascribe to the impulses of the Holy Ghost any theatrical sud- denness, and disconnect them from the thoughts which were brooding in the minds of the disciples. At every point we find both circumstances and inward reasonings preparing the crisis. Something of direct expectation seems to be implied in what is said of the leaders of the Church at Antioch, that they were " ministering to the Lord, and fasting," when the Hoh' Ghost spoke to them. Without doubt they knew it for a seal set upon previous surmises, when the voice came clearly to the general mind, " Separate me Barnabas and Saul for the work whereunto I have called them." That "work" was partially known already to the Christians of Antioch : who could be so fit for it as the two brothers in the faith and in mutual affection, the son of exhortation, and the highly accomplished and undaunted convert who had from the first been called "a chosen vessel, to bear the name of the Lord before the Gentiles, and kings, and the people of Israel ?''
When we look back, from the higher ground of Paul's apostolic activity, to the years that passed between his conversion and the first missionary journe\', we cannot observe without reverence the patient humility with which Saul waited for his Master's time. He did not say for once only, " Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?" Obedience to Christ was thenceforth his ruling principle. Submitting, as he believed, to his Lord's di- rection, he was content to work for a long time as the subordinate colleague of his seniors in the faith. He was thus the better prepared, when the call came, to act with the authority which that call conferred upon him. He loft Antioch, however, still the second to Barnabas. Everything was done with orderly gravity in the sending forth of the two missionaries. Their brethren, after fasting and prayer, laid their hands on them, and so they departed. A.D. 44.
5. Fi?-st Jlfissionary Journey. — jMuch must have been hidden from Barnabas and Saul as to the issues of the journey on which they embarked. But one thing was clear to them, that they icere sent forth to speak the Word oj" God. They did not go in their own name or for their own purposes; they were instruments for ut- tering what the Eternal God himself was saying to men. We shall find in the history a perfectly definite repre- sentation of what Paul announced and taught as he journeyed from city to city. But the first character- istic feature of his teaching was the absolute conviction that he was only the bearer of a heavenly message. It is idle to discuss Paul's character or views without rec- ognising this fact. We are compelled to think of him as of a man who was capable of cherishing such a con- viction with perfect assurance. We are bound to bear in mind the unspeakable infiuence which that convic- tion must have exerted ujion his nature. The writer of the Acts proceeds upon the same assumption. He.
PAUL
794
PAUL
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=- — 'T'jfe 3 1 tioch
/ 30 Longihude East from Greenwich
Piiul's First Missiouaiy Route.
tells us that as soon as Barnabas and Saul reached Cy- prus, they began to " announce the Word of God."
The second fact to be observed is, that for the present they delivered their message in the synagogues of the Jews only. They trod the old path till tliey should be drawn out of it. But when they had gone through the island, from Salamis to Paphos, they were called upon to explain their doctrine to an eminent Gentile, Sergius Paulus, the proconsul. This Homan officer, like so many of his countrymen, had already come under the influ- ence of Jewish teaching ; but it was in the corrupt form of magical pretensions, which throve so luxuriantly upon the godless credulity of that age. A Jew, named Barjesus, or Elymas, a magus and false prophet, had at- tached himself to the governor, and had no doubt inter- ested his mind, for he was an intelligent man, with what he had told him of the history and hopes of the Jews. See Elymas. Accordingly, when Sergius Paulus heard of the strange teachers who were announcing to the Jews the advent of their true Messiah, he wished to see them, and sent for them. The impostor, instinctively hating the apostles, and seeing his influence over the proconsul in danger of perishing, did what he could to withstand them. Then Saul, " who is also called Paul," denouncing Elymas in remarkable terms, declared against him God's sentence of temporary blindness. The blind- ness immediately fell upon him ; and the proconsul, moved by the scene and persuaded by the teaching of the apostle, became a believer.