left him no choice but to prolong his stay in the country, and so occasioned the conversion of the Galatians as its eventual result. Evidently the illness beset him so soon after his arrival that he had no time before the attack either to resume his journey or to entertain any plan for preaching where he was. It was, however, so tedious and protracted in its operation that it altered his whole scheme of travel. And whereas he was but a passing stranger when he broke down, and had not attempted to make a single convert, he found himself before its close surrounded by a devoted band of friends who were zealous to make any sacrifice for his relief. The pathetic language of the Epistle shows how intimate an affection had grown up between the Apostle and his Galatian hosts, and makes it clear that the nucleus of a future Church was formed by the ministrations of his sick chamber. No mention is made of this illness in the Acts, for it belonged to the personal history of the Apostle rather than to the history of the Church; but the record dovetails with subtle harmony into the narrative of the Acts, ex- plaining at once why he stopped short at the first stage of his intended journey, and how it came to pass that so many of his hearers afterwards rallied round him with enthusiasm on his appear- ance in the synagogue of Antioch.
A consideration of the geographical condition of Asia Minor in the middle of the first century brings out still more clearly the thorough agreement of the two narratives. The Epistle implies, as we have seen, that the foundation of the Galatian Churches was due to an interrupted transit through their country. Now this conception is fatal to the idea of a northern site for those Churches. What possible object could the Apostle have for visiting Northern Galatia at all unless it was for the conversion of its people? It lay quite away from his recorded track, and it is inconceivable that he intended to traverse it on his way to some still more distant field of labour. Southern Galatia, on the contrary, was traversed from end to end by a great highway along which he is known to have travelled four times, visiting the cities through which it passed. According to the Acts the first of these cities visited by the Apostle was the Pisidian Antioch in the extreme south of the Galatian province. There his journey was for some reason arrested, and there he succeeded after a prolonged sojourn in founding the first Galatian Church. These facts identify Antioch as the scene of his involun- tary detention, and its position gives at once a definite clue to the original purpose of the apostolic expedition from Paphos. It was a Roman colony planted by Augustus Cesar on the main road which