"Well, that may be true, too," the old woman replied; "but I know that everybody who saw it was quite surprised at it. And no wonder, too, you stood two hours every day for a week, before the gentleman with the brush and the little board with paints. Don't you remember, boy?" "Of course I do," replied Archie. "He gave me a guinea each time I did it. And we bought yon time-piece with it, and a watch for myself." our up at full speed under torrents of rain. Archie at once We ?' "But why did he want to paint you ?" I asked. "I will tell you how it came about," said the old woman. "It is a strange story, sir, and it shows how wonderfully God supports the widow and the orphan. In those days we lived in a poor wretched hut. Archie was then a lad of fourteen. My husband was dead, and had left me without any support. I did not know how to get on from one day to the other. As I could not afford to send Archie to school, I kept him at home to do little jobs and errands for the neighbours, which brought in a few coppers a week. During the summer months he used to stand near the bridge yonder, to watch the carriages that crossed it, as this is a favourite road, and put the drag on the wheels. One afternoon a gentleman and a lady came up in a carriage, and Archie put on the drag as usual. The coachman asked him if they could drive to the Trossachs, stay there a couple of hours, and be back about nine. Archie said they could. The gentleman then dropped a shilling into his hand, and off they drove." She paused here, but no one wishing to speak, gentleman and lady enter, led by Archie. I made she proceeded again. "It was a fine day at the time, and Archie came home in high spirits, to give me the shilling. But about sunset the sky became overcast, and a storm began, just like this. Between the thunder-peals, I heard a fearful crash. 'Dear me,' I said to Archie, 'I believe the bridge is down. I suppose the water has swept it away.' I knew the bridge was in a bad state. There is a stone one now, but it was a wooden one then. I had often spoken about the state it was in to James Maconachie, the forester, who had charge of it, but he took no notice. Though the rain was pouring, Archie rushed out to see, and it was just as I said. 'Mother,' he said, 'it is so dark that I could not see my own hands, but when a flash of lightning came I saw that the bridge was all swept away, and the pieces of wood floating down the water.' It was about nine o'clock then. Archie, boy,' I said, 'you must go and stand on the road a bit from the bridge. You know the gentleman and the lady will soon be up, and they will all go over the bank and into the water, if you don't warn them.' So Archie went out and took his stand on the road. The rain rushed down in torrents, but he did not mind it much, as he was well-used to it, and I promised him a cup of tea with sugar when he came back. He waited for halfan-hour; and then he came back. 'Mother, they're not come,' he said, and it's half-past nine.' cold and shivering, poor boy. 'But you must go again, Archie,' I said; 'they will come, as they are sure to have left the Trossachs before the storm came on.' I gave him his tea and a piece of bread, and off he went again. He waited another half-hour, when on a sudden he saw the lamps, and the carriage came He was "You may imagine my surprise, sir, when on a sudden I heard a carriage stop at the door, and a them welcome as well as I could. The gentleman asked me if I would allow them to spend the night under my roof. They were in much the same condition as you were in just now-drenched to the skin— for their umbrellas and rugs had been but poor protection in such an awful storm. I pitied the poor lady. She looked very pale, and shivered all over. I took her into a little closet, and begged her to put on some of the best of my clothes. As I had still my late husband's clothes in my possession (they are the same as you have on now, sir,) I could also help the gentleman. Archie gave the coachman a dry shirt, and they both went off to their beds among some straw in the shed. I made a good fire to dry the clothes, and managed to give the gentleman and lady a cup of tea with oat cakes. I saw that it did them good, and I was delighted to see the care the gentleman took of the lady. I gave up my own bed to them, which they took very thankfully; and I made a shake-down for myself in the little closet. So we got through the night very well on the whole. The next morning we were all quite contented with our night's quarters. The clothes were dry again, and the lady was as cheerful and happy as need be. Early in the morning, before they awoke, I had sent Archie to the baker's, who lives a mile from this, with the shilling he got from the gentleman. He came back with a half loaf and some butter. I had still some tea, so I was able to offer them a breakfast. But they did not take much of it, for they were anxious to drive off, as they had friends at the Trossachs, who would be alarmed about them. So when the carriage was at the door the lady thanked me kindly for what she called my goodness, and put a piece of paper into my hand. The gentleman patted Archie on the back, and put something in his hand. When they were off I found my piece of paper was a five-pound note; and Archie found himself with five sovereigns. You may imagine our amazement and joy, sir. I had never seen so much money at once in my life before. 'Mother,' cried Archie, 'there will be no getting through it.' Two days after this the lady and gentleman again made their appearance. They were accompanied by another gentleman, who afterwards turned out to be a painter. The lady again thanked me, and said, 'You saved our lives, and we cannot forget you.' 'Oh, no, ma'am,' I said, 'it was the Lord's doing. He put it into my mind.'-' Certainly He did,' she said, 'but He used you as His instrument.'- 'Or rather your son,' said the gentleman; where is he?' Archie soon made his appearThe gentleman then bade Archie tell his friend the painter what had happened on that evening, and how he had been watching on the road in the rain and lightning, and how he had stopped the carriage. After that the gentleman minutely inquired into our circumstances, and when he learnt our poverty, and how my husband had been a farmer, and how Archie would have been brought up one too, had death not set all our plans at naught, he looked Archie in the face and said, 'Would you like to go to school, and become a farmer? "Yes, sir,' said Archie, ance. and his eyes glistened, for though he is present, sir, I cannot keep from saying that he was always a good boy, and very fond of learning. To be short, sir, he offered to take Archie to a place near Stirling, where me he would put him with a farmer, and give him schooling at the same time. Of course I had no objection, and Archie jumped with joy. He also settled on a pound a week during my life. Soon after, he arranged with the laird that I should have a new house, and that when Archie grew up he should have a farm. After living five years with the farmer, Archie came home, and Sir Wilbraham stocked his farm for him. "And that, sir," said the old woman, "is the story. Archie is a happy husband and father, as you see; and every morning and evening we seek a blessing on the heads of Sir Wilbraham and his family, and we want words to thank Him for the wonderful way in which He has been a Husband of the widow, and a Father of the fatherless." Tears stood in the good woman's eyes when she had finished her story, and Archie tossed his baby up and down in his arms, saying: "Yes, darling, it is just so; and when you're big, we'll tell you all about it." Meanwhile the weather had cleared up, and we bright and beautiful. Our clothes were dry now, and we went into the bed-room to put them on. "John," said George to me, we must make a present of a five-pound-note to the baby, and send him one every year till he is of age." "Done!" I said; "I will run shares with you." Before we took leave of the kind people, we not more looked at the picture, which now seemed to possess new beauties. And on our way home again, we agreed that of all our "Highland excursions this, though likely to be the last, was certainly not the least. JOHN ARMITAGE HOW TO USE THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. OUR attention is now fixed on the church at Antioch. Jerusalem is no longer the mother of churches. The days of her place among the "thousands of Israel" are numbered. The promptings of the missionary Spirit have departed elsewhere. At Antioch first His voice is heard, and the two, Barnabas and Saul, are specially designated for the work. But they were thus designated, be it remembered, in the midst of solemn prayer and fasting, and from among the number of appointed ministers of the church there. Before we are told of their designation, these particulars are emphatically impressed on us (ch. xiii. 1). And now we begin a series of missionary journeys, which it is not our intention to follow in detail, but only to trace in so far as they bring out points essential to the understanding of the history, and to the development of the purpose of the writer. From Antioch, the great stream of commerce flowed westward, down the river Orontes, to Seleucia, the port of the city. And as Antioch had been chosen as the second resting place of the Church, because of its Gentile character, it was natural that the missionaries should be guided by the Holy Ghost, not eastward, to 1 1 the Holy Ghost in Saul. Hitherto, Barnabas has been foremost, and Saul has kept in the background. Here first, and henceforward, Saul becomes "the chief speaker." But here, also, we have in conflict together two of the influences which strove for the mastery of the heathen world. Paganism, as such, was worn out: its fables were seen through, its worship despised. There was in it no relief to the conscience, no satisfaction to the soul. On its wreck was arising the influence of Oriental magic, which, founded on the truth of Judaism, perverted it, by mingling with it the unhallowed rites and practices of superstition. It claimed intercourse with powerful spirits, and the gift of foretelling futurity. It gained influence and position for various designing men who were found about the courts of emperors and rulers. Here first, at Paphos in Cyprus, this new religious element came into decisive conflict with Christianity. Before this, at Samaria, it had been seen how alien the Spirit of the Gospel was from that of the professors of magic: here it was to be seen, which of the two was really in possession of gifts of power, and in communion with the Spirit of God. The result is the conversion of the deputy to the faith, and the overthrow and disgrace of Elymas. Henceforward, we have in Scripture history no record of magic as an antagonist of the Gospel of Christ. We have indeed a faint trace of a cognate influence being at work in the Colossian church, but it is hardly traceable to the same source. Tradition tells us of conflicts between the Apostles Peter and Paul and Simon Magus, at Rome; and the subse quent history of the Church records the baneful influence of the magical doctrines of the East in mingling themselves with and corrupting the purity of the Christian faith. Paulus What Coincident with, rather than consequent upon, this triumph of the Gospel, is the change of appellation of the new Apostle from Saul to Paul. Such changes, on the part of Jews much employed and known among the Gentiles, were very common. The commentators give us a long list of them, all having the same feature as this, the similarity in sound of the new name to the old one. Saul was a Hebrew name, unknown to Roman ears. was one of their own ordinary appellations. more obvious, than the substitution of the wellknown for the unknown? That Paulus was on this occasion also the name of the governor who was converted to the faith, may have rendered the change all the more obvious. But that the Apostle himself, as some have thought, took the new name as a kind of trophy of this his first missionary achievement, seems to me in the last degree improbable, and indeed inconsistent with the whole character of St. Paul. The name was given by others, rather than assumed by himself; given perhaps all the more readily on account of this resemblance; but given certainly in confornity with a practice so common as to need no justification other than its prevalence. One particular is noticeable in the resumption of The narrative after the conversion of Sergius Paulus. We are told that "Paul and his company" loosed from Paphos-the preference being at once given to St. Paul, as henceforth the chief person. This is the more to be observed, because up to this point St. Luke has been careful to allot the superior place to Barnabas: see ch. ix. 27; xi. 30; xiii. 1, 2, 7. The remaining places where Barnabas is placed first (xiv. 12, 14; xv. 12, 25, 37-41) seem to rest each upon reasons special to itself. The course of the Apostles led them to the opposite coast of Asia Minor. And here one of the band, forsaking them, returned to Jerusalem. We can hardly be wrong in ascribing the defection of John Mark, not to indisposition for the work, or fear of its hardships, but to the fact of his Jerusalem birth (which seems implied in ch. xii. 12), and his unreadiness to engage in a mission so pointedly to the Gentiles as this now promised to be. Thus his want of sympathy with the great object of St. Paul's ministry will fully account for the determination with which the great Apostle afterwards repudiated his co-operation for the second missionary journey (ch. xv. 36-41). We know, from Gal. ii. 13, that even Barnabas was not so fully convinced as might have been wished, with regard to the work among the Gentiles; and John Mark, his relative, would have formed, perhaps, with him a party against St. Paul in any question of a difficult nature which might arise. Such considerations are the more forced on our minds, by finding that at the very first place where the Word is preached in Asia Minor, Antioch in Pisidia, the question as between Jew and Gentile assumes a decisive form. Here the Apostles are invited to speak in the synagogue; and St. Paul delivers a long and solemn discourse inaugurating his commission to Israel. His invitation to them being deliberately rejected, and the Gentiles gladly receiving it, the ministry of the Word henceforth turns toward these latter, and an abundant harvest of Gentile converts is reaped. Henceforth waxes onward the conflict between the Apostle of the Gentiles and his own countrymen, the Jews. These last drive Paul and Barnabas out of Antioch in Pisidia; when, undeterred by their hostility, the Apostles renew their preaching in the synagogue at Iconium, they drive them thence also; at Lystra, where the people, recalling their old traditions of appearances of the gods in human shape, would have worshipped Barnabas and Paul, unbelieving Jews from Antioch and Iconium persuade the fickle multitude to stone Paul, and cast him out of the city as dead. However, the Apostles are not daunted; they return the same way, building up the churches which they had already founded, and teaching the disciples that through much tribulation we must enter into the kingdom of God. All this is most important, as carrying on the Church to the decision of the great question between Jew and Gentile, now immediately to be brought under dispute among the apostolic body. Himself, and of the Apostles and elder brethren, well reported of by the churches in Lystra and confirming the exemption of Gentile converts from Iconium,-appeared to the Apostle specially adaptei the requirements of the Jewish ceremonial law. One to accompany and minister to him in his missionary or two points only were reserved, and those rather of work. That he took him and circumcised him, be necessary obligation than of special enactment. cause of the Jews in those parts, is so far from being, as some have thought, inconsistent with his principles and practice on other occasions, that it furnishes us with an admirable illustration of his maxim of becom ing to the Jews as a Jew, that he might gain the Jews; and is, as Baumgarten has admirably shown, an example of the exercise of that liberty which wa free to choose or to reject a particular course of action, according to the necessity of the case. His previous refusal to circumcise Titus at Jerusalem (Gal. ii. 3), was not inconsistent with this act, but was an exercise of the same liberty, acting undr different circumstances. We now come to the second great missionary journey; in noting which we shall observe the plan before laid down, and adduce such things only as concern the larger features of the progress of the Church. The journey was to have been undertaken by both the Apostles, at the instigation of St. Paul. Why it was not thus carried out, we have already explained. Let us cast a glance at the position of matters in Antioch at its commencement. Judas and Silas, themselves prophets, i. e. endowed with the faculty of speaking in the Spirit to the Church, had come down from Jerusalem with the decree from the council. We can hardly be wrong in recognising this as the time spoken of in Gal. ii. 11 and following, when "certain from James" came down to Antioch. Their arrival seems to have been a short time delayed after that of Paul and Barnabas, and another, now mentioned for the last time in Scripture story-even St. Peter himself. During the interval before their coming, St. Peter had been taking the full liberty granted him by the apostolic decision. But on their arrival he withdrew himself, and restricted his converse to those who lived as did the Jews. Of the two messengers, Judas and Silas, both of course were at one as to the main purport of the decree. But it would seem as if both were not at one as to the duty of Jews with regard to Gentile converts. The notice (ver. 33), that Judas returned to Jerusalem, whereas we find by ver. 30 (not by ver. 34, which is spurious,- -see at the end of this article) that Silas remained in Antioch, seems to import, that the latter at all events was more in sympathy with the state of things at Antioch than the former; an impression which is presently confirmed. The dissimulation of Peter, Barnabas, and others, with regard to the obligation of living as did the Jews, had evidently no small share in precipitating St. Paul into the determination, which the wish of Barnabas to take John Mark with them ripened into practice, to shake loose from him the influence and the co-operation of those who were not hearty in their determination to stand fast in the liberty wherewith Christ had made them free. So, having chosen Silas as his companion, and having evidently the church at Antioch heartily on his side, he set out, passing through Syria, and traversing his native land, Cilicia, confirming the churches in the faith. Besides the general meaning which these words naturally bear, we are obviously led to understand that a special confirmation of their stedfastness is intended, viz., that which would be brought about by delivering to them the decrees of the council at Jerusalem, which had now become the charter of their Christian liberty. The subject of the course which Timothy acornplished as the minister of St. Paul, serving with hin as a son with a father in the Gospel, will come before us for remark in our article on the Epistles to Timothy. At present I will only say, that this adoption of a fellow-labourer who was half a Gentile, lay copletely in the course of St. Paul's whole proceeding in his missionary life, and formed a marked step for ward in his assertion of apostolic independence. Taking a Of the Asiatic portion of the missionary work of this journey, we know but little in detail. Evidently, from hints furnished in the Epistles, it was full of incidents of importance, both to the territory ped through, and to the Apostle himself. northerly direction from Lycaonia, he traversed the great central province of Galatia, founding churches among its ardent and fickle people. There, as learn from notices in his Epistle to them, he lengthened his stay, owing to being afflicted with feeble health, and was with them in weakness and fear and much trembling; and his constitutional trouble, probably some distressing nervous affection, seems to have proved a more than common interrup tion to his work (Gal. iv. 13). How long he was thus detained, we are not informed; but the cir cumstance is otherwise interesting to us, as perhaps connected with the accession to the missionary party of Luke, the physician, which took place very shortly afterwards. To this accession we owe the precision and detail of the subsequent part of the narrative, during the whole of the incidents of which, even when the first person plural is not used, there is reason to believe that he accompanied St. Paul. And now, guided by a divine intimation, the apos tolic band first set foot in Europe. The incidents st Philippi, at Thessalonica, at Bercea, are well known to all. Pursued everywhere by the active enmity of the Jews, the party is constrained to break up for the present, and to convey away St. Paul from those who sought his life. And thus we have him brought to Athens, and are introduced to one of the most remarkable episodes The chief incident of this part of the new journey in his missionary history. Jerusalem, Athens, Rome, was the adoption of Timotheus, or Timothy, as a com-these were the three great centres of interest in the panion and helper of St. Paul. This young disciple, born of a Gentile father, but inheriting the true faith of Judaism from his mother and grandmother, and ancient world. Each had its peculiar civilisation: each contributed an important and indispensable contingent to the training of mankind for the influênces 0 t A |