ortance of the beautiful,
wealthy, effeminate, superstitious, and most immoral city which became
for three years the centre of St. Paul's ministry. On his second
missionary journey St. Paul was making his way to Asia, and no doubt to
Ephesus, when he with his companions were hindered by the Holy Ghost
and turned across the Hellespont to Macedonia[38]. On his return to
Syria, he could not be satisfied without at least setting foot in
Ephesus and making a beginning of preaching there in the synagogue[39];
but he was hastening back to Jerusalem, and, with a promise of return,
left his work there to Priscilla and Aquila. On his third missionary
journey Ephesus was the centre of his prolonged work. It was
accordingly the only city of the first rank which, so far as any
trustworthy evidence goes, had as the founder of its Church in the
strictest sense--that is, as the first gatherer of converts as well as
organizer of institutions--either St. Paul or any other apostle[40].

St. Paul's first activity on arriving at Ephesus illustrates the stress
he laid on the gift of the Holy Ghost as the central characteristic of
{39} Christianity. He was brought in contact with the twelve imperfect
disciples who had been baptized only with John the Baptist's baptism,
and had not so much as heard whether the Holy Ghost was given. St.
Paul baptized them anew with Christian baptism, and bestowed upon them
the gift of the Holy Ghost by the laying on of his hands[41]. Then it
is recorded how he began his preaching as usual with the Jews in the
synagogue. The Jews of Asia Minor were regarded by the Jews of
Jerusalem as corrupted and Hellenized[42]. But at any rate they
exhibited the same antagonism to the preaching of Christianity as their
stricter brethren. Thus St. Paul, when he had given them their chance,
abandoned their synagogue and established himself in the lecture-room
of Tyrannus, where he taught for two years and more[43]. And this
became the centre of an evangelization which, even if St. Paul himself
did not visit other Asiatic towns, yet spread by the agency of his
companions over the whole of the Roman {40} province of Asia--to the
churches of the Lycus, Colossae, Laodicea, Hierapolis, and probably to
the rest of the 'seven churches' to which St. John wrote in his
Apocalypse.

Ephesus was full of superstitions of all sorts as would be expected,
and St. Paul's miracles were such as would not unnaturally have led the
magi