e he founded a church in that city
of necromancers, sorcerers, magicians, courtesans, mimics,
flute-players,--a city abandoned to Asiatic sensualities and
superstitious rites; an exceedingly wicked and luxurious city, yet
famous for arts, especially for the grandest temple ever erected by the
Greeks, one of the seven wonders of the world. It was in the most
abandoned capitals, with mixed populations, that the greatest triumphs
of Christianity were achieved. Antioch, Corinth, and Ephesus were more
favorable to the establishment of Christian churches than Jerusalem
and Athens.

But the trials of Paul in Ephesus, the capital of Asia Minor, the most
celebrated of all the Ionian cities,--"more Hellenic than Antioch, more
Oriental than Corinth, more wealthy than Thessalonica, more populous
than Athens,"--were incessant and discouraging, since it was the
headquarters of pagan superstitions, and of all forms of magical
imposture. As usual, he was reviled and slandered by the Jews; but he
was also at this time an object of intense hatred to the priests and
image-makers of the Temple of Diana, troubled in mind by evil reports
concerning the converts he had made in other cities, physically weak and
depressed by repeated attacks of sickness, oppressed by cares and
labors, exposed to constant dangers, his life an incessant mortification
and suffering, "killed all the day long," carrying about him wherever he
went "the deadness of the crucified Christ."

Paul's labors in Ephesus were nevertheless successful. He made many
converts and exercised an extraordinary influence,--among other things
causing magicians voluntarily to burn their own costly books, as
Savonarola afterward made a bonfire of vanities at Florence. His sojourn
was cut short at length by the riot which was made by the various
persons who were directly or indirectly supported by the revenues of the
Temple,--a mongrel mob, brought to terms by the tact of the town clerk,
who reminded the howling dervishes and angry silversmiths of the
punishment which might be inflicted on them by the Roman proconsul for
raising a disturbance and breaking the law.

Yet Paul with difficulty escaped from Ephesus and departed again for
Greece, not however until he had written his extraordinary Epistles to
the Corinthians, who had sadly departed from his teachings both in
morals and doctrine, either through ignorance, or in consequence of the
depravity which they had but imperfectly conque