own race and his own occupation,
Aquila and Priscilla. He remained a year and a half in the city and
founded one of the most interesting of his churches, thus planting the
standard of the cross in Achaia also and proving that the gospel was
the power of God unto salvation even in the headquarters of the world's
wisdom.

THE THIRD JOURNEY

109. It must have been a thrilling story Paul had to tell at Jerusalem
and Antioch when he returned from his second journey; but he had no
disposition to rest on his laurels, and it was hot long before he set
out on his third journey.

110. In Asia.--It might have been expected that, having in his second
journey planted the gospel in Greece, he would in his third have made
Home his principal aim. But, if the map be referred to, it will be
observed that, in the midst, between the regions of Asia Minor which he
evangelized during his first journey and the provinces of Greece in
which he planted churches in his second journey, there was a
hiatus--the populous province of Asia, in the west of Asia Minor. It
was on this region that he descended in his third journey. Staying for
no less than three years in Ephesus, its capital, he effectively filled
up the gap and connected together the conquests of his former
campaigns. This journey included, indeed, at its beginning, a
visitation of all the churches formerly founded in Asia Minor and, at
its close, a flying visit to the churches of Greece; but, true to his
plan of dwelling only on what was new in each journey, the author of
the Acts has supplied us only with the details relating to Ephesus.

111. Ephesus.--This city was at that time the Liverpool of the
Mediterranean. It possessed a splendid harbor, in which was
concentrated the traffic of the sea which was then the highway of the
nations; and, as Liverpool has behind her the great towns of
Lancashire, so had Ephesus behind and around her such cities as those
mentioned along with her in the epistles to the churches in the book of
Revelation--Smyrna, Pergamos, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, and
Laodicea. It was a city of vast wealth, and it was given over to every
kind of pleasure, the fame of its theater and race-course being
world-wide.

112. But Ephesus was still more famous as a sacred city. It was a
seat of the worship of the goddess Diana, whose temple was one of the
most celebrated shrines of the ancient world. This temple was
enormously rich and harbored