a man who had
gone through so many hardships might well be old before his time; yet
he could scarcely have taken the name of "Paul the aged" before sixty
years of age.

These calculations lead us to the conclusion that he was born about the
same time as Jesus. When the boy Jesus was playing in the streets of
Nazareth, the boy Paul was playing in the streets of his native town,
away on the other side of the ridges of Lebanon. They seemed likely to
have totally diverse careers. Yet, by the mysterious arrangement of
Providence, these two lives, like streams flowing from opposite
watersheds, were one day, as river and tributary, to mingle together.

15. The place of his birth was Tarsus, the capital of the province of
Cilicia, in the southeast of Asia Minor. It stood a few miles from the
coast, in the midst of a fertile plain, and was built upon both banks
of the river Cydnus, which descended to it from the neighboring Taurus
Mountains, on the snowy peaks of which the inhabitants of the town were
wont, on summer evenings, to watch from the flat roofs of their houses
the glow of the sunset. Not far above the town the river poured over
the rocks in a vast cataract, but below this it became navigable, and
within the town its banks were lined with wharves, on which was piled
the merchandise of many countries, while sailors and merchants, dressed
in the costumes and speaking the languages of different races, were
constantly to be seen in the streets. The town enjoyed an extensive
trade in timber, with which the province abounded, and in the long fine
hair of the goats kept in thousands on the neighboring mountains, which
was made into a coarse kind of cloth and manufactured into various
articles, among which tents, such as Paul was afterward employed in
sewing, formed an extensive article of merchandise all along the shores
of the Mediterranean. Tarsus was also the center of a large transport
trade; for behind the town a famous pass, called the Cilician Gates,
led up through the mountains to the central countries of Asia Minor;
and Tarsus was the depot to which the products of these countries were
brought down, to be distributed over the East and the West.

The inhabitants of the city were numerous and wealthy. The majority of
them were native Cilicians, but the wealthiest merchants were Greeks.
The province was under the sway of the Romans, the signs of whose
sovereignty could not be absent from the capital, althou