is that very old man, the Holy Divine, whose name is traced in Ayasaluk, the only spot where human life remains in once-glorious Ephesus.

Nay, it was the good tidings of which he was a messenger that really overthrew the great temple, and destroyed the hideous little black goddess to whom so many noble souls had so long been in bondage.

CHAPTER J

ARTEMIS ATTACKED IN HER TEMPLE.

"O ye vain false gods of Hellas,

Ye are silent evermore."-E. B. Browning.

THE first blow at the idol-worship of Ephesus had been struck nearly forty years before John, the son of Zebedee, the fisherman of Galilee, chose it for his abode.

Ephesus, like every other great city of the Roman Empire, had among its inhabitants many Jews. Ever since the Jews had been carried captive to Babylon, they had remained scattered through the cities of the East and West. It was true that their Temple and their holy city of Jerusalem had been rebuilt, and they all regarded these as their centre of worship and their home; but the rocky hills of Judea would hardly have maintained a numerous nation, and at Babylon the Jews had learnt that remarkable skill and aptitude for trade which has ever since distinguished them. Their Divine laws, too, gave them such high principles of honesty and uprightness of dealing that they were trusted as were no other persons, and were often chosen for high and responsible positions. All this led to

their taking up their residence in many places at a distance from Jerusalem. They would at least once in their lives visit the Temple at one of the great festivals of the year; they regularly sent a portion of their gains for the embellishment and maintenance of the Temple and its services, and they met every Sabbath-day to worship in their own synagogues, where their Scriptures were read, psalms were sung, and prayers offered.

The Greek language had become universal in the East, and these dispersed Jews had so entirely forgotten their own Hebrew that the Greek version of the Scriptures was read after the portion in the original language, and seems to have been in the hands of

every-one.

All this was silently undermining the worship of this black goddess. The persons who lived in intercourse with the Jews were likely to be struck with their pure spiritual worship and high standard of duty; they inquired into their law, and read the glorious writings of Moses and the Prophets with much admiration. Some persons were convinced, many noble ladies held to the Jewish law, and many more had a sort of half-hearted belief, thinking much of the Jewish faith beautiful, but unwilling to give up the grandeur and feasts of the heathen gods, or to join with a people who were disliked and despised.

Among the Jews of the dispersion and their halfconverted friends, there gradually spread a report that there were persons at Jerusalem who declared that

the long hoped-for Christ had come, that the promises made first to Adam and Eve, and then renewed to the patriarchs and prophets, were accomplished, and that the great redemption of all the world had really taken place.

But no one in these Greek cities heeded greatly such stories. The Jews were busy with traffic, the Greeks, some with philosophy, some with poetry and amusement, and the Romans with public business and military discipline. It was no uncommon thing to hear that a false Christ had appeared at Jerusalem, and indeed the Jews who resided there were becoming so turbulent and so fierce in their resistance to Roman authority that their more moderate Græcised kinsmen feared to be involved in their disgrace, especially when tidings came that the Emperor Claudius had driven out all the Jews who had settled at Rome.

One Sabbath-day in the 808th year since Rome had been founded, or, as we reckon, in the year 55, one of these expelled Jews, a tentmaker by trade, came into the Jewish synagogue at Ephesus, with his wife, and another tent-maker, whom he had met at Corinth. It soon was known that this second tent-maker, a small, slender man, with a noble and earnest countenance, was that Cilician Benjamite, at home called by his Jewish name of Saul, and enrolled as a Roman citizen as Paulus, who, after having been a vehement persecutor of the believers in Christ, had become the most zealous among them, and had already travelled through many cities both of Asia and

of Greece, declaring the faith that he had so heartily embraced.

After the reading of the Scripture, it was customary that one of the assembly should stand up to expound, and any learned stranger did so of right. Thus Paul, who was well known to be a scholar of the most learned Jewish masters, as well as deeply versed in Greek culture, naturally stood up and spoke. What he then said, proving that it was indeed the true Christ who had appeared in Judea, made such an impression on his hearers that they besought him to remain and explain further, but he was bent upon reaching Jerusalem in time for the approaching feast, and proceeded at once, leaving behind him, however, his companions, Aquila and Priscilla.

They, though less instructed, kept the interest his words had excited from dying away, and they were further assisted by Apollos, a Greek Jew, of the great school of Alexandria, who had gathered up some knowledge of the Saviour, and eagerly proclaimed it, imperfect as it was, till he was further taught by Aquila and his wife.

Thus, when Paul returned the next year to Ephesus, he found twelve men already eager to understand more, and to be admitted to the full blessings which the true Christ had brought to them. He continued his teachings in the synagogue, but after a time he found that so many were hardened against his doctrine that he ceased to preach there, and betook himself to one of the schools where philosophers were wont