same mysterious impulse as before, and they therefore continued their westward journey to the shore of the Hellespont and Aegean, arriving within the classic region of the Troad, at the modern city of Alexandria Troas, some miles south of that most glorious of all the scenes of Grecian poetical antiquity, where, thirteen hundred years before, "Troy was." Here they rested for a brief space, and while they were undecided as to the course which they ought next to pursue, Paul had a remarkable vision, which gave a summons too distinct to be mistaken or doubted, to a field in which the most noble triumphs of the cross were destined to be won under his own personal ministration, and where through thousands of years the name of Christ should consecrate and re-exalt the land, over all whose hills, mountains, streams, valleys, and seas, then as now, clustered the rich associations of the most splendid antiquity that is marked in the records of the past, with the beautiful and the excellent in poetry, art, taste, literature, philosophy and moral exaltation. In the night, as Paul was slumbering at his stopping-place, in the Troad, there appeared to him a vision of a Macedonian, who seemed to cry out beseechingly to him—"Come over into Macedonia, and help us!" This voice of earnest prayer for the help of Christ, rolling over the wide Aegean, was enough to move the ardent spirit of Paul, and on waking he therefore summoned his companions to attend him in his voyage to this new field. He had been joined here by a new companion, as appears from the fact, that the historian of the Acts of the apostles now begins to speak in the first person, of the apostolic company, and it thence appears that besides Silas and Timotheus, Paul was now attended by Luke. Setting sail from Troas, as soon as they could get ready for this unexpected extension of their travels, the whole four were wafted by a fresh south-eastern breeze from the Asian coast, first to the large island of Samothrace; and on the second day, they came to Neapolis, a town on the coast of Macedonia, which is the seaport of the great city of Philippi.
HIS MISSION IN MACEDONIA.
They without delay proceeded to Philippi, the chief city of that part of Macedonia, taking its name from that sage monarch who laid the foundation of the Macedonian dominion over the Grecian world, and gave this city its importance and splendor, re-building it, and granting it the honors of his peculiar favor. Under the Roman conquest it had lost no part of its ancient importance, but had been endowed by Julius Caesar, in a special decree, with the
