ing, "Great Pan is
dead."

Pan was the heathen god of nature, to whom sacred places were dedicated,
and this strange crying was at the very night after a day when, far away
in Judaea, the sun had been darkened at noon, and the rocks were rent,
and One who was dying on a cross had said, "It is finished." For the
victory over Satan and all his spirits was won by death.

Some fifteen years later than that day, as Paul, a Jew of Tarsus, in Asia
Minor, with the right of Roman citizenship, and a Greek education, was
spreading the knowledge of that victory over the East--while he slept at
the new Troy built by Alexander, there stood by his bed, in a vision by
night, a man of Macedon, saying, "Come over and help us."

He went, knowing that the call came from God, and the cities of Macedon
gained quite new honours. Philippi, where he was first received, had a
small number of Jews in it, to whom he spake by the river side, but many
Greeks soon began to listen; and then it was that the evil spirits, who
spake aloud to men in heathen lands, first had to own the power of
Christ, who had conquered. A slave girl, who had long been possessed by
one of these demons, was forced at the sight of Paul and his companion
Silas to cry aloud, "These men are the servants of the Most High God,
which show unto us the way of salvation." She followed them about for
some days doing this, until Paul, grieved in the spirit, bade the evil
one, in JESUS' name, to leave her. At once the name of the Conqueror
caused the demon to depart; but the owner of the slave girl, enraged at
the loss of her soothsaying powers, accused the Apostle and his friend to
the magistrates, and, without examination, they were thrown into prison.
At night, while they sang praise in the dungeon, an earthquake shook it;
the doors were open, the fetters loosed, and the jailer, thinking them
fled, would have killed himself, but for Paul's call to him that all were
safe. He heard the Word of life that night, and was baptised; but St.
Paul would not leave the prison, either then or at the permission of the
magistrates, when they found they had exceeded their powers, but insisted
that they should come themselves to fetch him out, thus marking his
liberty as a Roman, so that others might fear to touch him. He had
founded a church at Philippi, in which he always found great comfort and
joy; and when he was forced to go on to Thessalonica, he found many
willing and eager hearers