ntry to the north of the Taurus was a vast tableland, more elevated
than the summits of the highest mountains in this country, and
scattered over with solitary lakes, irregular mountain masses and
tracts of desert, where the population was rude and spoke an almost
endless variety of dialects. These things terrified Mark, and he drew
back. But his companions took their lives in their hand and went
forward. To them it was enough that there were multitudes of perishing
souls there, needing the salvation of which they were the heralds; and
Paul knew that there were scattered handfuls of his own people in these
remote regions of the heathen.

84. Can we conceive what their procedure was like in the towns they
visited? It is difficult, indeed, to picture it to ourselves. As we
try to see them with the mind's eye entering any place, we naturally
think of them as the most important personages in it; to us their entry
is as august as if they had been carried on a car of victory. Very
different, however, was the reality. They entered a town as quietly
and as unnoticed as any two strangers who may walk into one of our
towns any morning. Their first care was to get a lodging; and then
they had to seek for employment, for they worked at their trade
wherever they went. Nothing could be more commonplace. Who could
dream that this travel-stained man, going from one tentmaker's door to
another, seeking for work, was carrying the future of the world beneath
his robe!

When the Sabbath came round, they would cease from toil, like the other
Jews in the place, and repair to the synagogue. They joined in the
psalms and prayers with the other worshipers and listened to the
reading of the Scriptures. After this the presiding elder might ask if
any one present had a word of exhortation to deliver. This was Paul's
opportunity. He would rise and, with outstretched hand, begin to
speak. At once the audience recognized the accents of the cultivated
rabbi: and the strange voice won their attention. Taking up the
passages which had been read, he would soon be moving forward on the
stream of Jewish history, till he led up to the astounding announcement
that the Messiah hoped for by their fathers and promised by their
prophets had come; and he had been sent among them as His apostle.
Then would follow the story of Jesus; it was true, He had been rejected
by the authorities of Jerusalem and crucified, but this could be shown
to have