rved.

94. Crossing to Europe.--It would appear that Paul reached Troas under
the direction of the guiding Spirit without being aware whither his
steps were next to be turned. But could he doubt what the divine
intention was when, gazing across the silver streak of the Hellespont,
he beheld the shores of Europe on the other side? He was now within
the charmed circle where for ages civilization had had her home; and he
could not be entirely ignorant of those stories of war and enterprise
and those legends of love and valor which have made it forever bright
and dear to the heart of mankind.

At only four miles' distance lay the Plain of Troy, where Europe and
Asia encountered each other in the struggle celebrated in Homer's
immortal song. Not far off Xerxes, sitting on a marble throne,
reviewed the three millions of Asiatics with which he meant to bring
Europe to his feet. On the other side of that narrow strait lay Greece
and Rome, the centers from which issued the learning, the commerce and
the armies which governed the world. Could his heart, so ambitious for
the glory of Christ, fail to be fired with the desire to cast himself
upon these strongholds, or could he doubt that the Spirit was leading
him forward to this enterprise? He knew that Greece, with all her
wisdom, lacked that knowledge which makes wise unto salvation, and that
the Romans, though they were the conquerors of this world, did not know
the way of winning an inheritance in the world that is to come; but in
his breast he carried the secret which they both required.

95. It may have been such thoughts, dimly moving in his mind, that
projected themselves into the vision which he saw at Troas; or was it
the vision which first awakened the idea of crossing to Europe? As he
lay asleep, with the murmur of the Aegean in his ears, he saw a man
standing on the opposite coast, on which he had been looking before he
went to rest, beckoning and crying, "Come over into Macedonia and help
us." That figure represented Europe, and its cry for help Europe's
need of Christ. Paul recognized in it a divine summons; and the very
next sunset which bathed the Hellespont in its golden light shone upon
his figure seated on the deck of a ship the prow of which was moving
toward the shore of Macedonia.

96. In this passage of Paul, from Asia to Europe, a great providential
decision was taking effect, of which, as children of the West, we
cannot think without