the profoundest thankfulness. Christianity arose
in Asia and among an Oriental people; and it might have been expected
to spread first among those races to which the Jews were most akin.
Instead of coming west, it might have gone eastward. It might have
penetrated into Arabia and taken possession of those regions where the
faith of the False Prophet now holds sway. It might have visited the
wandering tribes of Central Asia and, piercing its way down through the
passes of the Himalayas, reared its temples on the banks of the Ganges,
the Indus and the Godavery. It might have traveled farther east to
deliver the swarming millions of China from the cold secularism of
Confucius. Had it done so, missionaries from India and Japan might
have been coming to England and America at the present day to tell the
story of the Cross. But Providence conferred on Europe a blessed
priority, and the fate of our continent was decided when Paul crossed
the Aegean.

97. Macedonia.--As Greece lay nearer than Rome to the shore of Asia,
its conquest for Christ was the great achievement of his second
missionary journey. Like the rest of the world it was at that time
under the sway of Rome, and the Romans had divided it into two
provinces--Macedonia in the north and Achaia in the south. Macedonia
was, therefore, the first scene of Paul's Greek mission. It was
traversed from east to west by a great Roman road, along which the
missionary moved, and the places where we have accounts of his labors
are Philippi, Thessalonica and Beroea.

98. The Greek character in this northern province was much less
corrupted than in the more polished society to the south. In the
Macedonian population there still lingered something of the vigor and
courage which four centuries before had made its soldiers the
conquerors of the world. The churches which Paul founded here gave him
more comfort than any he established elsewhere. There are none of his
Epistles more cheerful and cordial than those to the Thessalonians and
the Philippians; and, as he wrote the latter late in life, the
perseverance of the Macedonians in adhering to the gospel must have
been as remarkable as the welcome they gave it at the first. At Beroea
he even met with a generous and open-minded synagogue of Jews--the
rarest occurrence in his experience.

99. Women and the Gospel.--A prominent feature of the work in
Macedonia was the part taken in it by women. Amid the general de