lonica was the largest city of Macedonia. It was beautifully situated at the head of a gulf, which bore the same name, and which makes up, in a northern direction, from the Archipelago. The city is said to have been ten or thirteen miles in extent, and must have contained a great number of inhabitants. Not a great many years ago, there were in that city thirty Christian churches, and thirtysix synagogues of the Jews, besides fortyeight mosques, or Turkish houses of worship; and many of these mosques had been Christian churches. One of them, which was a noble building, once supported by beautiful columns of marble, porphyry and jasper, and called the church of St. Demetrius, was supposed to have been built where the house stood in which St. Paul preached. In the year of our Lord 1430, exactly four hundred years ago, it was taken by the Turks, and like every thing else under the Turkish dominion, has been ever since going to decay. In the time of the Apostle, however, which was 1778 years ago, you may judge, that it was in a very flourishing condition.

It was to this distinguished and populous

There city, that Paul went from Philippi. was a Jewish synagogue there, and Paul, according to his custom, went into this synagogue and preached to the congregation out of the Scriptures for three Sabbath-days successively, proving to them that Jesus was the Christ or Messiah; and that, according to their <own Scriptures, it was necessary that he should suffer death, and rise again from the dead. It appears from the history, that some of the Jews were converted to the faith of Christ, and also a great number of the Greeks, and many of the first females of the city. But the rest of the Jews, being instigated by envy, and a false zeal for the religion of Moses, gathered together a parcel of idle and wicked men of notoriously bad character, and raising a tumult, set all the city in an uproar, and went to the house of Jason, where Paul lodged, for the purpose of abusing, and per haps killing him. Providentially, they could not find the Apostles, but they took Jason, and some christian friends, to the magistrates, and made a complaint that he had harboured these disturbers of the peace; for they called the Apostles men who had turned the

world upside down. They accused Paul of wanting to spread treason, and doing things contrary to the laws of the empire, by preaching that Jesus was a King; and the magis trates appear to have been not a little alarmed at this outcry, and they made Jason and the others give security for their good behaviour, as they supposed them implicated. It was, however, deemed a measure of prudence, that Paul and Silas should leave Thessalonica; and so the converted brethren there, sent them by night on their way to Berea. Though St. Paul had been but a little while at Thessalonica, the fruits of his labours there were glorious and lasting. His two epistles to the church in that city, show that the Gospel prevailed and triumphed in the midst of all the opposition. He speaks of the christians there in higher terms than of any others elsewhere; for he thus writes in one of his epistles to them; "Our Gospel came not unto you in word only, but also in power, and in the Holy Ghost, and in much assurance; having received the word in much affection, with joy of the Holy Ghost: so that ye were ensamples to all that believe in Macedonia and Achaia.

For from you sounded out the word of the Lord, not only in Macedonia and Achaia, but also in every place, your faith to God-ward is spread abroad." How are the hands of ministers strengthened, and their hearts comforted, when they can give such an account of their people!

By some learned writers, it is supposed, that the epistle of Paul to the Galatians was written either somewhere on his way to Thessalonica, or during his short stay there. This idea is founded on the expression, which he uses in the second verse of the first chapter of that epistle, namely, that he not only wrote in his own name, but in the name of "the brethren who were with him." As Silas and Timothy had been with him when he was in Galatia, the epistle was probably written before he was separated from them. Be this as

it

may, it is most likely that the epistle to the Galatians was written somewhere about this time, and that one object of the Apostle was to vindicate his own character and pretensions against the aspersions of a false teacher who had crept in, and was trying to undermine the respect and veneration in which Paul

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was held. But the great design of the Apostle was to prove the doctrine of justification by faith alone, against the false teaching of those who held up the necessity of obedience to the law of Moses, as necessary to establish their acceptance with God. This epistle, with that to the Romans, forms one of the most complete treatises which the world has ever seen, proving, beyond the possibility of cavil, that justification is a free gift, proceeding entirely from the mercy of God, and not to be bought by obedience to the law of Moses, or any other law, but to be received from God, through the instrumentality of a living faith. On the supposition that this epistle was written from Thessalonica, it shows the zeal of the Apostle for the cause of God, which could induce him to take the pains to write a letter containing such deep thought and argument, even in the midst of persecution.

We have seen that Paul and Silas went to Berea, and Timothy soon followed. Berea is not very far from Thessalonica, in the same province, viz., Macedonia. Very little is anywhere said of this place. According to custom, Paul went, as soon as possible, into the

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