the disciples brought them back.  Laos and Eunice sponged their wounds, and at daybreak they left for Derbe, Barnabas saying that perhaps God was angry at their delay in Lystra and to bring them back to his work had bidden the Jews stone them without killing them.  Eunice was not sure that Barnabas had not spoken truly, and Paul remembered with gratitude that she always put his mission before herself.  Thou’lt be safer, she said, in Derbe, and from Derbe thou must go on carrying the glad tidings to the ends of the earth.  But thou must not forget thy Galatians, and when thou returnest to Lystra Timothy will be old enough to follow thee.  He had fared for ever onwards over seas and lands, ever mindful of his faithful Galatians and Eunice and her son whom she had promised to him, and whom he had left learning Greek so that he might fulfil the duties of amanuensis.

The silence of the gorge and the murmur of the brook enticed recollections and he was about to abandon himself to memories of his second visit to Lystra when a voice startled him from his reverie, and, looking round, he saw a tall, thin man who held his head picturesquely.  I presume you are our guest, and seeing you alone, I laid my notes aside and have come to offer my services to you.  Your services?  Paul repeated.  If you desire my services, Mathias replied; and if I am mistaken, and you do not require them, I will withdraw and apologise for my intrusion.  For your intrusion?  Paul repeated.  I am your guest, and the guest of the Essenes, for last night Timothy and myself were assailed by the Jews.  By the Jews?  Mathias replied, but we are Jews.  Whereupon Paul told him of his journey from Caesarea, and that he barely escaped drowning in the Jordan.  In the escape from drowning Mathias showed little interest, but he was curious to hear the doctrine that had given so much offence.  I spoke of the Lord Jesus Christ, Paul answered, the one Mediator between God and man who was sent by his Father to redeem the world.  Only by faith in him the world may be saved, and the Jews will not listen.  A hard, bitter, cruel race they are, that God will turn from in the end, choosing another from the Gentiles, since they will not accept him whom God has chosen to redeem men by the death and resurrection from the dead of the Lord Jesus Christ, raised from the dead by his Father.  Mathias raised his eyes at the words “resurrection from the dead.”  Of whom was Paul speaking?  He could still be interested in miracles, but not in the question whether the corruptible body could be raised up from earth to heaven.  He had wearied of that question long ago, and was now propense to rail against the little interest the Jews took in certain philosophical questions—­the relation of God to the universe, and suchlike—­and he began to speak to Paul of his country, Egypt, and of Alexandria’s schools of philosophy, continuing in this wise till Paul asked him how it was that he had left a country where the minds of the people were in harmony with his mind to come to live among people whose thoughts were opposed to his.  That would be a long story to tell, Mathias answered, and I am in the midst of my argument.