The Call to Cross the Sea.

One night, after one of these talks, as Paul was asleep in Troy, he seemed to see a figure standing by him.  Surely it was the dream-figure of Luke, the doctor from Macedonia, holding out his hands and pleading with Paul, saying, “Come over into Macedonia and help us.”

Now neither Paul nor Silas nor Timothy had ever been across the sea into the land that we now call Europe.  But in the morning, when Paul told his companions about the dream that he had had, they all agreed that God had called them to go and deliver the good news of the Kingdom to the people in Luke’s city of Philippi and in the other cities of Macedonia.

So they went down into the busy harbour of Troy, where the singing sailor-men were bumping bales of goods from the backs of camels into the holds of the ships, and they took a passage in a little coasting ship.  She hove anchor and was rowed out through the entrance between the ends of the granite piers of the harbour.  The seamen hoisting the sails, the little ship went gaily out into the AEgean Sea.

All day they ran before the breeze and at night anchored under the lee of an island.  At dawn they sailed northward again with a good wind, till they saw land.  Behind the coast on high ground the columns of a temple glowed in the sunlight.  They ran into a spacious bay and anchored in the harbour of a new city—­Neapolis as it was called—­the port of Philippi.

Landing from the little ship, Paul, Silas, Timothy and Luke climbed from the harbour by a glen to the crest of the hill, and then on, for three or four hours of hard walking, till their sandals rang on the pavement under the marble arch of the gate through the wall of Philippi.

Flogging and Prison.

As Paul and his friends walked about in the city they talked with people; for instance, with a woman called Lydia, who also had come across the sea from Asia Minor where she was born.  She and her children and slaves all became Christians.  So the men and women of Philippi soon began to talk about these strange teachers from the East.  One day Paul and Silas met a slave girl dressed in a flowing, coloured tunic.  She was a fortune-teller, who earned money for her masters by looking at people and trying to see at a glance what they were like so that she might tell their fortunes.  The fortune-telling girl saw Paul and Silas going along, and she stopped and called out loud so that everyone who went by might hear:  “These men are the slaves of the Most High God.  They tell you the way of Salvation.”

The people stood and gaped with astonishment, and still the girl called out the same thing, until a crowd began to come round.  Then Paul turned round and with sternness in his voice spoke to the evil spirit in the girl and said:  “In the Name of Jesus Christ, I order you out of her.”

From that day the girl lost her power to tell people’s fortunes, so that the money that used to come to her masters stopped flowing.  They were very angry and stirred up everybody to attack Paul and Silas.  A mob collected and searched through the streets until they found them.  Then they clutched hold of their arms and robes, shouting:  “To the praetors!  To the praetors!” The praetors were great officials who sat in marble chairs in the Forum, the central square of the city.