After His resurrection our Lord commanded the apostles to go and “teach all nations” [56:2] and yet years rolled away before they turned their thoughts towards the evangelisation of the Gentiles.  The Jewish mind was slow to apprehend such an idea, for the posterity of Abraham had been long accustomed to regard themselves as the exclusive heirs of divine privileges; but the remarkable development of the kingdom of God gradually led them to entertain more enlarged and more liberal sentiments.  The progress of the gospel in Samaria, immediately after the death of Stephen, demonstrated that the blessings of the new dispensation were not to be confined to God’s ancient people.  Though many of the Samaritans acknowledged the divine authority of the writings of Moses, they did not belong to the Church of Israel; and between them and the Jews a bitter antipathy had hitherto existed.  When Philip appeared among them, and preached Jesus as the promised Messiah, they listened most attentively to his appeals, and not a few of them gladly received Christian baptism. [57:1] It could now no longer be said that the Jews had “no dealings with the Samaritans,” [57:2] for the gospel gathered both into the fold of a common Saviour, and taught them to keep “the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.”

When the disciples were scattered abroad by the persecution which arose after the martyrdom of Stephen, the apostles still kept their post in the Jewish capital; [57:3] for Christ had instructed them to begin their ministry in that place:  [57:4] and they perhaps conceived that, until authorised by some further intimation, they were bound to remain at Jerusalem.  But the conversion of the Samaritans must have reminded them that the sphere of their labours was more extensive.  Our Lord had said to them—­“Ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth,” [57:5] and events, which were now passing before their view, were continually throwing additional light upon the meaning of this announcement.  The baptism of the Ethiopian eunuch, [57:6] about this period, was calculated to enlarge their ideas; and the baptism of Cornelius pointed out, still more distinctly, the wide range of their evangelical commission.  The minuteness with which the case of the devout centurion is described is a proof of its importance as connected with this transition-stage in the history of the Church.  He had before known nothing of Peter; and, when they met at Caesarea, each could testify that he had been prepared for the interview by a special revelation from heaven. [57:7] Cornelius was “a centurion of the band called the Italian band” [57:8]—­he was a representative of that military power which then ruled the world—­and, in his baptism, we see the Roman Empire presenting, on the altar of Christianity, the first-fruits of the Gentiles.