els were made, and sold to devotees. (Acts. xix. 24.) Nero is said to have plundered this temple of many votive images and great sums of gold and silver. This edifice appears to have remained entire in the second century; though the worship of Diana diminished and sunk into insignificance, in proportion to the extension of Christianity. At a later period" the temple of the great goddess Diana, whom Asia and all the world" worshipped, (Acts xix. 27,) was again destroyed by the Goths and other barbarians; and time has so completed the havoc made by the hand of man, that this mighty fabric has almost entirely disappeared.

During three years' residence in this city, (Acts xx. 31,) the great apostle of the Gentiles was enabled, with divine assistance, to establish the faith of Christ, and to found a flourishing Christian church. Of his great care of the Ephesian community strong proof is extant in the affecting charge which he gave to the elders, whom he had convened at Miletus on his return from Macedonia, (Acts xx. 16-38;) and still more in the epistle which he addressed to them from Rome. Ecclesiastical history represents Timothy to have been the first bishop of Ephesus, but there is greater evidence that the apostle John resided here towards the close of his life: here, also, he is supposed to have written his Gospel, and to have finally ended his life. Besides the ruins which are delineated in our engraving, widely scattered and noble remains attest the splendour of the theatre mentioned in Acts xix. 31, the elevated situation of which on Mount Prion accounts for the ease with which an immense multitude was collected, the loud shouts of whose voices, being reverberated from Mount Corrissus, would not a little augment the uproar caused by the populace rushing into the theatre.

The Ephesian church is the first of the "apocalyptic churches" addressed by the apostle John in the name of Jesus Christ." His charge against her is declension in reigious fervour, (Rev. ii. 4;) and his threat, in consequence, (ii. 5,) is a total extinction of her ecclesiastical brightness. After a protracted struggle with the sword of Rome and the sophisms of the Gnostics, Ephesus at last gave way. The incipient indifference, censured by the warning voice of the prophet, increased to a total forgetfulness; till at length the threatenings of the Apocalypse were fulfilled; and Ephesus sunk with the general overthrow of the Greek empire, in the fourteenth century." The plough has passed over this once celebrated city: and in March, 1826, when it was visited by the Rev. Messrs. Arundell and Hartley, green corn was growing in all directions amid the forsaken ruins and one solitary individual only was found, who bore the name of Christ, instead of its once flourishing church. Where assembled thousands once exclaimed, "Great is Diana of the Ephesians!" the eagle now yells, and the jackal moans. The sea having retired from the scene of desolation, a pestilential morass, covered with mud and rushes, has succeeded to the waters, which brought up the ships laden with merchandise from every country. The surrounding country, however, is both fertile and healthy: and the adjacent hills would furnish many delightful situations for villages, if the difficulties were removed which are thrown in the way of the industrious cultivator by a despotic government, oppressive agas, and wandering banditti.-HORNE.

CHAPTER XIX.

Ver. 11. And God wrought special miracles by the hands of Paul: 12. So that from his body were brought unto the sick handkerchiefs or aprons, and the diseases departed from them, and the evil spirits went out of them.

At a short distance, near the road-side, we saw the burialplace of a Persian saint, enclosed by very rude walls. Close to it grew a small bush, upon the branches of which were tied a variety of rags and remnants of garments. The Persians conceive that these rags, from their vicinity to the saint, acquire peculiar preservative virtues against sickness; and substituting others, they take bits away, and tying them about their persons, use them as talismans. May not this custom have some distant reference to Acts xix. 11, 12?-MORIER.

they were full of wrath, and cried out, saying, Great is Diana of the Ephesians.

The temple of Diana, at Ephesus, always has been admired as one of the noblest pieces of architecture that the world has ever produced. It was four hundred and twentyfive Roman feet long, two hundred and twenty broad, and supported by one hundred and twenty-seven columns of marble, sixty, or as some say, seventy feet high, twentyseven of which were beautifully carved. This temple, which was at least two hundred years in building, was burnt by one Herostratus, with no other view than to perpetuate his memory: however, it was rebuilt, and the last temple was not inferior, either in riches or beauty, to the former; being adorned by the works of the most famous statuaries of Greece. This latter temple was, according to Trebellius, plundered and burnt by the Scythians, when they broke into Asia Minor, in the reign of Gallienus, about the middle of the third century. The cry of the Ephesian populace was a usual form of praise among the Gentiles, when they magnified their gods, for their beneficent and illustrious deeds. In Aristides, a similar passage occurs: "There was a great cry, both of those who were present, and of those who were coming, shouting in that well-known form of praise, Great is Esculapius." (Sir RK. Porter.)-BURDER.

CHAPTER XX.

Ver. 7. And upon the first day of the week, when the disciples came together to break bread, Paul preached unto them, ready to depart on the morrow; and continued his speech until midnight.

Bishop Pearce, in his note on this passage, says, "In the Jewish way of speaking, to break bread is the same as to make a meal: and the meal here meant seems to have been one of those which was called aranai, love-feasts. Such of the heathen as were converted to Christianity were obliged to abstain from meats offered to idols, and these were the main support of the poor in the heathen cities The Christians therefore, who were rich, seem very early to have begun the custom of those aranai, love-feasts, which they made on every first day of the week, chiefly for the benefit of the poorer Christians, who, by being such, had lost the benefit, which they used to have for their support, of eating part of the heathen sacrifices. It was towards the latter end of these feasts, or immediately after them, that the Christians used to take bread and wine in remembrance of Jesus Christ, which, from what attended it, was called the eucharist, or holy communion.-BURDER.

Ver. 9. And there sat in a window a certain young man named Eutychus, being fallen into a deep sleep; and, as Paul was long preaching, he sunk down with sleep, and fell down from the third loft, and was taken up dead.

Chardin informs us, that the eastern windows are very large, and even with the floor. It is no wonder Eutychus might fall out if the lattice was not well fastened, or if it was decayed, when, sunk into a deep sleep, he leaned with all his weight against it.—HARMER.

Ver. 17. And from Miletus he sent to Ephesus, and called the elders of the church.

be worn as amulets or charms, with which the cabinet of the curious now abound. One of the idle tenets was, that the appellative Jehovah possessed signal virtue and efficacy. They expressed it by the seven Greek vowels, which they transposed into a variety of combinations. This superstition appears to have prevailed in no small degree at Miletus. In this remain the mysterious name is frequently repeated, and the deity six times invoked: Holy Jehovah, preserve the town of the Milesians, and all the inhabitants! The archangels, also, are summoned to be their guardians, and the whole city is made the author of these supplications; from which, thus engraved, it expected, as may be presumed, to derive lasting prosperity, and a kind of talismanical protection. The whole site of the town, to a great extent, is spread with rubbish, and overrun with thickets. The vestiges of the heathen city are pieces of wall, broken arches, and a few scattered pedestals and inscriptions, a square marble urn, and many wells. One of the pedestals has belonged to a statue of the Emperor Hadrian, who was a friend to the Milesians, as appears from the titles of saviour and benefactor given him. Another supported the statute of the Emperor Severus, and has a long inscription, with this curious preamble: 'The senate and people of the city of the Milesians, the first settled in Ionia, and the mother of many and great cities, both in Pontus and Egypt, and various other parts of the world.' From the number of forsaken mosques, it is evident that Mohammedanism has flourished in its turn at Miletus. The history of this place, after the declension of the Greek empire, is very imperfect. The whole region has undergone frequent ravages from the Turks, while possessed of the interior country, and intent on extending their conquests westward to the shore. One sultan, in 1175, sent twenty thousand men, with orders to lay waste the Roman provinces, and bring him sea-water, sand, and an oar. All the cities on the Meander, and on the coast, were then ruined; Miletus was again destroyed towards the end of the thirteenth century, by the conquering Othman."—Burder.

CHAPTER XXI.

Ver. 11. And when he was come unto us, he took Paul's girdle, and bound his own hands and feet, and said, Thus saith the Holy Ghost, So shall the Jews at Jerusalem bind the man that owneth this girdle, and shall deliver him into the hands of the Gentiles.

This was significant of what was to occur to the apostle. Does a person wish to dissuade another from some project, he acts in such a way as to show what will be the nature of the difficulties or dangers. Thus, should he doubt his personal safety or fear disgrace, he puts off his sandals, to intimate he will die or be beaten with them. Or he takes off his turban, unfolds it, and ties it around his neck, or gropes as if in the dark, to intimate the difficulty.-ROBERTS.

Ver. 21. And they are informed of thee, that thou teachest all the Jews which are among the Gentiles to forsake Moses, saying, that they ought not to circumcise their children, neither to walk after the customs.

In every part of the world man is too often the slave of custom; but in all the old countries of the East, where innovations have not been made, the people are most tenaciously wedded to their customs. Ask, Why do you act thus? the reply is, "It is a custom." Their implements of agriculture, their modes of sowing and reaping, their houses, their furniture, their domestic utensils, their vehicles, their vessels in which they put to sea, their modes of living, and heir treatment of the various diseases, are all regulated by the customs of their fathers. Offer them better implements, and better plans for their proceedings, they reply, "We cannot leave our customs: your plans are good for yourselves, ours are good for ourselves: we cannot alter."— ROBERTS.

Ver. 40. And when he had given him license,
Paul stood on the stairs, and beckoned with the

hand unto the people. And when there was made a great silence, he spake unto them in the Hebrew tongue.

The object of Paul in beckoning with his hand was to obtain silence. See that man who has to address a crowd, and who wishes for silence, he does not begin to bawl out, Silence, that would be an affront to them; he lifts up his hand to its extreme height, and begins to beckon with it, i. e. to move it backward and forward; and then the people say to each other, "pasathe, pasathe," i. e. be silent, be silent.-ROBERTS.

CHAPTER XXII.

Ver. 3. I am, verily, a man which am a Jew, born in Tarsus, a city in Cilicia, yet brought up in this city at the feet of Gamaliel, and taught according to the perfect manner of the law of the fathers, and was zealous towards God, as ye all are this day.

This form of expression is only used in reference to great saints or great teachers. "He had his holiness at the feet of the gooroo, or his learning at the feet of the philosopher."-ROBERTS.

With respect to the schools among the Jews it should be observed, that, besides the common schools in which children were taught to read the law, they had also academies, in which their doctors gave comments on the law, and taught the traditions to their pupils. Of this sort were the two famous schools of Hillel and Sammai, and the school of Gamaliel, who was St. Paul's tutor. In these seminaries the tutor's chair is said to have been so much raised above the level of the floor, on which the pupils sat, that his feet were even with their heads. Hence St. Paul says, that he was brought up at the feet of Gamaliel.-BURDER.

Ver. 22. And they gave him audience unto this word, and then lifted up their voices, and said, Away with such a fellow from the earth; for it is not fit that he should live. 23. And as they cried out, and cast off their clothes, and threw dust into the air, 24. The chief captain commanded him to be brought into the castle, and bade that he should be examined by scourging: that he might know wherefore they cried so against him.

A great similarity appears between the conduct of the Jews on this occasion, and the behaviour of the peasants in Persia, when they go to court to complain of the governors, whose oppressions they can no longer endure." They carry their complaints against their governors by companies, consisting of several hundreds, and sometimes of a thousand; they repair to that gate of the palace nearest to which their prince is most likely to be, where they set themselves to make the most horrid cries, tearing their garments, and throwing dust into the air, at the same time demanding justice. The king, upon hearing these cries, sends to know the occasion of them: the people deliver their complaints in writing, upon which he lets them know that he will commit the cognizance of the affair to such a one as he names; in consequence of this, justice is usually obtained."-PAXTON.

Ver. 25. And as they bound him with thongs, Paul said unto the centurion that stood by, Is it lawful for you to scourge a man that is a Roman, and uncondemned?

Scourging was a very common punishment among the Jews. It was inflicted in two ways; with thongs or whips made of ropes or straps of leather; or with rods, twigs, or branches of some tree. The offender was stripped from his shoulders to his middle, and tied by his arms to a low

pillar, that his back might be more fully exposed to the lash of the executioner, who stood behind him upon a stone,

to have more power over him, and scourged him both on the back and breast, in open court, before the face of his judges. Among the Arabians, the prisoner is placed upright on the ground, with his hands and feet bound together, while the executioner stands before him, and with a short stick strikes him with a smart motion on the outside of his knees. The pain which these strokes produce is exquisitely severe, and which no constitution can support for any length of time. The Romans often inflicted the punishment of the scourge; the instruments employed were sticks or staves, rods, and whips or lashes. The first were almost peculiar to the camp; the last were reserved for slaves, while rods were applied to citizens, till they were removed by the Porcian law.-PAXTON.

CHAPTER XXIII.

Ver. 2. And the high-priest Ananias commanded them that stood by him, to smite him on the mouth.

The Persians smote the criminals who attempted to speak in their own defence with a shoe, the heel of which was shod with iron; which is quite characteristic of the eastern manners, as described in the sacred volume. The shoe was also considered as vile, and never allowed to enter sacred or respected places; and to be smitten with it is to be subjected to the last ignominy. Paul was smitten on the mouth by the orders of Ananias: and the warmth with which the apostle resented the injury, shows his deep sense of the dishonour: "Then said Paul unto him, God shall smite thee, thou whited wall: for sittest thou to judge me after the law, and commandest me to be smitten contrary to law ?"-PAXTON.

"Call the Ferashes," exclaimed the king, "and beat these rogues till they die." The Ferashes came, and beat them violently; and when they attempted to say any thing in their own defence, they smote them on the mouth with a shoe, the heel of which was shod with iron. (Morier.) The shoe was always considered as vile, and never allowed to enter sacred or respected places; and to be smitten with it, is to be subjected to the last ignominy. "As soon as the ambassador came in, he punished the principal offenders by causing them to be beaten before him; and those who had spoken their minds a little too unreservedly, he smote upon the mouth with a shoe, which in their idiom they call kufsh khorden, eating shoe." "By far the greatest of all indignities, and the most insupportable, is to be hit with a shoe, or one of the pandoufles, which the Hindoos commonly wear on their feet. To receive a kick from any foot, with a slipper on it, is an injury of so unpardonable a nature, that a man would suffer exclusion from his caste who could submit to it without receiving some adequate satisfaction. Even to threaten one with the stroke of a slipper is held to be criminal, and to call for animadversion." (Dubois' Description of the People of India.)-BURDER.

CHAPTER XXVII.

Ver. 40. And when they had taken up the anchors, they committed themselves unto the sea, and loosed the rudder-bands, and hoisted up the mainsail to the wind, and made towards shore.

Bishop Pococke, in his travels, has explained very particularly the rudder-bands mentioned by St. Luke, Acts xxvii. 40, and my plan excludes that account from these papers; but Sir John Chardin has mentioned some other things relating to this ship of St. Paul, which ought not to be omitted. First, the eastern people, he tells us, "are wont to leave their skiffs in the sea, fastened to the stern of their vessels." The skiff of this Egyptian ship was towed along, it seems, after the same manner, v. 16, We had much work to come by

the boat.

Secondly, They never, according to him, hoist it into the vessel, it always remains in the water, fastened to the ship He therefore must suppose the taking it up, nu apavres, mentioned ver. 17, does not mean hoisting it up into the vessel, as several interpreters have imagined, but drawing it up close to the stern of the ship; and the word yadavarro, which we translate, in the thirteenth verse, letting down into

the sea, must mean letting it go farther from the ship into the sea. Thirdly, He supposes this ship was like "a large modern Egyptian saique, of three hundred and twenty tons, and capable of carrying from twenty-four to thirty guns."

Fourthly, These saiques, he tells us, "always carry their anchors at the stern, and never their prow," contrarily to our managements; the anchors of St. Paul's ship were, in like manner, cast out of the stern, ver. 29.

Fifthly, They carry their anchors at some distance from the ship," by means of the skiff, in such a manner as always to have one anchor on one side, and the other on the other side, so that the vessel may be between them, lest the cables should be entangled with each other." To St. Paul's ship there were four anchors, two on each side.

All these several particulars are contained, though not distinctly proposed, in his remarks on the vessel in which St. Paul was shipwrecked: the curious will probably consider them. If the mode of navigating eastern ships had been attended to, it is possible the jocular and lively remarks of some indevout sailors, bordering on profaneness, would never have been made upon this part of the narration of St. Luke; and some clauses would have been differently translated from what we find them in our version.HARMER.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

Ver. 3. And when Paul had gathered a bundle of sticks, and laid them on the fire, there came a viper out of the heat, and fastened on his hand. 4. And when the barbarians saw the venomous beast hang on his hand, they said among themselves, No doubt this man is a murderer, whom, though he hath escaped the sea, yet vengeance suffereth not to live. 5. And he shook off the beast into the fire, and felt no harm. 6. Howbeit, they looked when he should have swollen, or fallen down dead suddenly: but after they had looked a great while, and saw no harm come to him, they changed their minds, and said that he was a god

The certain and speedy destruction which follows the bite of this creature, clearly proves the seasonable interposition of Almighty power for the preservation of the apostle Paul. Exasperated by the heat of the fire, the deadly reptile, leaping from the bushwood where it had concealed itself, fixed the canine teeth, which convey the poison into the wound which they had made, in his hand. Death must have been the consequence, had not the power of his God, which long before shut the lions' mouths, that they might not hurt the prophet, neutralized the viper's deadly poison, and miraculously preserved the valuable life of his servant. The supernatural agency of God is clearly taught in these words of the historian: "He shook off the beast into the fire, and felt no harm;" for he who had been wounded by a viper, could not be said to have been exempt from all harm. The disposition of the enraged reptile to take its full revenge, is intimated by the word kabarev, to fasten and twine itself about the hand of Paul. Some interpreters render the term to seize upon, others to hang from the hand, and others to bite; but according to Bochart, it properly signifies to bind or intwine, a sense which seems entitled to the preference; for, when a serpent fastens on its prey, it endeavours uniformly to strangle the victim by winding round its body. The viper on this memorable occasion exhibited every symptom of rage, and put forth all its powers; the deliverance of Paul, therefore, was not accidental, nor the effect of his own exertion, but of the mighty power of that Master whom he served, whose voice even the deadly viper is compelled to obey. This conclusion was in effect drawn by the barbarians themselves; for when "they had looked a great while, and saw no harm come to him, they changed their minds, and said that he was a god:" they did not hesitate to attribute his preservation to divine power; they only mistook his real character, not the true nature of that agency which was able to render the bite of the viper harmless.

This was to them a singular and most unexpected ccur