those who would not else be won.1 Of Timothy he asked no more than this, and he was entitled to ask it; for, according to the Jewish rules, the child should follow the mother, so that the son of a mixed marriage, whose mother was a Jewess, should be circumcised, otherwise (and the Roman Catholic Church now makes similar conditions) the marriage would not have been recognised by the Jewish law. The rule had been neglected in the case of Timothy, probably from the opposition of the father. The Jews of the neighbourhood must have been aware of this omission; and he would not have been received among them, had not Paul taken means to have it supplied.

Forty-ninth Week-Fourth Day.

THE GALATIANS.—ACTS XVI. 6; GAL. I. I, 2, IV. 13-15.

FROM Lystra Paul proceeded to Iconium; but as the fact of his visit to this city only incidentally transpires, we are not to infer that he did not proceed to Antioch in Pisidia, merely because it is not mentioned that he did so, and because, in consequence, Iconium, as the last named place, seems to be made the starting-point of a new journey. Indeed, the statement, that they went through the cities,' delivering the decree, and that the churches were established in the faith, and increased in number daily,' implies not only that all the places in which churches had previously been established were visited, but that some time was spent in active missionary labour in these parts.

At length, however, it was deemed desirable to enter upon new ground; and therefore Paul, with Silas and Timothy, proceeded northward throughout Phrygia and the region of Galatia.' It is usual to describe Phrygia as 'a large and populous province of Asia Minor;' and such indeed it had become in the age of Constantine. But at this time, and long before and after, the term Phrygia had no political signi

11 Cor. ix. 20.

ficance. It was merely a geographical expression denoting a debateable country of indeterminate extent, diffused over the frontiers of the provinces of Asia and Galatia, but belonging chiefly to the former.

In Galatia we, for Paul's sake, take a deeper interest, and concerning it there is no lack of information.

This province was inhabited by a singular people of Gaulish origin, from whom it took the name of Galatia. It was, in fact, a Gaulish settlement, and Galatia was the Gaul of the East. Some may wonder to see a Gaulish colony prosperously established in the heart of Lesser Asia, and would be perplexed to guess how it got there.

The Galatians were a stream from that torrent of Gaulish barbarians which poured into Greece in the third century before Christ, and which recoiled in confusion from the cliffs of Delphi. These tribes had previously separated from the main army, and penetrated into Thrace. There they were joined by a number of the fugitives from the broken army. They found no power here which could effectually oppose them; and soon the coast of the Propontis came under tribute to them, and they were masters of its fair towns and cities. Thus they remained a good while; but at length, considering that only a narrow strait separated them in one part from the fertile plains and valleys of Asia, of which they had already received pleasing reports, they conceived an eager desire to pass over and claim a heritage there. They had no ships, however, and could not devise the means of transportation, and in this perplexity they actually sent to Antipater, the governor of the opposite coast, to fetch them across. Το this he naturally demurred; and the Gaulish princes meanwhile quarrelling among themselves, one of them led back the greater part of the forces to Byzantium, whence they had come. The leader of those that remained at the straits soon found the means of crossing to Asia. He seized the vessels in which Antipater had sent an embassy to watch their proceedings, and, by incessantly passing to and fro, night and day, succeeded in transporting all his army. Not long after, the

Gauls who had withdrawn in the first instance, went over also, being actively assisted by Nicomedes, king of Bithynia, who craved the aid of their good swords in his wars. That aid was very effectual; and when, having performed their work, they marched inland to carve out their own fortunes, the nations on that side the Taurus shrunk in terror before these awful barbarians, though, as Livy affirms, there were but 20,000 of them, and not more than half of these armed. The terror of their name made conquest easy; and in no long time the whole of the peninsula north of the Taurus became tributary to them. The suzerainty and tributes of this region-but not, as some state, its territorial occupation-they divided among their three tribes, the Tectosages, the Trocmi, and the Tolistoboii, remaining themselves seated chiefly on the Halys, that is, in the district which, from their occupation of it, acquired the name of Galatia. Here they lived in great prosperity, increasing rapidly in numbers. They took part in all the wars of the time, hiring themselves out as mercenary troops; and we find them acting as body-guards to the kings of Syria and of Egypt. Even Herod the Great had four hundred of them in his pay.

In time, however, the neighbouring monarchs found means to curtail their power, and at length it was confined to what had come to be considered their proper territory. The Romans, who, after the war with Antiochus the Great, had turned their arms against them, as the only power capable of giving any disturbance, left them in nominal independence; and it was only upon the death of their last king Amyntas, in the time of Augustus, that Galatia became a Roman province.

These Gallo-Græcians yielded but slowly, and never entirely, to the softening influence of the Greek civilisation by which they were surrounded. Indeed, they seem for a long time to have resisted that influence, and to have maintained, on calculation, that ferocious and formidable aspect by which the original inhabitants had been so greatly terrified. The anomalous aspect of this 'fierce and cruel nation,' set down in the midst of a very mild and tractable people, struck the attention of the

consul Manlius, and is mentioned by him in his speech to the army at the beginning of the campaign. He also gives a curious description of their personal appearance, which is more interesting to us than it could be to those who had already met them in battle, in the army of Antiochus. They were men of tall stature and large person, wearing their yellow hair in long shining locks. They carried immense bucklers and wielded exceedingly long swords; and they came to battle with songs, whoops, and dances, clashing their swords and targets, and making altogether a horrible noise, wherewith to dismay their opponents.

Before this time, however, they had abandoned their native Druidism, and adopted the worship of Cybele; and as time passed on, and when, from the increase of population, and the lapse of power, and the cessation of wars, they ceased to be a wholly military people, many of their specialities melted down; so that by the time Paul appeared among them, they had become pretty well assimilated to their neighbours, although still retaining traces of their national origin. They had then long been familiar with the Greek language and Greek culture. Paul wrote his epistle to them in Greek, and the contemporary inscriptions of the province are usually in that language. Indeed many of the inhabitants must have been of purely Greek origin; there was also doubtless a material substratum of the early Phrygian population; and there seem to have been considerable numbers of Jews in the principal towns.

But amid changes of language, religion, institutions, and habits of life, we often see that the mysterious thing called 'national character,' which seems to flow in the life-blood of a people, remains essentially unaltered through the lapse of ages; and it may not be difficult to recognise in the Galatians, as described in Paul's epistle, traits of character, which remind us vividly of the Gauls as described to us by ancient historians, and of the Gauls as known to our living experience.

The Galli, Keltæ, or Celts (for the names are identical), to whom Paul addressed his epistle, and of whom Dr. Kitto has written,

deserve a somewhat fuller notice.

There is much in their character and history to illustrate the noble epistle which bears their name. Paul has left us, in fact, in various incidental sketches, a tolerably distinct portrait of the people. The thoughtful student of the Epistle to the Galatians will see at once that the apostle is here dealing with a type of character as unlike as possible to the polished but dissolute Greek, or the calm philosophic Roman, or the dreamy, speculative mystics of the East; and he must carefully mark this, if he would catch the nicer shades of meaning that distinguish the letter; and especially if he would desire fully to appreciate the tact, and judgment, and skill of the apostle, in adapting his arguments and rebukes so admirably to the peculiar idiosyncrasies of those whom he addressed. Paul knew them thoroughly. He read their national character, their faults and failings, with an eye quickened by divine intuition; and he took full advantage of this knowledge in reclaiming and re-establishing in the faith an erring church.

It may be interesting to sketch briefly a few of the leading traits of the Celtic character, and to connect them with the corresponding allusions in the epistle.

Great impressibility was a leading characteristic of the Galli; and it was combined with quickness of apprehension, and promptitude and even enthusiasm in action. Observe how it was exemplified in Paul's case. Immediately on his first visit, they received him as 6 an angel of God, even as Christ Jesus. . . . I bear you record,' he says, 'that, if it had been possible, ye would have plucked out your own eyes, and have given them to me' (iv. 14). How thoroughly characteristic is this of the Celtic race, both in the East and West!

Fickleness-a constant tendency to change-was another marked feature. It is also brought out by Paul: 'I marvel that ye are so quickly removed from him that called you' (i. 16); and again:‘O foolish Galatians! who hath bewitched you?' etc. The Galli were naturally incapable of any sustained effort, whether physical or mental. Their first fiery zeal soon cooled. Paul had scarcely left their borders, when they were captivated by the eloquence of some new teacher.

They were quarrelsome besides—reckless in act when passion was roused, and even treacherous and cruel when prompted by revenge. Observe how Paul touches these traits: 'If ye bite and devour one another, take heed that ye be not consumed one of