The city of Antioch, where the disciples were first called Christians, (Acts xi. 26.) was built by Seleucus Nicator, 300 B.C., and enlarged by Antiochus Epiphanes. All the civilized world was then under Roman rule; Rome, Antioch, and Jerusalem were the leading cities. Jerusalem being a Jewish city, and Rome being a Roman heathen city, there was no room in either to preach the gospel freely; nor indeed in any other--the disciples were persecuted and martyred everywhere. There was just one exception--the city of Antioch; that was as free as any American city is to-day. This arose from the fact that when in the Asiatic campaign of Pompey the Great, he came about 65 B.C. to Antioch, he was received by the people with great honors; and was so charmed with the city, and his treatment, that he made it an absolutely free city for all, for every nation and for every religion, and the Roman emperors continued its privileges. When Stephen was martyred in Jerusalem the disciples were scattered; some of them reached Antioch, 300 miles north, and began to preach freely, making many converts. Barnabas was in Jerusalem, but hearing of his brethren's success, he also went to Antioch and began to preach; as he was a great orator, full of enthusiasm and faith, thousands were converted. But he was not satisfied. Crossing the Bay of Iskenderoon, about eighty miles off, he went to Tarsus, where Paul, now a convert, was living, and induced Paul to return with him to Antioch that they might preach the gospel together. Only scholars have any idea of the greatness and beauty of Antioch at this time; it was second only to Rome, and was the second largest city in the world, with nearly a million people; so rich and luxurious as to be called the Golden City; so lovely and architecturally imposing as to be called the Queen City. The finest street ran east and west for several miles; it was of great width, paved from end to end with vari-colored marble blocks, and with marble pillars on both sides along its whole extent, on which were magnificent marble palaces of the Roman officers. In that same grand avenue were theaters, singers of both sexes, fortune-tellers, great heathen orators and philosophers, and throngs of people passing along. Paul and Barnabas stood on the marble pavement month after month for a year, full of the Holy Ghost, and proclaimed the everlasting gospel. Crowds gathered to hear them; even the officers and their wives, stretching their heads from the windows of their palaces, listened to them; they gained disciples from every rank for Christ and His religion, and the converts there first received the name of Christians.