Demetrius is, of course, a name redolent of the worship of Demeter the Earth-Mother, and of Ephesian surroundings. No reader of the New Testament needs to be reminded of the riot at Ephesus, which is told at such length in the history of St. Paul's voyages by St. Luke. The conjecture that the agitator of the turbulent guild of silversmiths who made silver shrines of Diana may have become the Demetrius, the object of St. John's lofty commendation, is by no means improbable. There is a peculiar fulness in the narrative of the Acts, and an amplitude and exactness in the reports of the speeches of Demetrius and of the town-clerk which betray both unusually detailed information, and a feeling on the part of the writer that the subject was one of much interest for many readers.[378] The very words of Demetrius about Paul evince that uneasy sense of the powers of fascination possessed by the Apostle which is often the first timid witness of reluctant conviction.[379] The whole story would be of thrilling interest to those who, knowing well what Demetrius had become, were here told what he once had been. In a very ancient document (the so-called "Apostolic Constitutions")[380] we read that "Demetrius was appointed Bishop of Philadelphia by me," _i.e._, by the Apostle John. To the Bishop of a city so often shaken by the earthquakes of that volcanic soil came the commendation--"I know thy works that thou didst keep My word;" and the assuring promise that he should, when the victory was won, have the solidity and permanence of "a pillar" in a "temple"[381] that no convulsion could shake down. The witness then, which stands on record for the Bishop of Philadelphia, is threefold; the threefold witness of the First Epistle on a reduced scale--the witness of the world;[382] the witness of the Truth itself, even of Jesus;[383] the witness of the Church--including John.[384] II. We may now advert to the _contents_ and _general style_ of this letter. 1. As to its _contents_. 1. It supplies us with a valuable test of Christian life, in what may be called the Christian instinct of _missionary affection_, possessed in such full measure by Caius.[385] This, indeed, is an ingredient of Christian character. Do we admire and feel attracted by missionaries? They are knight-errants of the Faith; leaders of the "forlorn hope" of Christ's cause; bearers of the flag of the cross through the storms of battle. Do we wish to honour and to help them, and feel ennobled by doing so? He who has no almost enthusiastic regard for missionaries has not the spirit of primitive Christianity within his breast.