As the son of a Jewess, Timothy would be supposed to have been circumcised; and the Jews, finding that this was not the case, and knowing that his father had been a heathen, would probably have been unwilling to listen to him; and thus his usefulness would have been sadly interfered with. Circumcision, in Timothy's case, was _unnecessary_, but there was nothing _wrong_ in it; and therefore, to avoid giving offence to the Jews, St. Paul acted as we have heard. Taking Timothy with him, St. Paul now continued his journey. "And as they went through the cities, they delivered them the decrees for to keep, that were ordained of the Apostles and elders which were at Jerusalem," that is, the decrees concerning the observance of the Law of Moses by the Gentiles. And so were the Churches established in the faith, and increased in number daily. After preaching the Gospel in Phrygia and Galatia, St. Paul and his companions would have gone into other parts of Asia Minor, but the Spirit of God made it known to them, that they were not to do so: they went therefore to Troas, a sea-port quite in the northern part of the Archipelago. Here St. Paul's little band of followers was increased, for St. Luke joined them; and from this time, in relating what happened, St. Luke writes "we" and "us," showing that he was one of those concerned in the events he describes. Besides writing the Book of Acts, St. Luke wrote the Gospel which bears his name. We know nothing of St. Luke, except that he was a Jew and a physician: he was probably a native of Antioch, in Syria. St. Luke tells us that, at Troas, St. Paul saw in a vision a man of Macedonia, who stood and prayed him, saying, "Come over into Macedonia, and help us." St. Paul, rightly looking upon this as a call from God, immediately embarked on board a ship, and sailing by the island of Samothracia, landed at Neapolis, a sea-port of Thracia. Macedonia had once been a separate kingdom, but the Romans, who had in the Apostles' time got possession of all that country called Greece, had divided the whole into two great parts: one of these contained Macedonia, Thessaly, and Epirus, but went by the name of Macedonia: the other division, called Achaia, contained the rest of Greece, including the Peloponnesus. From Neapolis St. Paul proceeded to Philippi, which was "the chief city of that part of Macedonia," and a Roman colony: that is, it was peopled or inhabited by the descendants of Romans, who had been placed there by Julius Cæesar and by the Emperor Augustus. The place had got the name of Philippi long before, from Philip then king of Macedonia, who repaired the buildings of the city, and added many handsome new ones. Philip was the father of Alexander the Great, a famous king, of whom we read much in ancient history. Both Philip and Alexander lived and died more than 300 years before Jesus Christ was born.