Another instance of a later date is equally conclusive. The gospel was proclaimed at Ephesus, where the arts which pretended to lay open the secrets of nature, and to arm the hand of man with supernatural powers, were especially apparent. Indeed, in the age of our Lord and his apostles, pretended adepts in the occult sciences were numerous; they travelled from country to country, and were found in great numbers in Asia, deceiving the credulous multitude, and profiting by their expectations. They were sometimes Jews, who referred their skill, and even their forms of proceeding, to Solomon, who is still regarded in the east as the head or prince of magicians. In Asia Minor, Ephesus had a high reputation for magical arts. Here, then, “God wrought special miracles by the hands of Paul.” The appeal to the wonder-workers of a country which contained so magnificent a temple to Diana, that it was reckoned among the wonders of the world, was singularly striking. Accustomed as the Ephesians were to produce strange results by some species of magic, they would naturally ascribe miracles to a similar agency. It was necessary, therefore, that the miracles which were to serve as the credentials of Christianity, should be especially marked, and placed beyond the reach of all their enchantments and incantations. And it seems an instance not the less remarkable, because easily overlooked, of the adaptation of means to an end, that in Ephesus, in which, of all others, magic was resorted to, the powers granted to the first heralds of redeeming mercy sufficed to place them at an immeasurable distance above the most consummate magicians. Another fact is equally entitled to attention. Certain Jews travelling in that country, and professing to cast out the evil spirits which frequently possessed the bodies of men, took upon them, as avowed exorcists, to employ the name of the Lord Jesus, from the success with which it was used by the apostle Paul. Amongst these were the seven sons of Sceva, a Jew, who addressed an evil spirit in the name of Christ, thinking, perhaps, that their number would give special force to their adjuration. The spirit, however, answered, “Jesus I know, and Paul I know, but who are ye?” nor was he content with refusing to be thus ejected; for, causing the man in whom he dwelt to put forth supernatural strength, “he leaped upon the young men and overcame them, and forced them to flee out of the house naked and wounded.” These facts soon became notorious; fear fell alike on the Jews and Greeks residing at Ephesus; the most potent appeal had been made to those accustomed to use charms and incantations; and numbers were led at once to renounce their arts of magic.