Circumstanced as he was, to those rulers alone, was it possible for him to have addressed himself, with any the smallest hope. To any assembly of the faithful at large, to have repaired with no better recommendation than his vision story,--even with Barnabas, ready, as we shall see, to take him by the hand,--would have been plainly hopeless. Not less so would it have been--to present himself to the Apostles,--if, in support of such proposition as he had to make,--nothing more apposite, nothing to them in their situation more credible, than this same vision story,--had been capable of being produced. On them, therefore, the case seems already pretty well ripe for the conclusion, that, no such story was ever attempted to be passed. But, setting aside that aërial argument,--inducements of a more substantial nature, such as we shall find brought to view by Paul himself, were neither on this occasion wanting,--nor could, at any time, have been out of the view of that same Barnabas, whom we shall see appearing so often, in the character of his generous patron and steady friend. "On this plan, might Barnabas say to them,--On this plan, which he has chalked out for himself, he will be acting--not only not in opposition to, but even in furtherance of, your wishes and endeavors. Grecian as he is,--skilled in that language, and that learning, which serves a man as a passport through the whole of the Gentile world,--it is to that world that his labours will confine themselves; a field surely ample enough for the most comprehensive views. To you he will leave,--and leave certainly without privation, and therefore naturally without regret,--that field, of which you are already in possession,--and, by the boundaries of which, your means of convenient culture are circumscribed." "On this plan,--not only will your exertions remain unimpeded, but the influence of the name of Jesus--that name, on the influence of which those same exertions are so materially dependent for their success,--will, in proportion to Paul's success, be extended." In a discourse, to this effect, from the generous and enlightened mediator,--may be seen the natural origin of that agreement, which, further on in its place, under the name of the _partition treaty_, there will be occasion to bring, in a more particular manner, under review.