In the interval, come four years,--occupied by a series of successive excursions and sojournments,--in the course of which, all mention of Silas is dropped, without remark: dropped, in the same obscure and inexplicit manner, in which the historian affords to the reader, supposing him endowed with the requisite degree of attention, the means of discovering, Acts 16:10, that not long after the commencement of this same period, the historian himself, whoever he was, was taken into the train of the self-constituted Apostle. To the reader is also left the faculty, of amusing himself in conjecturing, about what time, and in what manner, this latter event may have taken place; an event, from which such important consequences have resulted. Of these portions of Paul's life, some view will come to be taken, in a succeeding chapter, under another head:--under the head of Paul's supposed miracles: for, it is in the account given of his achievements and adventures, and of the transactions in which, in the course of this period, he was engaged,--it is in the course of this account, that we shall have to pick up, the supposed accounts of supposed miracles, which, in this part of the Acts history lie interspersed. This review must of necessity be taken, for the purpose of placing in a true light, the evidence, supposed to be thus afforded, in support of his claims to a supernatural commission. To this change of connection on the part of Silas,--from the service of the Apostles of Jesus to that of the self-constituted Apostle,--the character of _defection_ on the part of Silas,--_seduction_ on the part of Paul,--may here be ascribed without difficulty. By the Apostles, one Gospel was preached--the Gospel of Jesus:--we see it in the Evangelists. By Paul, another and different Gospel was preached:--a Gospel, later and better, according to him, than that which is to be seen in the Evangelists:--a Gospel of his own. If, even down to this time, mutual prudence prevented an open and generally conspicuous rupture,--there was on his part, at any rate, an opposition. If, to men, whose conduct and temper were such as they uniformly appear to have been,--any such word as _party_ can, without disparagement, be applied, here were two _parties_. He, who was _for_ the self-constituted Apostle, was _against_ the Apostles of Jesus. In a word, in the language of modern party, Silas was a _rat_. SECTION 3. THE PARTITION TREATY, AND THE PROCEEDINGS, IN RELATION TO IT, DOWN TO THIS PERIOD, REVIEWED. In regard to the Partition Treaty,--taking the matter from Paul's first, or Reconciliation Visit, A.D. 35, to his departure from Antioch, on his missionary excursion, after the interview he had had at that city with Peter,--the state of the affairs, between Paul and the Apostles, seems to have been thus:--