That, to the advancement of religion--of the religion of Jesus--no such presence of his was necessary;--that no good could result from it;--that much evil could not but result from it;--was obvious to all eyes. Of the original number of the Apostles,--for aught that appears, not less than eleven were still remaining on the spot: men, to every one of whom, all acts and sayings of Jesus were, by memory, rendered so familiar:--men, on the part of some of whom, and, at any rate, on the part of the chief of them, Peter,--there was no want of zeal and activity. While to these men a single city, or, at the utmost, one small region--composed the whole field of exertion--the whole earth besides is left open by them to Paul: still, such is the ravenousness of his ambition, nothing can content him, but he must be intruding himself--thrusting his restless sickle into their ripening harvest. SECTION 3. THE DESIGN INDEFENSIBLE. All this--is it not enough? Well then, take this one other--this concluding proof. In the teeth of all their endeavours, and among them, some that will be seen extraordinary enough, to prevent it,--was undertaken the fourth and last of his four recorded visits to their residence--Jerusalem. But, in the first place, in the utter indefensibility of the design, shall be shown the _cause_, of the opposition so universally made to it. Tired of a mixture of successes and miscarriages,--disdaining the conquests he had been making in so many remote, and comparatively obscure regions of the world,--he had formed--but at what precise time, the documents do not enable us to pronounce--the determination, to exhibit his glories on the two most illustrious of theatres:--in the two capitals--Jerusalem, of the Jewish, and now of the Christian world; Rome, of the whole classical heathen world:--and in the first place, Jerusalem, now, for the fourth time since his conversion. It was at Ephesus, as we have seen, this determination was first declared. To Rome, he might have gone, and welcome: namely, in so far as his doctrines could have confined themselves within the limits of those of Jesus: which, however, it will be seen, they could not: but, success being moreover supposed, nothing but good could such visit have had for its result. But, by a visit to any place other than Jerusalem, various were the points of spleen and ambition, that could not have been satisfied. Nothing would serve him, but, over that Edom Jerusalem, he would, in the first place, cast forth his shoe.