After this there was probably, as in modern ordinations, a searching examination of the candidate, with a solemn profession of faith on his part, to which St. Paul refers in 1 Tim. vi. 12, "Fight the good fight of faith, lay hold on the life eternal, whereunto thou wast called, and _didst confess the good confession in the sight of many witnesses_. I charge thee in the sight of God who quickeneth all things, and of Christ Jesus, who before Pontius Pilate witnessed the good confession; that thou keep the commandment, without spot, without reproach, until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ." And finally there came the imposition of hands, in which the local presbyters assisted St. Paul, though St. Paul was so far the guiding and ruling personage that, though in one place (1 Tim. iv. 14) he speaks of the gift of God which Timothy possessed, as given "by prophecy with the laying on of the hands of the presbytery," in another place he describes it as given to the young evangelist by the imposition of St. Paul's own hands (2 Tim. i. 6). This ordination of Timothy[136] and adoption of him as his special attendant stood at the very beginning of a prolonged tour throughout the central and northern districts of Asia Minor, of which we get only a mere hint in Acts xvi. 6-8: "They went through the region of Phrygia and Galatia, having been forbidden of the Holy Ghost to speak the word in Asia; and when they were come over against Mysia, they assayed to go into Bithynia; and the Spirit of Jesus suffered them not; and passing by Mysia, they came unto Troas." This is the brief sketch of St. Paul's labours through the north-western provinces of Asia Minor, during which he visited the district of Galatia and preached the gospel amid the various tribal communities of Celts who inhabited that district. [135] The record of a very similar journey performed five years ago in July 1887 may be read in the _Journal of Hellenic Studies_ for April 1890. Mr. D. G. Hogarth, who writes the story, travelled on that occasion from the borders of Galatia to the Cilician coast. His narrative gives a vivid picture of the scenery over the Taurus Range as St. Paul must have seen it on this second missionary tour, and of the difficulties by which he must have been surrounded. Cf. Ramsay's _Historical Geography of Asia Minor_, p. 362.