Wherever the Jews were settled, they had their synagogues, their sacred Scriptures, their uncompromising belief in the One true God. Not only so: their synagogues everywhere attracted proselytes from the surrounding Gentile populations. The heathen religions were at that period in a state of utter collapse. The smaller nations had lost faith in their deities, because they had not been able to defend them from the victorious Greeks and Romans. But the conquerors had for other reasons equally lost faith in their own gods. It was an age of skepticism, religious decay and moral corruption. But there are always natures which must possess a faith in which they can trust. These were in search of a religion, and many of them found refuge from the coarse and incredible myths of the gods of polytheism in the purity and monotheism of the Jewish creed. The fundamental ideas of this creed are also the foundations of the Christian faith. Wherever the messengers of Christianity traveled, they met with people with whom they had many religious conceptions in common. Their first sermons were delivered in synagogues, their first converts were Jews and proselytes. The synagogue was the bridge by which Christianity crossed over to the heathen. 78. Such, then, was the world which Paul was setting out to conquer. It was a world everywhere pervaded with these three influences. But there were two other elements of population which require to be kept in mind, as both of them supplied numerous converts to the early preachers: they were the original inhabitants of the various countries; and there were the slaves, who were either captives taken in war or their descendants, and were liable to be shifted from place to place, being sold according to the necessities or caprices of their masters. A religion the chief boast of which it was to preach glad tidings to the poor could not neglect these down-trodden classes, and, although the conflict of Christianity with the forces of the time which had possession of the fate of the world naturally attracts attention, it must not be forgotten that its best triumph has always consisted in the sweetening and brightening of the lot of the humble. CHAPTER VI HIS MISSIONARY TRAVELS Paragraphs 70-114. 79-88. THE FIRST JOURNEY. 79, 80. His Companions. 81. Cyprus. Change of his Name. 82-87. The Mainland of Asia Minor. 83. Desertion of Mark. 84. Antioch-in-Pisidia and Iconium. 86-87. Lystra and Derbe. 88. Return. 89-108. THE SECOND JOURNEY. 90, 91. Separation from Barnabas. 92, 93. Unrecorded Half of the Journey. 94-96. Crossing to Europe. 97-108. Greece. 97-101. Macedonia. 99. Women and the Gospel. 100. Liberality of Churches. 102-108. Achaia. 103-105. Athens. 106-108. Corinth. 109-114. THE THIRD JOURNEY. Ephesus, Polemic against Superstition. THE FIRST JOURNEY