WHERE PAUL PREACHED.

Hawera Star, Volume XLV, 7 November 1925, Page 13

WHERE PAUL PREACHED.

rjpHE great plain in Macedonia wherein lie Seres and Drama is now desolate and sparsely inhabited. It is ringed round with grim naked mountains. Yet in the old days this plain has seen great armies pass, and events of world fame have here been enacted. On the south side, over the range of rugged mountains, lies Cavalla, a prosperous port, where many fortunes have been made from the finest tobacco in the world. •These unsightly hills have a priceless yield of what Western Europe calls Turkish and Egyptian tobacco. Over the mountains are three roads. There is still the old Soman paved road, straight, steep and direct. A.. intervals are fiat staging places where the chariots could rest, and the marks of the wedges can still be seen.

SITE OF ANCIENT PHILIPPI

There is a broken road used when less heavy gradients wore desired, and there is a modern road, far longer, but easy of ascent. Some day there will be a tunnel, and the great plain behind will be opened up.

As you come from Drama, across the sandy plain, passing the inns where coffee and cognac can be obtained, you come to a lone hill on which is a ruin; on the other side of the road is a forum and a market place, now in ruins. This is all that remains of Philippi, once a great city, writes “W.S.M.” in the London Daily Chronicle. The market place is where- Paul preached, and the building on the hill is that very place where he was imprisoned. Everyone knows the story. The doors burst- open, and the gaoler was

about to kill himself, when Paul cried that all the prisoners were there, none had escaped. In these modern days the sceptic smiles and calls this a fairy story. At Cavalla was a member of the American Tobacco Company, rvith modern notions, and little belief in the old stories. He told me that earthquake shocks were common in this region, and that on one occasion the safe was found to lia\'C come open during one of these, though the contents were untouched. He then said that this had convinced him that the old story of the Acts was true. Now, this ruined tower stands alone to witness the great stories of the past This desolate plain once saw a teeming population. The great Alexander set forth from here to his stupendous conquests. To see Philippi at its best one shotdd ride down at night, when the horses' hoofs make no sound on the sandy road, and the great moon hangs over the plain. The ruined agora is flooded with light, and one can picture the busy scene of trafficking and buying, the arguments of the philosophers, and the marketing of slaves. Philippi is a ruin. The great plain is given to the bittern and the owl, but the Epistle to the Philippians will endure for all time. '