Britons.  Paul handed the torch from the Near East to the people in Rome.  They passed the torch on to the people of Britain—­and from Britain many years later men sailed to build up the new great nation in America.  So the torch has run from East to West, from that day to this, and from those people of long ago to us.  But we owe this most of all to Paul, the first missionary, who gave his life to bring the Good News from the lands of Syria and Judaea, where our Lord Jesus Christ lived and died and rose again.

FOOTNOTES: 

[Footnote 2:  The dates are, of course, conjectural; but those given are accepted by high authorities.  Paul was about forty-four at the time of this adventure.]

[Footnote 3:  The plateau on which Lystra, Derbe, Iconium, and Antioch-in-Pisidia stood is from 3000 to 4000 feet above sea-level.]

[Footnote 4:  The aqueduct was standing there in 1914, when the author was at Antioch-in-Pisidia (now called Yalowatch).]

[Footnote 5:  A Bible with maps attached will give the route from Antioch in Syria, round the Gulf of Alexandretta, past Tarsus, up the Cilician Gates to Derbe, Lystra, Iconium, and Antioch-in-Pisidia.]

[Footnote 6:  Compare Acts ix.  I-8, xxvi. 12-20.]

[Footnote 7:  St. Paul’s motive and message are developed more fully in the Author’s Paul the Dauntless.]

CHAPTER II

THE MEN OF THE SHINGLE BEACH

Wilfrid of Sussex

(Date, born A.D. 634.  Incidents A.D. 666 and 681[8])

Twelve hundred and fifty years ago a man named Wilfrid sailed along the south coast of a great island in the North Seas.  With him in the ship were a hundred and twenty companions.

The voyage had started well, but now the captain looked anxious as he peered out under his curved hand, looking first south and then north.  There was danger in both directions.

The breeze from the south stiffened to a gale.  The mast creaked and strained as the gathering storm tore at the mainsail.  The ship reeled and pitched as the spiteful waves smote her high bow and swept hissing and gurgling along the deck.  She began to jib like a horse and refused to obey her rudder.  Wind and current were carrying her out of her course.

In spite of all the captain’s sea-craft the ship was being driven nearer to the dreaded, low, shingle beach of the island that stretched along the northern edge of the sea.  The captain did not fear the coast itself, for it had no rocks.  But the lines deepened on his weather-scarred face as he saw, gathering on the shelving beach, the wild, yellow-haired men of the island.

The ship was being carried nearer and nearer to the coast.  All on board could now see the Men of the Shingle Beach waving their spears and axes.