After the disturbances connected with the mob raised by Demetrius
had wholly ceased, and public attention was no longer directed to the
motions of the preachers of the Christian doctrine, Paul determined
to execute the plan, which he had for some time contemplated, of
going over his European fields of labor again, according to his
universal and established custom of revisiting and confirming his
work, within a moderately brief period after first opening the ground
for evangelization. Assembling the disciples about him, he bade them
farewell, and turning northward, came to Troas, whence, six or seven
years before, he had set out on his first voyage to Macedonia. The
plan of his journey, as he first arranged it, had been to sail from
the shores of Asia Minor directly for Corinth. He had resolved however,
not to go to that city, until the very disagreeable difficulties which
had there arisen in the church, had been entirely removed, according
to the directions given in the epistle which he had written to them
from Ephesus; because he did not desire, after an absence of years,
to visit them in such circumstances, when his Corinthian converts were
divided among themselves, and against him,――and when his first duties
would necessarily be those of a rigid censor. He therefore waited at
Troas, with great impatience, for a message from them, announcing the
settlement of all difficulties. This he expected to receive through
Titus, a person now first mentioned in the apostle’s history. Waiting
with great impatience for this beloved brother, he found no rest in
his spirit, and though a door was evidently opened by the Lord for the
preaching of the gospel in Troas, he had no spirit for the good work
there; and desiring to be as near the great object of his anxieties
as possible, he accordingly took leave of the brethren at Troas,
and crossed the Aegean into Macedonia, by his former route. Here
he remained in great distress of mind, until his soul was at last
comforted by the long expected arrival of Titus. Luke only says, that
he went over those parts and gave them much exhortation. But though his
route is not given, his apostolic labors are known to have extended to
the borders of Illyricum. At this time also, he made another important
contribution to the list of the apostolic writings.