St. Paul was not long in receiving tidings of this occurrence, and he would have hastened to the assembled crowd had not his friends interfered, for they believed that in their rage the excited people might do him some serious injury.
"Great is Diana of the Ephesians!"—so rose the cry again and again, and it was a difficult matter for the authorities to quiet them.
In this occurrence the Apostle saw an indication of God's Will that he should depart from Ephesus,—at any rate, for a time,—therefore he called together the Christians, and after exhorting them to perseverance in the faith they had embraced, and to a holy and blameless life, he bade them farewell.
For three years he had taught in that city, but now, with Timothy for a helper, he was to teach in other places, and win more hearts to a knowledge and love of the true God.
He now made his way to Troas, where once before he had stayed, though only for a short time. But St. Paul's heart was troubled regarding the Corinthian Church: Titus had been sent there, but he had not returned, and St. Paul resolved to go and meet him.
Leaving Troas he went to Philippi, where he was welcomed with great joy by his friends, and after a time Titus found him bringing better news of the people of Corinth, the greater number of whom were striving to obey the counsels contained in his letter. There were, however, some who still refused to submit to the Apostle's authority, and who were wicked enough to utter untruthful things of him. They said that the money he wished the Christian Churches to collect for their poorer friends, was really needed by himself. It was now that St. Paul wrote his Second Epistle to the Corinthians, in which he encouraged those who were trying to live a holy life, and this letter he sent by the hand of Titus, while he himself visited Thessalonica and Berea.
After summer and autumn had passed, the Apostle went to Corinth, but scarcely had he arrived than he heard of troubles in the Church of Galatia, because some people of Jerusalem had been there, endeavouring to sow disbelief and distrust in the teaching of St. Paul.