Acts 21:5

What he does when writing in an Epistle, this he does also when speaking in council: from exhorting, he ends with prayer: for since he had much alarmed them by saying, “Grievous wolves shall enter in among you” ( v. 29 ), therefore, not to overpower them, and make them lose all self-possession, observe the consolation (he gives). “And now,” he says, as always, “I commend you, brethren, to God, and to the word of His grace:” that is, to His grace: it is grace that saveth. He constantly puts them in mind of grace, to make them more earnest as being debtors, and to persuade them to have confidence. “Which is able to build you up.” He does not say, to build, but, “to build up,” showing that they had (already) been built. …

(Recapitulation.) “Silver, or gold, or apparel,” etc. ( ch. xx. 33, 34; 1 Cor. ix; 2 Cor. xi .) So then, it was not in Corinth only that they did this, they that corrupted the disciples, but in Asia as well. But he nowhere casts this up as a reproach to the Ephesians, when writing to them. And why? Because he did not fall upon any subject that obliged him to speak of this. But to the Corinthians he says, “My boasting has not been stopped in the regions of Achaia.” ( 2 Cor. xi. 10 .) And he does not say, Ye did not give to me; but, “Silver, or gold, or apparel, I coveted not,” that it might not seem to be their doing, that they had not given. And he does not say, From no man have I coveted the necessaries of life, that again it might not look like accusing them: but he covertly hints as much, seeing that he provided subsistence for others as well as himself. …

8. I say nothing of her journey through Cœle-Syria and Phœnicia (for it is not my purpose to give you a complete itinerary of her wanderings); I shall only name such places as are mentioned in the sacred books. After leaving the Roman colony of Berytus and the ancient city of Zidon she entered Elijah’s town on the shore at Zarephath and therein adored her Lord and Saviour. Next passing over the sands of Tyre on which Paul had once knelt she came to Acco or, as it is now called, Ptolemais, rode over the plains of Megiddo which had once witnessed the slaying of Josiah, and entered the land of the Philistines. Here she could not fail to admire the ruins of Dor, once a most powerful city; and Strato’s Tower, which though at one time insignificant was rebuilt by Herod king of Judæa and named Cæsarea in honour of Cæsar Augustus. …

All the churches did not, however, adopt this practice; for we see in the Acts of the Apostles ( xx. 36 and xxi. 5 ) that St. Paul prayed kneeling during the time between Pentecost and Easter.