on them, and is thankfully received into them.

Such a house as the house of Prisca and Aquila is the product of
Christianity, and such ought to be the house of every professing
Christian. For we should all make our homes as 'tabernacles of the
righteous,' in which the voice of joy and rejoicing is ever heard.
Not only wedded love, but family love, and all earthly love, are then
most precious, when into them there flows the ennobling, the calming,
the transfiguring thought of Christ and His love to us.

Again, notice that, even in these scanty references to our two
friends, there twice occurs that remarkable expression 'the church
that is in their house.' Now, I suppose that that gives us a little
glimpse into the rudimentary condition of public worship in the
primitive church. It was centuries after the time of Priscilla and
Aquila before circumstances permitted Christians to have buildings
devoted exclusively to public worship. Up to a very much later period
than that which is covered by the New Testament, they gathered
together wherever was most convenient. And, I suppose, that both in
Rome and Ephesus, this husband and wife had some room--perhaps the
workshop where they made their tents, spacious enough for some of the
Christians of the city to meet together in. One would like people who
talk so much about 'the Church,' and refuse the name to individual
societies of Christians, and even to an aggregate of these, unless it
has 'bishops,' to explain how the little gathering of twenty or
thirty people in the workshop attached to Aquila's house, is called
by the Apostle without hesitation 'the church which is in their
house.' It was a part of the Holy Catholic Church, but it was also 'a
Church,' complete in itself, though small in numbers. We have here
not only a glimpse into the manner of public worship in early times,
but we may learn something of far more consequence for us, and find
here a suggestion of what our homes ought to be. 'The Church that is
in thy house'--fathers and mothers that are responsible for your
homes and their religious atmosphere, ask yourselves if any one would
say that about your houses, and if they could not, why not?

II. We may get here another object lesson as to the hallowing of
common life, trade, and travel.

It does not appear that, after their stay in Ephesus, Aquila and his
wife were closely attached to Paul's person, and certainly they did
not take any part as members of what we