arted to each heart the
tingling consciousness of oneness with all who held the one faith in
the one Lord and had received the one baptism in the one Name. That
fair dawn has been shadowed by many clouds, and the churches of
to-day, however they may have developed doctrine, may look back with
reproach and shame to the example of Rome, where Tryphena and
Tryphosa, with all their inherited, fastidious delicacy, recognised
in the household of Aristobulus and the household of Narcissus
'brethren in the Lord,' and were as glad to welcome Jews, Asiatics,
Persians, and Greeks, as Romans of the bluest blood, into the family
of Christ. The Romish Church of our day has lost its early grace of
welcoming all who love the one Lord into its fellowship; and we of
the Protestant churches have been but too swift to learn the bad
lesson of forbidding all who follow not with us.

Another thought which may be suggested by Tryphena and Tryphosa is
the blessed hallowing of natural family relations by common faith.
They were probably sisters, or, at all events, as their names
indicate, near relatives, and to them that faith must have been
doubly precious because they shared it with each other. None of the
trials to which the early Christians were exposed was more severe
than the necessity which their Christianity so often imposed upon
them of breaking the sacred family ties. It saddened even Christ's
heart to think that He had come to rend families in sunder, and to
make 'a man's foes them of his own household'; and we can little
imagine how bitter the pang must have been when family love had to be
cast aside at the bidding of allegiance to Him.

But though the stress of that separation between those most nearly
related in blood by reason of unshared faith is alleviated in this
day, it still remains; and that is but a feeble Christian life which
does not feel that it is drawing a heart from closest human embraces
and constituting a barrier between it and the dearest of earth. There
is still need in these days of relaxed Christian sentiment for the
stern austerity of the law, 'He that loveth father or mother more
than Me is not worthy of Me'; and there are many Christian souls who
would be infinitely stronger and more mature, if they did not yield
to the seductions of family affections which are not rooted in Jesus
Christ. But still, though our faith ought to be far more than it
often is, the determining element in our affections and associa