hem into one great community. We talk about the uniting
influence of Christianity, but when we see the process going on
before us, in a case like this, we begin to understand it better.

But another point may be noticed in regard to this uniting
process--how it brought into action the purest and truest love as a
bond that linked men. There are four or five of the people commended
in this chapter of whom the Apostle has nothing to say but that they
are beloved. This is the only woman to whom he applies that term. And
notice his instinctive delicacy: when he is speaking of men he says,
'_My_ beloved'; when he is greeting Persis he says, '_the_ beloved,'
that there may be no misunderstanding about the 'my'--'the beloved
Persis which laboured much in the Lord'--indicating, by one delicate
touch, the loftiness, the purity, and truly Christian character of
the bond that held them together. And that is no true Church, where
anything but that is the bond--the love that knits us to one another,
because we believe that each is knit to the dear Lord and fountain of
all love.

What more does this good woman say to us? She is an example living
and breathing there before us, of what a woman may be in God's
Church. Paul had never been in Rome; no Apostle, so far as we know,
had had anything to do with the founding of the Church. The most
important Church in the Roman Empire, and the Church which afterwards
became the curse of Christendom, was founded by some anonymous
Christians, with no commission, with no supervision, with no
officials amongst them, but who just had the grace of God in their
hearts, and found themselves in Rome, and could not help speaking
about Jesus Christ. God helped them, and a little Church sprang into
being. And the great abundance of salutations here, and the
honourable titles which the Apostle gives to the Christians of whom
he speaks, and many of whom he signalises as having done great
service, are a kind of certificate on his part to the vigorous life
which, without any apostolic supervision or official direction, had
developed itself there in that Church.

Now, it is to be noticed that this striking form of eulogium which is
attached to our Persis she shares in common with others in the group.
And it is to be further noticed that all those who are, as it were,
decorated with this medal--on whom Paul bestows this honour of saying
that they had 'laboured,' or 'laboured much in the Lord,' are women
that