stand alone in the list. There are several other women in it,
but they are all coupled with men--husbands or brothers, or some kind
of relative. But there are three sets of women, I do not say single
women, but three sets of women, standing singly in the list, and it
is about them, and them only, that Paul says they 'laboured,' or
'laboured much.' There is a Mary who stands alone, and she 'bestowed
much labour on' Paul and others. Then there are, in the same verse as
my text, two sisters, Tryphena and Tryphosa, whose names mean 'the
luxurious.' And the Apostle seems to think, as he writes the two
names that spoke of self-indulgence: 'Perhaps these rightly described
these two women once, but they do not now. In the bad old days,
before they were Christians, they may have been rightly named
luxurious-living. But here is their name now, the luxurious is turned
into the self-sacrificing worker, and the two sisters "labour in the
Lord."' Then comes our friend Persis, who also stands alone, and she
shares in the honour that only these other two companies of women
share with her. She 'laboured much in the Lord.' In that little
community, without any direction from Apostles and authorised
teachers, the brethren and sisters had every one found their tasks;
and these solitary women, with nobody to say to them, 'Go and do this
or that,' had found out for themselves, or rather had been taught by
the Spirit of Jesus, what they had to do, and they worked at it with
a will. There are many things that Christian women can do a great
deal better than men, and we are not to forget that this modern talk
about the emancipation of women has its roots here in the New
Testament. We are not to forget either that prerogative means
obligation, and that the elevation of woman means the laying upon her
of solemn duties to perform. I wonder how many of the women members
of our Churches and congregations deserve such a designation as that?
We hear a great deal about 'women's rights' nowadays. I wish some of
my friends would lay a little more to heart than they do, 'women's
duties.'

And now, lastly, the final lesson that I draw from this eulogium of an
otherwise altogether unknown woman is that she is a model of
Christian service.

First, in regard to its measure. She 'laboured much in the Lord.'
Now, both these two words, 'laboured' and 'much,' are extremely
emphatic. The word rightly translated 'laboured' will appear in its
full force if I recal