possess in common.

Thus, brethren, living in Babylon, we should open our windows to
Jerusalem; and though we dwell here as aliens, we may say, 'We are come
unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem; to an
innumerable company of angels; to the spirits of just men made perfect;
and to the Church of the first-born whose names are written in Heaven.'

MARCUS, MY SON

'... So doth Marcus, my son.'--1 Peter v. 13.

The outlines of Mark's life, so far as recorded in Scripture, are
familiar. He was the son of Mary, a woman of some wealth and position,
as is implied by the fact that her house was large enough to accommodate
the 'many' who were gathered together to pray for Peter's release. He
was a relative, probably a cousin (Col. iv. 10, Revised Version), of
Barnabas, and possibly, like him, a native of Cyprus. The designation of
him by Peter as 'my son' naturally implies that the Apostle had been the
instrument of his conversion. An old tradition tells us that he was the
'young man' mentioned in his Gospel who saw Christ arrested, and fled,
leaving his only covering in the captor's hands. However that may be, he
and his relatives were early and prominent disciples, and closely
connected with Peter, as is evident from the fact that it was to Mary's
house that he went after his deliverance. Mark's relationship to
Barnabas made it natural that he should be chosen to accompany him and
Paul on their first missionary journey, and his connection with Cyprus
helps to account for his willingness to go thither, and his
unwillingness to go further into less known ground. We know how he left
the Apostles, when they crossed from Cyprus to the mainland, and
retreated to his mother's house at Jerusalem. We have no details of the
inglorious inactivity in which he spent the time until the proposal of a
second journey by Paul and Barnabas. In the preparations for it, the
foolish indulgence of his cousin, far less kind than Paul's wholesome
severity, led to a rupture between the Apostles, and to Barnabas
setting off on an evangelistic tour on his own account, which received
no sympathy from the church at Antioch, and has been deemed unworthy of
record in the Acts.

Then followed some twelve years or more, during which Mark seems to have
remained quiescent; or, at all events, he does not appear to have had
any work in connection with the great Apostle. Then we find him
reappearing amongst Paul's company when he w