---

1. If a modern clergyman were writing to his old parishioners, what would be more natural than at the end of the letter he should add affectionate remembrances to any poor pensioners and aged widows whom he had known? Felix Neff, the Apostle of the High Alps, two days before his death, being scarcely able to see, traced the following lines at different intervals, in large and irregular characters, "Adieu, dear friend Andre Blanc, Antoine Blanc, all my friends, Pelissiers whom I love tenderly; Francis Dumont and his wife, Isaac and his wife, beloved Deslois, Emilie Bonnet, etc., Alexandrine and her mother, all, all the brethren and sisters of theirs, adieu, adieu."

2. Doubtless when Paul's greetings were first read in the little churches they would have been listened to with the deepest interest. The slave or the poor woman who heard his or her name mentioned, "How kind, how good it was of Paulus to remember me What a help it is to me to know that the dear and holy apostle, with the care of all the churches upon him, and living as he does in the midst of plots and of perils, yet thinks of and prays for me! If I be dear to him, must I not also be dear to his Lord and to mine?"

3. But why should it be to us a part of our public worship to hear these salutations read to-day? There is no more in these names of Amplias, etc., than in the names of Brown, or Jones, or Smith. They were just the names of poor, ordinary persons, on whom the nobles or the careless women would have looked down with scorn. And yet very genuine, lessons may be learned from these lists of names. Note —

I. THE OVERFLOWING AFFECTIONATENESS OF THE HEART OF PAUL, which should teach us the lesson of kindliness, the family affection of the Christian life. Christians needed each other's help in those days. They were as lambs among wolves. "See how those Christians love one another," said the envious heathen then. Alas! they would have little cause to say so now. But these lists of names may at least serve to remind us of the beauty of the lost ideal.

II. HIS REGARD FOR CHRISTIAN WOMEN, which should teach us the glory of Christian womanhood. The world has never recognised the vast debt it owes to Christian women. Even in this day, though women do more than men in the great works of quiet, unobtrusive charity, and are incomparably more thorough, patient, tender, skilful, and self-denying than the vast majority of men, yet they might well complain that they are far less cared for in our public exhortations than men. Well, it was not so with Paul In this chapter alone seven Christian women are recognised with words of gentleness and praise. In this day the minds of holy and noble women may well be pained by the mock deference and hypocritical compliments which are paid them. There is not the faintest trace of this in Paul. For foolish and unworthy women he had words of deserved scorn. In days when women lived for the most part in unavoidable ignorance and seclusion, and were shamefully regarded as the mere chattels and servants of man's caprice and wickedness, Paul's illuminated soul had recognised the sacred and beautiful type of Christian womanhood.

III. HIS HONOUR FOR SLAVES, which should teach us the dignity of man as man. MANY WHOM PAUL HERE SALUTES ARE SLAVES AND MEN OF POOR AND MEAN CONDITION. It is the nature of the world to fawn upon the great; they are ashamed to know the poor. A. slave was as great as a Caesar, because for slave and Caesar Christ had died. Nay, a despised slave might be much more to him. For man in himself is less than nothing; he is great in God only, if he is great at all. A few short days both emperor and slave would die, and then the one might be wailing in outer darkness, while the other, amid acclaim of angels, might tread "the heavenly Jerusalem's rejoicing streets."

IV. HIS DISCRIMINATING EULOGIES. Being addressed to Christians — in days when to be a Christian was to be persecuted — he was writing presumably to good men. Yet even between good men there is a difference, and Paul uses only the language of deserved praise. What comfort there is in the thought that, as God bestows on us different gifts, so also He expects from us different forms of service! All branches cannot bear the same fruit; "all members have not the same office." Mary has her work, and Phebe hers; Urbane has his work, and Apelles his; and some of us, perhaps, think with a sigh that we do little or no work. Well, if we are but trying to do what little we can, let us be content. We may then be like Asyncritus, Phlegon, Hermas, Hermes, and Patrobas, of whom nothing is said. Better to be the nameless ciphers of Christianity than to be of the world's guilty kings.

V. THE MERE CASUAL MENTION OF THESE NAMES BY PAUL HAS GIVEN THEM A SORT OF IMMORTALITY. Horace might have sung of them — he does actually mention one or two of the same names; Seneca might have mentioned them among his brilliant aphorisms; Tacitus might have introduced them in his histories, yet they would still have been incomparably less eternised. Little thought those slaves and poor women that their names would be on our lips to-day, in what was then a remote and savage island. Centuries after they are dead we still speak of them, and yet, grotesque their names certainly are — Phebe, Hermas, Hermes, Nereus — names of heathen gods and goddesses in which people had quite ceased to believe, half jocosely given to the slaves of their families; Staehys, a corn ear; Asyneritus, the incomparable; Persis, the Persian woman, known only by her nationality; Tryphena the "wanton," and Tryphosa "the luxurious" — names perhaps once insultingly given to a class, now meekly borne. They had other names, new names, in heaven. Five, ten, fifteen years hence, and how many of you who hear me will be utterly forgotten! Fifty years hence, all but one or two of us, it may be, will be lying in our coffins, our names perhaps already illegible on the worn stone, and nobody knowing or caring who lies below. No Paul will mention us. And what does it matter if our names are written in "the Lamb's Book of Life"?

(Archdeacon Farrar.)

---

---

KJV: I commend unto you Phebe our sister, which is a servant of the church which is at Cenchrea:

WEB: I commend to you Phoebe, our sister, who is a servant of the assembly that is at Cenchreae,