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To Paul's prison life in Rome we owe some of the most important and consolatory Epistles. And he is not the only Christian prisoner who has been busy for God and man. Savonarola wrote his commentaries on Psalm 31 and 51 during his month of imprisonment before his execution, which show that though he had much spiritual conflict, neither his faith nor his comfort yielded. The gentle Anne Askew, who was burnt at Smithfield , wrote the night before she suffered —

"Like as an armed knight appointed to the field

With this world will I fight, and faith shall be my shield.

Faith is that weapon strong which will not fail at need,

My foes therefore among therewith will I proceed.

I now rejoice in heart, and hope bids me do so,

That Christ will take my part, and ease me of my woe."Tyndale, to whom more than any other we owe our English Bible, wrote, during his imprisonment at Vilvorde, to the governor of the castle, asking for some articles of dress in a style that reminds us of Paul's request that Timothy should bring his cloak from Troas; and then goes on to say: "But above all I entreat and beseech your clemency to be urgent with the procureur that he may kindly permit me to have my Hebrew Bible, Grammar, and Dictionary, that I may spend my time with my study." Ridley wrote in the interval between his condemnation and execution, a long "farewell to all his true and noble friends in God," which contains these sentences: "I warn you all, my well-beloved kinsfolk and countrymen, that ye be not amazed or astonished at the kind of my departure and dissolution, for I assure you I think it is the greatest honour that ever I was called unto in my life. For you know I no more doubt but that the causes whereof I am put to death are God's causes and the causes of truth, than I doubt that John's Gospel is the gospel of Christ, or that Paul's Epistles are the very Word of God." And only a short time before Lady Jane Grey, in sending, on the eve of her execution, her Greek Testament to her sister, wrote: "I am assured that I shall for the losing of a mortal life find an immortal felicity, the which I pray God grant you and enable you of His grace to live in His fear and die in the true Christian faith, from the which, in God's name, I exhort you that you never swerve, neither for hope of life nor fear of death." The hymn "Jerusalem, my happy home," was, in one of its versions, composed by Francis Baker while a prisoner in the Tower, and in the same fortress Sir Walter Raleigh composed his "History of the World," and wrote poems, of which the following is a specimen: —

"Rise my soul, with thy desires, to heaven,

And with divinest contemplation use

Thy time, where time's eternity is given.

And let vain thoughts no more thy thoughts abuse,

But down in midnight darkness let them lie;

So live thy better, let thy worse thoughts die

And thou, my soul, inspired with sacred flame,

View and review, with most regardful eye,

Thy holy Cross, whence thy salvation came;

On which thy Saviour and thy sin did die;

For in that sacred object is much pleasure,

And in that Saviour is thy life, thy treasure."Everybody knows that Bunyan's "Pilgrim's Progress" was the fruit of his labours in Bedford Gaol; and as the joy bells of the new Jerusalem kept ringing in his ears he forgot the vileness of the "cage" wherein he was confined. Not so well known are the letters of Samuel Rutherford, so unique for their unction and holy rapture, yet many of them were written from Aberdeen, to which city he had been confined by the Court of High Commission. George Wither, the Puritan poet, whose quaint motto was, "I grow and wither, both together," had a chequered career, and many of his best pieces were composed in prison. His "Prison Meditation" has preserved his experiences for us: —

"While here I bide, though I unworthy be,

Do Thou provide all needful things for me,

And though friends grow unkind in my distress,

Yet leave not Thou Thy servant comfortless.

So, though in thrall my body must remain,

In mind I shall some freedom still retain;

And wiser made by this restraint shall be

Than if I had, until my death, been free."Who, having read, can ever forget the lines of Madam Guyon under similar circumstances? —

"My cage confines me round, abroad I cannot fly,

But though my wing is closely bound, my heart's at liberty.

My prison walls cannot control the flight, the freedom of the soul."James Montgomery, wrote a whole volume of "Prison Amusements" while he was confined in York Castle, the victim of political injustice; and the hymn beginning "Spirit, leave thy house of clay" was composed in the same place on the occasion of the death of one of his fellow prisoners, who with seven others had suffered the loss of all worldly goods for conscience' sake. And to mention no more, what an interesting record is that of the imprisonment in Burma of the sainted Judson for two years, during which he composed the beautiful paraphrase of the Lord's Prayer, commencing, "Our Father God, who art in heaven." Now compare all this with the melancholy lines of Ovid and the letters of Cicero during their exile. The latter discover a pusillanimity humiliating to contemplate, and it would have been better for the orator's reputation if they had been destroyed. The same thing has come out in the prison experiences of many others who, being without God, were also without hope in the world, Now how shall we account for the difference? Simply by the sustaining grace of the Lord Jesus. One of the greatest triumphs of modern horology is the construction of a chronometer with a compensation balance which keeps it moving at the same rate in every temperature. What that balance is to the timepiece, the grace of God is to the believer's heart. It gives him equanimity in all experiences. It makes prosperity safe and adversity salutary. It puts for him a rainbow in every cloud, opens a fountain in every wilderness, and gives a song for every night.

(W. M. Taylor, D. D.).

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KJV: And Paul dwelt two whole years in his own hired house, and received all that came in unto him,

WEB: Paul stayed two whole years in his own rented house, and received all who were coming to him,