Artificial Refrigeration at Market and at Slaughter House Palace Meat Market THOMAS J. NIPPER, Proprietor Wholesale and Retail FRESH AND CURED MEATS, FISH We carry the largest supply of any market in the west, and everything is properly chilled before serving the customer. (When writing to Advertisers, please mention the ERA.) ..... 20 3 31 In the Business of the Lord. .. That Our Days May Count for Much. ............. Redeeming the Waste Places. Photo The National Eisteddfod. Its Aims and Purposes Briefly Outlined - Names of the Recent "I have here only made a nosegay of culled flowers, and have brought nothing of my own but the thread that ties them together."—MONTAIGNE. In the author's article, "The Closing Years of St. Paul's Life in Rome," which appeared in the IMPROVEMENT ERA, Vol. X, Nos. 5 to 11 inclusive, an attempt was made to depict something of the life of this great Apostle of the Gentiles during his two imprisonments in Rome, and also to describe to some extent such portions of the Eternal City as must have been familiar to him during his sojourn there. It is now proposed to prosecute the theme of his residence in that city, by taking up, as far as the material to hand will permit, the subject of his Christian companions at those periods. The writer would, however, here wish to say that, in presenting the events of St. Paul's life, both in the article above. alluded to as well as in the present one, he makes no claim whatever to originality. Indeed, one cannot be expected to originate history, and as in the former article so also in this one, he has confined himself to a compilation of facts and information which have been culled from such sources as he has had access to, and to this end use has been made of some of those works of studious historical writers, which have already been published to the world. The two concluding verses of the Acts of the Apostles, in the New Testament, inform us that Paul, while at Rome during his first imprisonment, was permitted to dwell in his own hired house, and to receive all who came to him, and that he there preached the kingdom of God, and taught those things which concerned the Lord Jesus Christ with all confidence, no man forbidding him. Of his further life and work there is no direct record in the Scriptures, but, as pointed out by Dr. Macduff in his book, St. Paul in Rome, it is evident from the closing chapter of the Apostle's epistle to the Romans, wherein he mentions by name no less than twenty-six Christian brethren, and at the same time makes reference to many other Saints, that as far back as A. D. 60 there was the nucleus of a flourishing Church within the city walls. Two years later, when St. Paul was brought into that city as a chained prisoner, Christian brethren went out to meet him, as we know, to "Appii Forum" and the "Three Taverns" (Acts, 28: 15). In writing from Rome, in A. D. 64, to the Colossians, the Apostle mentions Tychicus and Onessimus whom he was about to despatch to them with his epistle, and he refers also to certain other brethren who were at Rome at the time, namely, Aristarchus, Mark, Jesus called Justus, Epaphras, Luke, and Demas. And again, in chapter two of his epistle to the Philippians, written also in the same year from Rome, he makes mention of two other brethren: namely, Timothy and Epaphroditus, the first named of whom would seem to have been very close to his heart indeed. Here, then, we have a list of ten Roman Christians, and we know there were others also, some probably being natives of the city itself, with whom the great Apostle was frequently brought into intimate association during his two imprisonments in imperial Rome. We need not here trouble ourselves with the debated question as to the exact position of St. Paul's hired house at which he was in the habit of receiving his brethren, and whence must have been written and despatched his epistles to Philemon, to the Colossians, to the Ephesians, and to the Philippians; but the weight of opinion seems to place it in "Via degli Strengari," close to the Ghetto. A house in that locality is pointed out as the very one formerly occupied by the Apostle; but if this is the case, the building must have undergone some changes, for it is not a first century house |