Echoes from a Roman Prison.
By Rev. A. H. Somerville
WHILE traveling in the south of Europe some time ago, I stood at the base of one of those giant mountains whose summits are clothed with glacier and perpetual snow. A Swiss peasant was near, with his long Alpine horn that rested on two wooden props. Applying his lips to the rude instrument, he wound from it a few notes of the musical scale, which made but little impression on the listener. A moment or two elapsed, and then I was entranced; for above me, far away among the icy pinnacles, those artless sounds were converted into chords of exquisite harmony. The melodious echoes—I can compare them to nothing but the aerial symphonies of colossal musical glasses—seemed to sweep in circles among the heights. They rang out again, and again, and again, and again, lingering still amid precipice and peak; then gradually softening, they became fainter and fainter, and so died away. The incident may be recalled in connection with those epistles which Paul indited from Rome. When, under the breathing of the Holy Spirit, these were composed, the apostle was a captive and in prison, chained to a soldier that kept him, or otherwise in bonds. The words, dictated or written by him, made little impression at the spot. The letters of Paul the prisoner, Jew, and Christian, were matters of no interest in Rome. The man himself was beneath the regard of philosopher, orator, poet, or senator, in the imperial city. But if Paul's words at the time were of small account in the place where they were uttered, we have only to wait for a short season, to learn their marvelous effects elsewhere. The voice from the prison stirred the hearts of a multitude in Ephesus, Colosse, and Philippi; thereafter it found its echo in all the cities of early Christianity; the reverberation has rolled onward during all succeeding centuries, wherever the epistles have made their way; and now the results are more wonderful than ever, as the circulation of the Scriptures advances throughout the globe. The harmony awakened by the Alpine horn among the Swiss mountains were reverberations of sound; but the echoes evoked by the voice of the Roman prisoner91are of another character; they form the harmonies of faith, hope, and love; of gratitude, self-denial, and fidelity to Jesus; of elevated affection, heroic action, and holy life, on the part of the multitude that no man can number, of all nations, and kindreds, and peoples, and tongues.—Rev. A. H. Somerville.