rought his son,
many a friend his friend, hoping that a word from the apostle's lips
might waken the sleeping conscience. Many a wanderer, stumbling in
there by chance, came out a new man. Such an one was Onesimus, a slave
from Colossae, who arrived in Rome as a runaway, but was sent back to
his Christian master, Philemon, no longer as a slave, but as a brother
beloved.

180. Still more interesting visitors came. At all periods of his life
he exercised a strong fascination over young men. They were attracted
by the manly soul within him, in which they found sympathy with their
aspirations and inspiration for the noblest work. These youthful
friends, who were scattered over the world in the work of Christ,
flocked to him at Rome. Timothy and Luke, Mark and Aristarchus,
Tychicus and Epaphras, and many more came, to drink afresh at the well
of his ever-springing wisdom and earnestness. And he sent them forth
again, to carry messages to his churches or bring him news of their
condition.

181. Of his spiritual children in the distance he never ceased to
think. Daily he was wandering in imagination among the glens of
Galatia and along the shores of Asia and Greece; every night he was
praying for the Christians of Antioch and Ephesus, of Philippi and
Thessalonica and Corinth. Nor were gratifying proofs awanting that
they were remembering him. Now and then there would appear in his
lodging a deputy from some distant church, bringing the greetings of
his converts or, perhaps, a contribution to meet his temporal wants, or
craving his decision on some point of doctrine or practice about which
difficulty had arisen. These messengers were not sent empty away: they
carried warm-hearted messages of golden words of counsel from their
apostolic friend.

Some of them carried far more. When Epaphroditus, a deputy from the
church at Philippi, which had sent to their dear father in Christ an
offering of love, was returning home, Paul sent with him, in
acknowledgment of their kindness, the Epistle to the Philippians, the
most beautiful of all his letters, in which he lays bare his very heart
and every sentence glows with love more tender than a woman's. When
the slave Onesimus was sent back to Colossae, he received, as the
branch of peace to offer to his master, the exquisite little Epistle to
Philemon, a priceless monument of Christian courtesy. He carried, too,
a letter addressed to the church of the town in which h