g has brought them into
conflict with the authorities. They are drawn before the magistrates.
Their clothing is torn from them and they are severely beaten.

It seems that this would have been shame enough and pain enough, but it
was not. They were then turned over to a callous and cruel Roman
jailer with the order that he should keep them fast. So he threw them
into the inner dungeon and made their feet fast in the stocks. The
place was foul and cold and dark. Their backs were lacerated and
bleeding. And this wag their reward for seeking to bring to men the
unsearchable riches of Christ.

Now it was dark enough for these two. But they did not lose heart.
First they prayed. I can imagine they prayed secretly and then they
prayed aloud. And those people in prison heard the voice of prayer for
possibly the first time in their lives. Now, real prayer always makes
things different. It brings us a consciousness of God. And so as
these men prayed their hearts grew warm and joyous till by and by
prayer gives place to praise and they begin to sing.

I have wondered what these people sang that night. It might have been
the Twenty-third Psalm. Or they might have sung, "I will bless the
Lord at all times. His praise shall continually be in my mouth. My
soul shall make her boast in the Lord. The humble shall hear thereof
and be glad." Or the Thirty-seventh Psalm would have sounded well in
the darkness of that hideous dungeon,--"Fret not thyself because of
evil doers, neither be thou envious against the workers of iniquity.
For they shall soon be cut down like the grass and wither as the green
herb." But I think the most likely of all is the Forty-sixth: "God is
our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore
will we not fear though the earth be removed and though the mountains
be carried into the midst of the sea."

Whatever they sang it was great singing. I think the angels opened the
windows when they heard it. I think it made the very heart of our Lord
glad. What a surprise it was to those in that gloomy old prison. They
had heard the walls ring with groans and shrieks. They had heard
bitter oaths in the night, but songs with the lilt of an irrepressible
joy in them--they had never heard anything like that before.

Now as the melody rang through the gloomy cells something else
happened. The old building seemed to be shaking with the very power of
the music. An earthquake was on