friends, and also the greetings of "the church that was in their house." So their services to the church at Ephesus were the founding of the church itself, laboring for its welfare some five continuous years, and, lastly, furnishing their home for the regular gathering place of believers for worship. And it may be said in passing that this is our reason for believing it may have been at Ephesus where they saved Paul's life from the attacks of the mob which was incited to murderous frenzy by the malignant and crafty eloquence of Demetrius the silversmith.

We next hear of these devoted missionaries and evangelists back at Rome, and again, as at Ephesus, there was "a church in their house." To them and to the church Paul sent remembrances and greetings in his letter to the Romans which was written at Corinth.

The last time their names occur in the New Testament is where Paul, in his second letter to Timothy, again sends them his greetings. From this letter and his greetings we learn that they were now a second time in Ephesus and were upholding with all their old time fervor and zeal the hands of their young pastor Timothy in his critical and laborious ministry in that city. This is the last information we have concerning them. If this were the last service they ever rendered Christ and his church, what a climax to what useful lives. What fairer evening could there have been to such a blessed couple than spending the moments of its sunset

glory counseling, aiding, and steadying a young minister in a great church of which they themselves in a quiet way were the real founders.

Whether Aquila and Priscilla were great in intellectual ability or not, we have no means of judging; but we do know they were giants in character and mighty in usefulness.

Great preachers they entertained, instructed, and protected. Their homes became churches in two continents. Great cities and varied races knew them face to face, and heart to heart. Their life work is inseparably associated with Rome, Corinth, and Ephesus. Their names on earth are inseparably associated with those of Apollos, Timothy, and Paul. Their reward in heaven is that of righteous men and prophets for the Master himself hath said "He that receiveth a prophet in the name of a prophet shall receive a prophet's reward; and he that receiveth a righteous man in the name of a righteous man shall receive a righteous man's reward."

Their whole lives after meeting with Paul at Corinth and after they came under the spell of his imperial heart and master passion, were lives of hardship, of personal danger, of ceaseless toil, of homelessness or incessant changing of their homes, as peril or duty compelled or dictated. What endless thousands of miles they traveled over seas and mountains and plains, ever hastening onward on the King's busiHow they toiled at their trade of tentmaking as did Paul himself that they might be independent

ness.

and self supporting, and devote all their powers to the service of God.

They were willing to go through life with never a permanent home in order that the homeless churches of Christ might find homes in their temporary abiding places. In the providence of God they were led from city to city and from continent to continent, here to found a church, there to furnish persecuted believers a place of worship, again to instruct some young preacher, furnish some prophet of the Lord a home, or defend some life at the hazard of their own. What a husband and wife were they, what unity of heart and head and hand. Match them in Scripture you cannot. Who in the annals of time are their peers?

IV

The Majesty and Divinity of Human Friendship

There is something about the friendship of these two with St. Paul and its significance to the world that is almost too sacred for eulogy or comment. It need not be eulogized. The simple telling of the tale is sufficient. In Paul's dying hour he sent them his heart's last greetings. In life he had multiplied his personality and presence and power through them and their labors; after his death he was still laboring through them in his old pastorate at Ephesus. And how they, too, multiplied their personality and power through the gifted and eloquent tongue of Apollos as he hurried from city to city of ancient Greece, outshining with his resplendent

eloquence her own native orators, famed in song and story, even as he had a sublimer and loftier theme than they.

Surely we can know Paul only as we know his capacity for friendship. We can know the greatness of his life and labors only as we measure the life and labors of his friends, among whose names, shining with a lustre all their own, we read those of the two humble tentmakers Aquila and Priscilla, husband and wife, one in consecration on earth, one in glory in heaven.

CHAPTER VIII

Apollos-The Man Whose Career Proves There Was No Jealousy in Paul's Friendships

The story of Apollos's career is found in the following passages:-Acts 18:24, 19:1, 1st Cor. 1:12, 3:4-22, 4:6, 16:12, and Titus 3:13.

A

T first glance the title chosen for our sketch of Paul's friendship with Apollos may sound derogatory to each The denial itself may seem to belittle our conception of the greatness of Paul by the very fact that we should deem it essential to be made.

man.

But such is not really the case. It rather enhances his greatness by showing that he was free from those petty vanities and weaknesses which have commonly marred the characters of so many of the greatest men of history. It presents St. Paul to us as preeminent among the preeminent in the lesser virtues of life as well as in the more rugged and striking ones. How many of the great men in church and state have been bitterly jealous not only of their chief rivals, but even of the successes and honors which were gained by their own subordinate friends and devoted adherents. Paul gathered