The Saints of Caesar's Household

“All the saints salute you, especially they that are of C Cesar’s household” (Phil. iv. 22).

That is a very wonderful thing that the gentle river of Christian courtesy should be flowing from the hard precincts of imperial lust and tyranny. These members of “Caesar’s household” are probably only the slaves and dependants of Nero, who were possibly converted through Paul’s teaching whilst he was a prisoner in the Pretorian barracks attached to the palace. But this does not in any way diminish the wonder of the transforming ministry. For in the courts of sovereigns the dependants usually assimilate the vices of their monarch. They become dyed in the popular colour, and they wear the habits of the prevailing fashion. In

this respect vice is like virtue — “it streams from the hills, it descends to the plains,” and the lowliest members in the vast fellowship are prone to be infected with the common contagion.

But here is a clean, clear river, streaming out of the very centre of a poisonous swamp. Here is a sweet spring lifting its healthful waters in the bitter waste. Here is a white lily spreading its radiant purity above a very noisome bed. This is the kind of miracle to arrest and startle the world. Goodness in unexpected places! “He maketh grass to grow upon the mountains.” That is the wonder of it, that the tender thing is growing on the cold and inhospitable heights. If we had found it in the sheltered valley where the dews are heavy and drenching, and where the harsh wind is softened to a wooing caress, it would have awakened little or no interest. But to find it growing “upon the mountains,” on the very playground of the storm, in the very teeth of contending blasts — that is the marvel which fascinates our notice and regard.

Now, if I may write it very reverently, God seems to delight in rearing His beauties in the most difficult and unlikely places. I recently found a most exquisite fern, quite away from any “ferny” fellowship, nestling in a heap of bare and jagged rocks, and nourishing itself on the merest pinch of soil. And yet there it was, lifting its lovely fronds as bravely and triumphantly as though it had all the wealth of a moist and luscious forest-bed in which to lay its roots. This seems to be one of the delights of our God. Even in our grim, grimy, sooty railway stations He makes His lichens grow, and we should see them if only our eyes were sufficiently practised and expert in discernment. But pre-eminently is all this true in the highest regions of grace. The Lord loves to rear His saints in unlikely and difficult places, yea, in the very midst of blasphemy and desolation. He has a peculiar joy in exhibiting His saints in Caesar’s household. He delights in growing a disciple in the very ranks of the publicans. “Even there shall Thy hand lead me, and Thy right hand shall hold me.”

One of the sweetest and purest souls I have

ever met, pure as a snowdrop, and sweet as the eglantine, was thus wonderingly referred to by a friend: “And her father was such a drunkard!” Yes, even in that cold, chilly environment the snowdrop grew. A commissioner of one of our great London “dailies” has recently been exploring some of the awful, howling wastes of London’s slums. He went into one court, and up one terrible flight of stairs, where gin and sweat and swearing and putridity were horribly commingled, and in the very thick of it all he heard a woman’s sweet, clear, triumphant voice singing, “We thank Thee, O our Father, for all things bright and good.” Yes, and the commissioner discovered that she was a saint indeed. But how adverse the environment. Where did the lovely fern find even the requisite pinch of friendly earth? God knows, and He provided it. It seems as though God’s plants can laugh at circumstances, that they can sink strange roots right through their immediate setting, and reach such marvellous resources that their inhospitable environment counts for nothing. “He shall not fear in time of drought.” “Though an host should encamp against me, my heart shall not fear.” The word of the Lord abounds in such promises. “Thou spreadest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies.” A feast, with the encircling but impotent enemies looking on; the environment most unfriendly, and yet the well-filled table of the Lord in the midst.

And so we ought not to be despondent concerning the very hardest sphere. What could have seemed more unlikely than that the insignificant Jew, the poor, lonely captive in Rome, should have been made instrumental in unsealing fountains of blessedness in the hard, sterile wastes of the court itself? But “springs broke out in the desert.” And so let us address ourselves to wilderness-work with a courageous and singing spirit. God is with us. Let us put our best into the worst, and let us make the stony waste resound with the happy song of the minister of the Lord.