call Rome at this time “the sewer of the universe.”  It was here especially that the Jews exercised some of the meanest trades in Rome, selling matches, and old clothes, and broken glass, or begging and fortune-telling on the Cestian or Fabrican bridges.[41] In one of these narrow, dark, and dirty streets, thronged by the dregs of the Roman populace, St. Mark and St. Peter had in all probability lived when they founded the little Christian Church at Rome.  It was undoubtedly in the same despised locality that St. Paul,—­the prisoner who had been consigned to the care of Burrus,—­hired a room, sent for the principle Jews, and for two years taught to Jews and Christians, to any Pagans who would listen to him, the doctrines which were destined to regenerate the world.

[Footnote 38:  Luke and Aristarchus.]

[Footnote 39:  Acts xxiv. 23, xxvii. 3.]

[Footnote 40:  Acts xxviii. 30, [Greek:  en idio misthomati].]

[Footnote 41:  MART. Ep. i. 42:  JUV. xiv. 186.  In these few paragraphs I follow M. Aubertin, who (as well as many other authors) has collected many of the principal passages in which Roman writers allude to the Jews and Christians.]

Any one entering that mean and dingy room would have seen a Jew with bent body and furrowed countenance, and with every appearance of age, weakness, and disease chained by the arm to a Roman soldier.  But it is impossible that, had they deigned to look closer, they should not also have seen the gleam of genius and enthusiasm, the fire of inspiration, the serene light of exalted hope and dauntless courage upon those withered features.  And though he was chained, “the Word of God was not chained.” [42] Had they listened to the words which he occasionally dictated, or overlooked the large handwriting which alone his weak eyesight and bodily infirmities, as well as the inconvenience of his chains, permitted, they would have heard or read the immortal utterances which strengthened the faith of the nascent and struggling Churches in Ephesus, Philippi, and Colossae, and which have since been treasured among the most inestimable possessions of a Christian world.

[Footnote 42:  2 Tim. ii. 9.]

His efforts were not unsuccessful; his misfortunes were for the furtherance of the Gospel; his chains were manifest “in all the palace, and in all other places;” [43] and many waxing confident by his bonds were much more bold to speak the word without fear.  Let us not be misled by assuming a wrong explanation of these words, or by adopting the Middle Age traditions which made St. Paul convert some of the immediate favourites of the Emperor, and electrify with his eloquence an admiring Senate.  The word here rendered “palace” [44] may indeed have that meaning, for we know that among the early converts were “they of Caesar’s household;” [45] but these were in all probability—­if not certainly—­Jews of the lowest rank, who were, as we know, to be found among the hundreds