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now to his own hired house, but to a gloomy dungeon, there to remain,
chained night and day, until he should finish his course.
To visit Paul now was not, as during his first imprisonment, to visit
a man against whom no charge had been sustained, and who had won
favorable opinions from princes and rulers. It was to visit one who
was the object of universal hatred, who was accused of instigating the
basest and most terrible crime against the city and the nation. Whoever
ventured to show him the slightest attention, thereby made himself the
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object of suspicion, and endangered his own life. Rome was now filled
with spies, who stood ready to bring an accusation against any one on
the slightest occasion. None but a Christian would visit a Christian;
for no other would incur the odium of a faith which even intelligent
men regarded as not merely contemptible, but treasonable.
One by one, Paul saw his friends leaving him. The first to depart
were Phygellus and Hermogenes. Then Demas, dismayed at the thick-
ening clouds of difficulty and danger, forsook the persecuted apostle
to seek for ease and security in a worldly life. Crescens was sent on
a mission to the churches of Galatia, Titus to Dalmatia, Tychicus to
Ephesus. Luke, the beloved physician and faithful friend, was still
with him. This was a great comfort to Paul, who had never needed
the companionship and ministration of his brethren more than now,
enfeebled as he was by age, toil, and infirmities, and confined in the
damp, dark vaults of a Roman prison. And, as he was dependent upon
the aid of an amanuensis, the services of Luke were of great value,
enabling him still to communicate with his brethren and the world
without.
An unexpected encouragement was granted the apostle at this time,
by the visit of Onesiphorus, an Ephesian Christian who came to Rome
not long after Paul’s arrival. He knew that Paul was somewhere in
that city as a prisoner, and he determined to find him. This was no
easy matter in a city crowded with prisoners, where suspicion was
everywhere, and had only to fasten upon an unfortunate victim to
consign him to prison and perhaps to death. But notwithstanding the
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difficulties, Onesiphorus searched for Paul until he found him. Not
satisfied with one visit, he went again and again to his dungeon, and
did all in his power to lighten the burden of his imprisonment. The
fear of scorn, reproach, or persecution, was powerless to terrify this
true-hearted Ephesian, when he knew that his beloved teacher was in