Page:The early Christians in Rome (1911).djvu/178

 VI

DIFFICULTIES IN ORDINARY LIFE AMONG THE EARLY CHRISTIANS

But the rapt moments enjoyed by the men and women who met together in these primitive assemblies soon passed. The perfect realization of brotherhood, the sharing in the mystic Eucharist, the fervent prayers, the dwelling on the sunlit words of their Divine Master, the earnest and pressing injunctions to be generous in charity and almsgiving for the benefit of the forlorn and sick in their company, the feeling that the unseen presence of the Lord was all the while in their midst,—all these things contributed to the joy and gladness which permeated each little assembly; every one who assisted at one of these meetings could whisper in his or her heart the words of the "apostle" on the Mount of Transfiguration—"Lord, it is good for us to be here."

But when the gathering dispersed, a reaction must have quickly set in. From that atmosphere of sympathy, of love and hope, they passed at once into the cold, hard, busy world—into family life—into the workshop, the study, the barrack, and the Forum—all coloured with—permeated by that system of gross and actual idolatry which entered into every home, every trade and profession of the Roman Empire. What was to be their conduct? how were Christians to behave in a world wholly given up to an idolatry they knew was false, and utterly hateful to the Lord whose presence they had just left?

The difficulties of a believer's life in the early Christian centuries must have been terrible; and it must be borne in mind that these difficulties were not occasional, but of daily, almost of hourly occurrence. To enumerate a few:

1. In the family, in domestic life. Consider the position of a Christian slave—of a son or daughter—of a wife—in a pagan