Preached among the nations;
Believed on in the world;
Received up in glory!’
Britannicus listened entranced to the mingled voices as they rose and fell in exquisite cadence. He had heard in theatres all the most famous singers of Rome; he had heard the chosen youths and the maidens chanting in the temple processions; he had heard the wailing over the dead, and the Thalassio-chorus of the bridal song. But he had heard nothing which distantly resembled this melody and harmony of voices wedded to holy thoughts; and, although there were no instruments, the ‘angelical soft trembling voices’ seemed to him like echoes from some new and purer region of existence. He rejoiced, therefore, when they began yet another hymn, of which the first verse was—
‘Awake thee, O thou sleeper,
And from the dead arise,
And Christ shall dawn upon thee,
To light thy slumbering eyes.’[52]
When the hymn was over they sat down, and Linus rose to speak to them a few words of exhortation. He reminded them that they had been called from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God. He told them that they had fled to the rock of Christ amid a weltering sea of human wickedness, and though the darkness was around them he bade them to walk in the light, since they were the children of light. Many of them had lived of old in the vices and sins of heathendom, but they were washed, they were justified, they were sanctified in the name of the Lord Jesus and in the Spirit of their God. Were not their bodies temples of the Holy Ghost which dwelt in them, except they were reprobates? Since, then, they were in the Spirit, let them bring forth the fruits of the Spirit—love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, meekness, goodness, charity—against which there was no law. The world was passing away and the fashion of it; their own lives were but as the withering grass and the fading flower; and was not the day of the Lord at hand? Would He not speedily return to judge His people? Would not that day come as a thief in the night, and how should they stand its probatory fire unless they were safe in the love of their Redeeming Lord?
So far had he proceeded when a mighty answering ‘Maranatha’ of the deeply-moved assembly smote the air, and immediately afterwards Britannicus stood transfixed and thrilled to the very depths of his whole being.