As the rain continued, Mr. North and I resorted to the wood-pile in the shed for exercise, till dinner-time, Mrs. North following us to the door, and charging us not to converse upon this subject till she should be present.
CHAPTER IX.
DISCUSSION IN PHILEMON'S CHURCH AT THE RETURN OF ONESIMUS.
"My equal will he be again
Down in that cold, oblivious gloom,
Where all the prostrate ranks of men
Crowd without fellowship,—the tomb."
JAMES MONTGOMERY.
"I will now relate to you," said I, as we resumed our conversation, "the thoughts which came to me one night as I lay awake meditating on this subject. I wrote them down the next day.
"The subject in our conversation which suggested them was, The relation of Christianity to slavery.
* * * * *
"About the year A.D. 64, two men, travellers from Rome, entered the city of Colosse, in Phrygia. Asia Minor, both of them the bearers of letters from the Apostle Paul, then a prisoner at Rome.
"A Christian Church had been gathered at Colosse. Its pastor was probably Archippus. Some think that Epaphras was his colleague. This church, according to Dr. Lardner and others, was most probably gathered by the Apostle Paul himself. Mount Cadmus rose behind the city, with its almost perpendicular side, and a huge chasm in the mountain was the outlet of a torrent which flowed into the river Lycus, on which the city was built, standing not far from the junction of this river with the Moeander.