When you enter the church on Sunday morning, a few minutes before eleven o'clock, you find it filled with a congregation of exceptionally intelligent people, mostly English-speaking residents in Rome and English-speaking visitors from every part of the world, including many Christians of other denominations besides our own—for it does not take visitors in Rome long to find out how strong and wholesome is the spiritual nourishment here furnished, how broad-minded and large-hearted the minister is, and how surely he declares the whole counsel of God, without ever a syllable that can offend any of those who love our Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity. If you return in the afternoon, as you will do if you are wise, and as everybody does, in fact, after hearing him once, you will find the house full again, and, while you will see no splendid pageant, no rows of bishops and archbishops in purple and lace and furs, no robing and disrobing, no intoned service in Latin, no choral responses from high and gilded choir loft, no clouds of incense filling the air—you will hear the old sweet gospel in all its pristine purity—you will see the great apostle and his friends before you, instinct with life and love and zeal, as the minister lectures, with astonishing fullness and accuracy of information and sympathetic understanding, on Roman Sites which can be identified with St. Paul's Sojourn Here, The Saints of Cæsar's Household in the light of the Columbaria, The Site and probable incidents of Paul's Roman Trial, The First Martyrdoms and the probable Site of Nero's Circus, Paul's Two Years in his Hired House, Paul's Travels and Labors between his First and Second Roman Imprisonments, The Closing Years of Paul's Ministry, The Jews in Rome in Paul's Time—and you will hear things that make for the peace of your soul and for your upbuilding on your most holy faith as he expounds The Chief Elements of Paul's Teaching; Christ in Early Christian Art as found in the Roman Catacombs; The State after Death, Prayers to the Dead, and Prayers for the Dead, in the light of the testimony of the Roman Catacombs; The Place and Efficacy of the Sacraments in the light of the testimony of the Roman Catacombs; and The Ministry in the Early Church of the Catacombs.
A Wise and Loving Pastor.
Surely never was Christian workman better adapted to his work than Dr. Gray. The sturdy frame, the massive head, the clear eye, the kindly voice, the genial manner, the transparent sincerity, and the ready sympathy of the man, invite one's confidence from the first, and the longer you know him the more you value him for his rare combination of strength and tenderness, and for his wisdom, piety and learning. We had the good fortune to hear his sermon on the eighteenth anniversary of the formation of his pastorate in Rome, in which he reviewed the history of his church during those eighteen years, and the years immediately preceding, and the growth of Protestantism in Rome since the downfall of the papacy—and a deeply interesting discourse it was. It lifted one's hopes for the future of Italy. Undoubtedly the day is breaking over the darkness which has so long lain like a pall over this lovely land.
A good man is known by his prayers. There is a fullness, propriety and fervor about Dr. Gray's public prayers that are seldom equalled. The homesick stranger, with the wide ocean between him and his native land—the professional man wavering in health and doubtful as to the future—the stricken widow, who has lost her husband by the sudden stroke of death—as well as those who bear the usual burdens of the human heart, find themselves strangely comforted and cheered, strangely relieved of their toils and cares and anxieties and fears, strangely upborne and strengthened, as this man of God pours from a sympathetic heart the needs of his people into the ear of him who careth for us. Among the usual petitions on Sunday morning there is invariably one for the King of England and the royal family, the President of the United States, and the King and Queen of Italy. We had two reminders on the 22nd of February that it was Washington's birthday: one was the flags hanging out at the American Embassy, and the other was Dr. Gray's prayer of thanksgiving for the character and services of Washington. He never forgets anything.
Yet his activities are multifarious. His resourcefulness, adequacy and strength have long since made him the real dean of the fine force of Protestant ministers in Rome. His advice is sought by them, and by all manner of visitors to Rome, on all manner of subjects. He is deeply interested in the matter of excavating the house of Priscilla and Aquila, the Apostle Paul's friends, on the Aventine, and hopes to raise the necessary funds and have that done—a valuable service to archæological and biblical learning. He ought by all means to be allowed to find time to publish a volume on The Apostle Paul in Rome. Dr. Gray is another of the many good gifts of Scotland to the world, and, like Dr. Alexander Whyte, of Edinburgh, and other eminent Scotchmen, is an Aberdeen man. They are some of the Aberdonians who almost tempt us at times to agree with the Aberdeen man of whom our good Scotch physician in Rome told me the other day, who said, "Tak' awa' Aberdeen and sax miles around it, and what would you have left?"
FOOTNOTES:
[20] Few things struck our boys so much as the non-occurrence of fires in Rome, and the absence of all apparatus for extinguishing them, and on our return to America few things seemed so strange to us at first as the frame houses in the New Jersey towns along the Pennsylvania railroad.
[21] This custom of compelling Jews to listen to Christian sermons was only abolished in 1848, under Pius IX., through influence of Michelangelo Caëtani, Duke of Sermoneta.