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The Moral Influence, Dangers and Duties, Connected with Great Cities
The Moral Influence Dangers and Duties Connected with Great Cities Author:John Todd Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: LECTURE III. DUTIES PECULIAR TO CHRISTIANS IN GREAT CITIES. " To do good and to communicate, forget not, for with such sacrifices God is well pleased." He... more »b. xiii. 16. Perhaps, among those who have seemed to bear only the human form, without any other desirable attributes, it would be difficult to find a more marked case than Nero, the emperor of Rome. And yet, when Paul was a prisoner at Rome, under this tyrant, and while expecting that perhaps every day might be his last, he writes a letter to the Philippian Christians, one of the warmest and most affectionate of all his letters, and in that, tells his friends that all the saints salute them, but chiefly they of Caesar's household; '. e. the Christians in the family and palace of Nero, the heathen emperor, who was persecuting the Christians, were foremost in their zeal and love, when they had an opportunity to becomeacquainted with Christians in a distant city. Who would not feel it to be a difficult thing to be a decided, and warm, and devoted Christian, in such a situation ? And yet they seemed the most affectionate of all the saints at Rome. Why should they, whose lives might be forfeited at any moment, seek out the prisoner Paul, make his acquaintance, and join, first and foremost,in salutations to distant churches? Is there any answer to the question, except that when placed in trying circumstances, Christians may shine with peculiar lustre, if faithful to God ? By what was it that such a man as Noah, living amid a world of infidels and scorners, engaged in work at once the contempt and derision of an unholy generation, could condemn a world, and become heir of righteousness, which is by faith, unless it was, that when placed in trying circumstances, the good man may become brighter and holier? How ofte...« less