"It is interesting to find this short note, on a merely domestic matter, preserved among the epistles of St. Paul. It was written to intercede for a runaway slave with his master, and it illustrates the multifarious services the Apostle was invited to render. It is only one sample of numberless letters which must have been written to his many friends and disciples by one of St.. Paul's eager temperament and warm affections in the course of a long and chequered life.' Philemon was resident in Colossae (Col. iv: 9). He had been brought to the faith by St. Paul (Philem. 19) and as it seems that as yet St. Paul had not visited Colossae, it is probable that Philemon had heard him in Ephesus. He was a thorough-going Christian (4-7), loving and helpful, and the disciples in Colossae, or a section of them, met in his house (2); Apphia was probably his wife, and Archippus his son. Philemon's slave Onesimus (or 'Profitable,' a common name for a slave) had run away, not empty-handed (18); and, having found his way to Rome, and being somehow brought into contact with St. Paul he was by him persuaded to abandon his old mind and his old ways (10). Paul had devoted and active friends around him in Rome; but this energetic slave, trained to watch a master's wants and to execute promptly what was entrusted to him, became almost indispensable to the Apostle (11, 13). 'Profitable,' who was aforetime unprofitable to thee, now is profitable to thee and to me.' Paul would gladly have retained his services, but he acknowledged the claim of his master, and, besides, would not deprive Philemon of the pleasure of voluntarily sending him to minister to him (14). The note, short as it is, is valuable in two respects: 1. It gives us a clear view of the uprightness and courteousness of Paul. Nothing could be more winning and persuasive, nothing more sympathetic and considerate, than the terms he used in restoring the runaway to his master's good graces. 2. But the letter shows us Christianity at work in connection with slavery. No institution was more deeply rooted in the ancient world, and none more alien to the spirit of Christ. Yet St. Paul does not set himself to uproot it. Rather he might seem to give it his countenance by thus restoring a runaway to his master. But Christianity (and Paul as its representative), by admitting slaves to the brotherhood of the Church, and by appealing to the brotherly feeling of the masters, introduced principles which would not be stayed in their operation till slavery was seen to be unchristian, and abolished. The Christian spirit does not work the less surely because it works indirectly." (Bible Treasury, p. 146-7.)