“Why fret thee, soul,
For things beyond thy small control?
But do thy part, and thou shalt see
Heaven will have charge of them and thee.
Sow thou the seed, and wait in peace
The Lord’s increase.”
– – – – – – – – – – –
“Weakness never need be falseness; truth is truth
In each degree
Thundered–pealed by God to nature, whispered
By my soul to thee.”
Among St. Paul’s salutations to old friends at Rome is one to Persis. “Salute Persis the beloved, who laboured much in the Lord.” There is not other mention of this woman in the New Testament. We do not know where St. Paul had known her. Her whole biography is given in the one little sentence. Probably she was obscure, though no one who works for Christ is obscure. When we live a pure, true, unselfish life, though it be in a most quiet way, we cannot know the reach of what we are doing, how far its influence may extend, how much good it may do, how long it may be talked about. Persis laboured somewhere, in some quiet way for Christ, nineteen hundred years ago. Her work was not much talked about then by the neighbours, but St. Paul told its story in a few words, and here it stays in immortal beauty.
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