chapters of his first epistle to the Corinthians; the ninth chapter of his second; or the fourth and fifth of his first to Timothy. I do not mean to allow that the essential Gospel doctrines are absent from the Canons, which no one will say who has studied them. But even if they were, such absence is not in point, unless it is a proof that rulers of the Church do not hold doctrines, because they also give rules of discipline, and, when giving the latter, do not deliver the former instead. Certain doctrines may be true, and certain ordinances also; the one may be prescribed in Canons, the other taught in Confessions. It does not follow that those who enforce the one do not enforce the other; but it does follow that those who enforce the latter to the exclusion of the former, do not enforce both. Those who enforce the discipline need not deny the doctrine; but those who think to escape the discipline by professing the doctrine are more careful of doctrine than the early Church was, and have no congeniality of feeling with times which considered it better to follow out what they had received, than to reason against it, "to do these, and not leave the other undone.'

Such, then, is a sketch of the main rules of discipline in the primitive Church, as they have come down to us, and which I offer for those whom it may concern. They show clearly enough the sort of religion which was then considered Apostolic; not that which we should term the "free-and-easy" religion, but what our opponents would call the "formal and superstitious."

Chapter xbiil

Antony in Conflict

"He found him in a desert land, and in the waste howling wilderness; He led him about, He instructed him, He kept him as the apple of His eye. He made him ride on the high places of the earth, that he might eat the increase of the fields; and He made him to suck honey out of the rock, and oil out of the flinty rock."

IT

T is a great mistake to suppose we need quit our temporal calling, and go into retirement, in order to serve God acceptably. Christianity is a religion for this world, for the busy and influential, for the rich and powerful, as well as for the poor. A writer of the age of Justin Martyr expresses this clearly and elegantly :—

"Christians differ not," he says, "from other men, in country, or language, or customs. They do not live in any certain cities, or employ any particular dialect, or cultivate peculiar habits of life. They dwell in cities, Greek and barbarian, each where he finds himself placed; and while they submit to the fashion of their country in dress and food, and the general conduct of life, they yet maintain a system of interior polity, which, beyond all controversy, is admirable and strange. The countries they inhabit are their own, but they dwell like aliens. They marry, like other men, and do not exclude their children from their affections; their table is open to all around them; they live in the flesh, but not according to the flesh; they walk on earth, but their conversation is in heaven."-Ad Diogn. 5.

Yet, undeniable as it is, that there is never an obligation upon Christians to leave, and often an obligation against leaving their worldly engagements and posses

sions, still it is as undeniable that such an abandonment is often allowable, and when allowable praiseworthy. Our Saviour expressly told one, who was rich and young, to sell all and give to the poor;" and surely He does not speak in order to immortalize exceptions, or extreme cases, or fugitive forms of argument, refutation, or censure. Even looking at the subject in a merely human light, one may pronounce it to be a narrow and shallow system, that same Protestantism, which forbids all the higher and more noble impulses of the mind, and forces men to eat, drink, and be merry, whether they will or no. But the mind of true Catholic Christianity is expansive enough to admit high and low, rich and poor, one with another.

If the primitive Christians are to be trusted as witnesses of the genius of the Gospel system, certainly it is of that elastic and comprehensive character which removes the more powerful temptations to schism, by giving, as far as possible, a sort of indulgence to the feelings and motives which lead to it, correcting them the while, purifying them, and reining them in, ere they get excessive. Thus, whereas the reason naturally loves to expatiate at will through all things known and unknown, true catholicism does not, like the schools of human masters, place us within a strict and rigid creed, extending to the very minutest details of thought, so that a man can never have an opinion of his own; yet, while its creed is short and simple, and it is cautious and gentle in its decisions, and distinguishes between things necessary and things pious to believe, between wilfulness and ignorance, still it asserts the supremacy of faith, the guilt of unbelief, and the duty of deference to the Church; so that reason is brought round against and subdued to the obedience of Christ, at the very time when it seems to be launching forth without chart upon the ocean of speculation. It opposes the intolerance of what are called "sensible Protestants," as much as that of Romanists. It is shocked at the tyranny of those who will not let a man do anything out of the way without stamping him with the name of a fanatic. It deals softly with the ardent and impetuous, saying, in effect— "My child, you may do as many great things as you will;

S

but I have already made a list for you to select from. You are too docile to pursue ends merely because they are of your own choosing; you seek them because they are great. You wish to live above the common course of a Christian ;-I can teach you to do this, yet without arrogance." Meanwhile the sensible Protestant keeps to his point, urging every one to be as every one else, and moulding all minds upon his one small model; and when he has made his ground good to his own admiration, he finds after all that half his charge have turned schismatics, by way of searching for something divine and extraordinary.

These remarks are intended as introductory to some notice of the life of St. Antony, the first hermit, whom I had occasion to notice in a former chapter. A hermit's life, indeed—that is, a strictly monastic or solitary life— may be called unnatural, and is not sanctioned by the Gospel. Christ sent His apostles by two and two; and surely He knew what was in man from the day that He said "It is not good for him to be alone." So far, then, Antony's manner of life may be said to have no claim upon our admiration, unless it was the suggestion of some extraordinary providence; but this part of his pattern did not extend to his imitators, who by their numbers were soon led to the formation of monastic societies, and who, after a while, entangled even Antony himself in the tie of becoming in a certain sense their religious head and teacher. Monachism consisting, not in solitariness, but in austerities, prayers, retirement, and obedience, had nothing in it, so far, but what was perfectly Christian, and, under circumstances, exemplary; especially when viewed in its connexion with the relative duties, which were soon afterwards appropriated to it, of being almoner of the poor, educating the clergy, and defending the faith as delivered to us. In short, Monachism became, in a little while, nothing else than a peculiar department of the Christian ministry-a ministry not of the sacraments, or clerical, but especially of the word and doctrine; not indeed by any formal ordination to it, for it was as yet a lay profession, but by the common right, or rather duty, which attaches to all of us to avow, propagate, and defend the truth, especially when

our devotion to it has the countenance and encouragement of Church authorities.

St. Antony's life, written by his friend the great Athanasius, has come down to us. Some critics, indeed, doubt its genuineness, or consider it interpolated. Rivetus and others reject it; Du Pin decides, on the whole, that it is his, but with additions; the Benedictines and Tillemont ascribe it to him unhesitatingly. I conceive no question can be raised with justice about its substantial integrity; and on rising from the perusal of it, we are able to pronounce Antony an extraordinary man. Enthusiastic he certainly must be accounted; had he lived in this day and this country, he would have been exposed to a considerable (though, of course, not insuperable) temptation to become a sectarian. Panting after some higher rule of life than that which the ordinary forms of society admit of, and finding our present lines too rigidly drawn to include any style of mind that is out of the way, any rule that is not "gentlemanlike," "comfortable," and "established," he might possibly have broken what he could not bend. The question is not whether he would have been justified in so doing (of course not); nor whether the most angelic temper of all is not that which settles down contented with what is every-day (as Abraham's heavenly guests ate of the calf which he had dressed, and as our Saviour went down to Nazareth and was subject to His parents); but whether such resignation to worldly comforts is not quite as often, at least, the characteristic of a very grovelling mind also; -whether there are not minds between the lowest and the highest, of ardent feelings, keen imaginations, and undisciplined tempers, who are under a strong irritation. prompting them to run wild,-whether it is not our duty (so to speak) to play with such, carefully letting out line enough lest they snap it,-and whether our established system is as indulgent and as wise as is desirable in its treatment of such persons, inasmuch as it provides no occupation for them, does not understand how to turn them to account, lets them run to waste, tempts them to schism, loses them, and is weakened by the loss. For instance, had we some regular Missionary Seminary, such an institution would in one way supply the deficiency I speak of.