superadd to it, horis subsecivis, a certain amount of sacred ministration. To be sure, Mr. Twells asks whether, granting this difference, the advantage is altogether on the side of the former :

'We will suppose that doctors are in future allowed to become deacons, and deacons, conversely, to become doctors. . . . Two men in the same parish are found to unite the ministerial and medical professions. The one, being originally a deacon, has determined to supplement his income by practising as a doctor; the other, being originally a doctor, has placed his leisure time, without money and without price, at the service of the diaconate. Why should the first be a better man than the second? . . . Cæteris paribus, should we not be disposed to prefer the one with whom monetary considerations have had no weight, but who has simply sought to make himself useful?'

The question, we conceive, is not which is 'the better man of the two, but which is acting most in accordance with the character of a deacon? By hypothesis, the deacon who takes to medicine is primarily a minister to souls, and secondarily a minister to bodies. The other man reverses this order. We do not enter into the question how far either of them ought to have 'leisure' for uniting with his ministry, or uniting his ministry with, a profession so persistent in its demands on strength and time.

In the above remarks the words 'sacred' and 'secular' have, of necessity, often recurred. And if it be said that such an iteration represents a false antithesis, which is fraught with injury to the true conception of life as, in all its aspects, 'sacred,' we answer that all honest work is indeed, in one sense, holy; not only the Christian banker, or solicitor, or surgeon, not only the Christian tradesman or apprentice, but the Christian field-labourer, or (as the Bishop of Lincoln might say) the Christian carter-lad, can do his daily task as to the Lord and in the Lord, and find in it the sphere of his sanctification. But, in the words of an earnest Presbyterian writer 1

'The difference between the secular and the sacred is, in our time, very apt to be overlooked . . . as if the whole truth were stated when it was declared that the most earthly and common labour can be made truly religious. Agreeing with all that can be said on that matter, it is well to keep in mind the great truth that the spiritual has a sphere of its own. There is a life within the life, a shrine within the temple. There must be religion everywhere, but the soul needs a fountain from which to draw it,' &c.

1 Dr. Watson, in Good Words for 1877, p. 205.

In short, there are diversities of spiritual operation, involving degrees of spiritual intensity. Weekday work, though a man should do it 'in the Name of the Lord Jesus,' and offer it up consciously to be blessed and prospered, is not as sacred as the act of saying one's prayers, of reading God's Word, or still more, of receiving His Sacraments; and in that sense, and on that ground, the work of a lay profession may be called 'secular,' as distinct from the service of 'the kingdom which is not of this world,' without the slightest disparagement of its proper dignity, or of its entire consistency with the highest forms of Christian excellence. The calendar of Saints (Deo gratias) includes lay people of every class; it has room for king and soldier, physician, gardener, innkeeper; but some kinds of occupation are more closely related than others to the Divine economy of the Incarnation, and the attempt to treat all things as equally sacred may result in treating all things as equally secular.

We must draw these remarks, already too far extended, to an end. It is hardly worth while-it may seem almost like a bathos-to dwell on the question which has been raised as to the inconvenience which might be caused to an incoming rector or vicar by the presence in the parish of an uncongenial 'professional deacon,' who, as carrying on his temporal business in the parish, would be a permanent resident in the immediate neighbourhood of the new parson. On this it has been argued that a lay reader might indeed have his licence revoked, but, not being a clergyman, would be under no clerical discipline, and might therefore give more trouble than a deacon as such. We should like to know how discipline would in practice be applicable to a deacon of the 'Arnoldian' type, a popular man of middle age and local influence, who, after his services as an 'assistant minister' had been discontinued, would retain his clerical prestige, and might thus become the centre of a malcontent party, and the representative of a rival clerical interest.1

For our own part, we believe that much of the work for which this new foundation' of deacons has been planned would be within the competency of laymen properly so-called, who, under some well-chosen title, would not be confounded with the ministers of the Church,2 and at the same time, while

1 See the Guardian of Feb. 16 and May 4, 1887.

2 A writer in the Christian Remembrancer for April 1854 deprecated the forming of a multitude of half-parsons. Let laymen... be encouraged to read, talk, exhort, or even preach in rooms, but let them do this as laymen. Maintaining the severe distinction between clerics and non-clerics

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holding a commission from bishop and parish priest, would be really employed in the Church's work, and serving under her banner, so that she would reap the benefit of their devotion and their energy. They might act as catechists, might hold mission services in schools or other unconsecrated buildings, might take a great deal of parochial work off the hands of the overworked pastor. They could not, of course, officiate in the parish church, except in the reading of the lessons; they could not say the prayers, nor baptize (except so far as any layman might baptize in case of extreme necessity), nor assist in the administration of Holy Communion, an office for which, in the North, it appears that there is special need of more clergy. It will be said, therefore, that they could not do all that is wanted. It is true, they could not, in any sense, be 'assistant curates;' but their agency, as far as it went, would be consistent with the spirit of Holy Scripture and Church tradition, which is more than could be said for that of 'professional deacons,' who, after all, could not fill any of the posts for which priests are wanted. It might be desirable also to have small companies of lay evangelists '-although we do not much like that use of the great title-employed under episcopal sanction, as in the diocese of Lichfield, to address the working-men of thickly peopled districts; but, of course, very careful preparation and supervision would be necessary in order to guard against crude or onesided statements. might be a help, also, to a bishop to keep near him, after the example of the Bishop of Salisbury, a few priests who could be sent to supply some pressing want in this or that part of his diocese. It would be well to raise funds in the several dioceses for supporting at some theological college, such as that at Lincoln, youths who have given token of a vocation to the ministry, and who are only kept back by want of means. It would be still better to reinforce the Ordination Candidates' Fund,' and, best of all, let Churchmen put more heart into the solemn prayer of each recurring Embertide, and into habitual supplication for an increase of labourers in the fields that are white unto harvest. Let them pray for light to discern not only the spiritual needs of the Church, but also such methods of supplying them as are most in accordance with her mind, and with the indications of that Will which works by order and not by confusion, disponens omnia suaviter. In ecclesiastical and social reform, the temper of our time is is the only way in which to secure the most useful kind of lay assistance.' So the Spectator of May 14, 1887: Lay help is necessary to the Church, more urgently necessary than ever. But it should be lay help.'

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apt to set itself ardently on this or that object (regarded, and rightly regarded, as good and necessary), and to be over-hasty in the choice of means, or even to despise caution in that respect as mere punctiliousness, or as a symptom of indifference to a great interest. But the quocunque modo has again and again been the source of perilous mistakes; and when we are dealing with the affairs of the City of God, we are specially bound to look to means as well as ends, to remember that immediate success would be bought too dear by the compromise of a sacred principle, and rather to endure some present dimness than to walk in the light of a fire' too simply our own.

ART. III. THE FIRST CHRISTIAN
PHILOSOPHERS.

The Christian Platonists of Alexandria. Eight Lectures preached before the University of Oxford in the year 1886 on the Foundation of the late Rev. John Bampton, M.A., Canon of Salisbury. By CHARLES BIGG, D.D., Assistant-Chaplain of Corpus Christi College, formerly Senior Student of Christ Church, Oxford. (Oxford, 1886.)

THE period and the authors described in the book above named belong to one of the most interesting and anxious times in the history of the Church of Christ. Christianity was learning by actual experience what it meant to have a mission to the whole world. The conversion of the world implied more than the simple extension of the belief in Christ over the whole area of the world, through all the nations of it. Following in the train of this belief came a wave of change, which left no element in the then constitution of things untouched. Christianity was to draw under its influence politics, art, and intellectual culture, as well as provide the one religion. From the upper chamber at Jerusalem there had sprung a force which was to reconstruct the whole order of the civilized world. Though grafted on to the religion of a despised race, it was to crush out of existence the religions which had all the world's power and prejudice on their side. It was to absorb, and to transmute while it absorbed, the art and philo

sophy for which Greece had already won age-long fame. It was to draw into itself and sanctify that love of law and organization by which Rome had won its lordship over the world. This was its task; and it is the spectacle of the Christian Church gradually becoming conscious of its task which forms the peculiar interest of the early centuries of the Christian era. It is always interesting to watch the gradual assertion of a new principle through an old order to note the angry surprise, the growing concern, the savage hatred with which the new thoughts or practices are received. And our interest reaches its highest point, perhaps, at the moment when the adherents of the old principles first become conscious that the new ideas cannot be simply laughed down, but are serious rivals-rivals which will not be satisfied without undivided rule.

At the same time a contest like this does not end in the entire ejection of one set of ideas, and the substitution of another. The triumphant side learns many lessons from those whom it defeats; the force expended in the struggle does not run to waste. However complete the victory, the defeated party leaves its mark upon its conquerors; it vanishes as a separate party, but its influence lives in the altered conditions of things which are the result of the struggle. The war between the Church and the world is no exception to this rule. If the Church vanquished Heathendom, it was none the less influenced by it. If it forced the world to think after its own fashion, still many of the forms and categories of heathen philosophy survived in the language of its creeds. The study of the Christian Platonists of Alexandria brings us just to this point in the controversy between the world and the Church. The philosophic schools have learnt that they must take account of Christianity, for it has an answer of its own to give to the questions which perplex them; and, on the other hand, the Church has learnt-now that it is freed from the mere struggle for existence-that there is something to be gained by careful study of this world's lore, for God has not been without a witness even in Pagan schools of thought. This we believe to be the most vital interest of the history of Christian Platonism. It has all happened long enough ago for us to be able to measure the result-to see to some extent the principle upon which the Church, under the Holy Spirit's guidance, dealt with the problems before it-and hence, perhaps, to derive some hint for our own action in the future. Indeed, without this interest, it is difficult to see what motive could possibly be found for studying the problems of an obsolete