IV. 2. We learn from Holy Scripture that in the Church the evil are mingled with the good. Will it always be so? A. No; when our LORD comes again, He will cast the evil out of His kingdom; will make His faithful servants perfect both in body and soul; and will present His whole Church to Himself without spot, and blameless.

V. 2. What is the Office and Work of the Church on earth? A. The office and work of the Church on earth is to maintain and teach everywhere the true Faith of CHRIST, and to be His instrument for conveying Grace to men, by the power of the HOLY GHOST.

VI. 2. How did our LORD provide for the government and continuance of the Church? A. He gave authority to His Apostles to rule the Church; to minister His Word and Sacraments; and to ordain faithful men for the continuance of this Ministry until His coming again.

VII. 2. What Orders of Ministers have there been in the Church from the Apostles' time? A. Bishops, Priests, and Deacons.

VIII. 2. What is the office of a Bishop? — A. The office of a Bishop is to be a chief Pastor and Ruler of the Church; to confer Holy Orders; to administer Confirmation; and to take the chief part in the ministry of the Word and Sacra

ments.

IX. 2. What is the office of a Priest? A. The office of a Priest is to preach the Word of GOD; to baptize; to celebrate the Holy Communion; to pronounce Absolution and Blessing in GOD's Name; and to feed the flock committed by the Bishop to his charge.

X. 2. What is the office of a Deacon? A. The office of a Deacon is to assist the Priest in Divine Service, and specially at the Holy Communion; to baptize infants in the absence of the Priest; to catechize; to preach, if authorized by the Bishop; and to search for the sick and the poor.

XI. 2. What is required of members of the Church? — A. To endeavor, by God's help, to fulfil their baptismal vows; to make full use of the means of grace; to remain stedfast in the communion of the Church; and to forward the work of the Church at home and abroad.

XII. 2. Why is it our duty to belong to the Church of England?-A. Because the Church of England has inherited and retains the Doctrine and Ministry of the One Catholic and Apostolic Church, and is that part of the Church which has been settled from early times in our country.

"N or M" in the first question is probably the usual abbreviation of the Latin words Nomen and Nomina, "Name or Names." The translation of the Commandments both here and in the Eucharistic Office is taken from the "Great Bible" of 1539. It had become so familiar to the people that, together with the Psalter and the "Comfortable Words," it was not changed when the so-called Authorized Version was made in 1611.

A MOST IMPORTANT BUT MUCH NEGLECTED RUBRIC requires that "The Curate [that is, the Priest who has the cure of souls, be he Rector, Vicar, or 'Minister,' as in the American Book] shall diligently upon Sundays and Holy-days, after the second Lesson at Evening Prayer, openly in the Church instruct and examine so many Children of his Parish sent unto him, as he shall think convenient, in some part of this Catechism." In the next rubric the duty of sending the children is definitely laid on Fathers, Mothers, etc. The Irish and the American Books make some slight verbal changes here, and the Irish adds concerning the Catechizing "openly in the Church" the words, "with the approval of the Ordinary," that is, the Bishop of the Diocese. The American Church is still more explicit, having further provided by canon as follows:

"It shall be the duty of Ministers of this Church who have charge of Parishes or Cures to be diligent in instructing the children in the Catechism, and from time to time to examine them in the same publicly before the Congregation. They shall also, by stated catechetical lectures and instruction,

inform the youth and others in the Doctrines, Polity, History, and Liturgy of the Church." 1

Concerning this "instruction and examination openly in the Church" it is plain that, as the present writer has said elsewhere, "Neither the law of our Lord nor of His Church will allow any priest with a cure of souls to release himself from that grave responsibility towards the children. He cannot even plead unfitness. It is his plain duty to make himself fit. Sunday School teachers and officers may help him, but they cannot take his place. By his ordination vow, by the rubrics and canons of the Church, but above all by the express command of our Lord Himself, this duty of teaching the young as well as the old is imperative. Christ's first command to His Apostles is 'Feed My lambs'; His second, 'Feed My sheep.' But our Lord's estimate of the two kinds of work is seen in the conditions which He imposes for each. For while for the second He puts the question, 'Lovest thou Me?' for the first He asks, 'Lovest thou Me more than these?' Surely then we are justified in claiming for the art of teaching the young a position equal, if not superior, to the art of preaching to their elders." 2

1 Canon 16, Sec. ii.

2 The Gospel in the Church, p. x. The most serious defect in the elaborate organization of the modern Sunday School is the failure to have the children take part with their elders every Sunday in the regular services of the Church, and to acquire the use of the Prayer Book. One of the saddest sights today is the stream of young people on Sunday morning hastening homeward at the very hour when the actual worship of the Church is about to begin. It seems to be largely forgotten that the greatest and most enduring influence in a child's life is that acquired by the habit of church-going, reverent worship, and example. Divine Service, with its wealth of Psalm and Lesson, Epistle and Gospel, Creed, and Sermon, and Sacrament, provides the most effective teaching, not merely for the brief two hundred and fifty hours of the average child's life in Sunday School, but for the whole life in the Church.

CONF

1

Keble.

ONFIRMATION is not one of the "Sacraments generally [generaliter, that is, universally] necessary to salvation," nevertheless, the teaching of the New Testament (as we shall see later), combined with the universal custom of the Church from the earliest ages, testifies plainly that it was "ordained by Christ Himself as a means whereby we receive... the gift of the Holy Ghost" though its "visible sign or ceremony" is not expressly said in the Gospel to have been ordained by Him. In mediæval days in the English Church it was "commonly called a Sacrament.” 2 But in ancient usage very many religious ceremonies were called Sacraments. S. Augustine speaks of "the Sacrament of the Creed, which they ought to believe; the Sacrament of the Lord's Prayer, how they ought to ask." The Greek word for Sacrament was "Mystery" (μvorηpiov). "The Word made flesh" was in fact the source and pattern of all Sacraments or Mysteries in the Church, corresponding to the 1 Catechism and Acts ii, 38. * Sermon, 228.

* See the XXV Article of Religion.

definition of the Catechism, in that He was outwardly the "visible sign" of God to men, and inwardly "full of grace and truth." Christianity, being such as this, is necessarily full of Sacraments or Mysteries. In this wide sense of the word, therefore Confirmation may be called a Sacrament, for it has unquestionably an "outward visible sign," and an "inward spiritual grace," nothing less in fact than "the gift of the Holy Ghost." 3

The assertion of the XXV Article of Religion that "Confirmation and Orders," among other rites named, "have not any visible sign or ceremony ordained of God," can only be accepted as meaning that no "visible sign" is specified by our Lord in so many recorded words. But this would apply equally against Holy Baptism being a Sacrament, inasmuch as the "visible sign" of Baptism, which the Church Catechism declares to be "water" is not named at all by our Lord in the only two places in the Gospel where He is recorded as "ordaining" the Sacrament. The use of water can only be inferred from the mystical words of our Lord to Nicodemus, a year before He instituted Holy Baptism: "Except a man be born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God," taken in connection with the universal custom of the Church from the beginning. And it is this selfsame process of inference and universal custom

1 S. John i, 14; 1 Tim. ii, 16.

2 1 Cor. iv, I.

Acts ii, 38; viii, 17; xix, 6.

It is not to be wondered at that Bishop Forbes in his Explanation of the Thirty Nine Articles, p. 453, should say of Article XXV, "The language of the Article is unfortunate, not in that it raised two Sacraments above the rest, but in tending to obscure the sacramental character of the other five rites by undue disparagement."

S. Matt. xxviii, 19; S. Mark xvi, 16.

• S. John iii, 5.