the gospel, the government of the church, or the relation of God's purposes to the free will of man.

To guard the position still more carefully against perversion, we may remove from the category all those diversities in the modern ministry which result from self-neglect. It may be assumed that every man whom Christ calls to the ministry ought, before ordination, to attain to as perfect knowledge of the truths of Christianity, to as full appropriation of the life of Christ, and to as perfect power of expressing in words both the truths and the life, as Providence puts within his reach. It may also be assumed that this process of intellectual and spiritual culture ought to be continued after ordination to the end of life. He who neglects to study God's Word, and to secure as clear, precise, consecutive, and forcible forms of presenting its truth to men as possible, has no right to run for shelter to the doctrine which we have endeavored to unfold. James the Less was pastor at Jerusalem, but there is no evidence that he neglected himself as preacher. Paul was a preacher, but he showed all the elements of a good pastor. Positive neglect of one's self, either as pastor or as preacher, is a mistake and a sin. Diversities, then, of any kind whatever in the ministry of the present age which are born of selfneglect, must not be pleaded as illustrations of Christ's wisdom; for they illustrate only one's own folly.

Excluding all such diversities, then, from consideration, it is scarcely necessary to specify those which remain. They are manifest to all. With few exceptions, they are the apostolic diversities reproduced. Most of the ministers of the present time, it is true, are Gentiles; but if a thousand of Abraham's race should come forth to-day from their unbelief and avow desire to unite with Gentiles in preaching salvation by the cross, they would be welcomed with fullness of joy. We come into the ministry with dissimilar temperaments. We come from diverse social positions. We are unlike in our intellectual and moral organization-reason predominating in some, and sensibility in others; positiveness of thought and boldness of speech in some, in others gentleness and cautiousness. To some Providence gives opportunity for self-culture in the college and the theological seminary; to others such facilities are denied. Some can use a more vigorous pen, and others a more facile tongue. Some dwell more upon what God does. in regenerating, and others more upon what men do in repenting. Some are blessed more in arousing the attention of the careless, and others more in instructing, confirming, and developing. The doctrinal, the experimental, the practical, the argumentative, and the hortatory, are well-known characteristics of the modern pulpit. Some

are not so good preachers as pastors, and others are not so good pastors as preachers; not always, in either case, through self-neglect.

Some are often in important official positions, and some never. Some are called to be teachers in "schools of the prophets," and others managers of great benevolent operations. Some are widely known among men, and others not widely. Some are called to the ministry at the early age of nineteen, others at the age of thirty, and some even later. Some labor in cities among the poor, and some in cities among the rich; some in villages, and some in forests. Some die after a year of service, and some preach till old age.

These diversities of modern ministers, as truly as those of the apostles, illustrate the wisdom of Christ; for these as truly as those manifest purpose, and the purpose is the result of wisdom.

We see the folly of the ideal sometimes cherished. Why did not Christ select men, each of whom would have been equal to Paul? is a question which may never have been asked; for the results of apostolic labor were so great that it can scarcely be felt that in this respect there was any special want; but who has not indulged in the conception of a ministry for the post-apostolic ages consisting of only the Sheridans, the Burkes, the Pitts, the Websters of our race-all of them specially prepared by Providence and grace to do that work in the kingdom of Christ to which their transcendent intellectual qualities and oratorical powers would seem to be peculiarly adapted? But this conception must be matched by another; that all others are but very little lower in mind, discipline and learning, than the ministers themselves. Not till this latter conception shall have passed into reality can the ideal of a ministry which shall consist of only God's great men become of any practical utility.

Ministers may learn the duty of cherishing toward each other fraternal love. If with apostolic diversities there is no apostolic oneness, Christian ministers are unworthy the name they bear, and, therefore, in many painful respects, they are more diverse than the apostles. The diversities which characterize the ministry create necessity for charity. Special affinities are of course allowable, but the pride, envy, and jealousy to which existing dissimilarities may lead should be resisted. If A has a better organized mind than B, higher culture, more attractive elocution, wider influence, and greater spiritual success, let the latter rejoice in it, and let not A look upon B with an air of superiority. Let the Lord's wisdom be honored by cherishing fraternal affection toward those in whose diversities that wisdom shines.

WICKFORD, RHODE ISLAND.

N. M. WILLIAMS.

THE CATECHUMENATE,

OUR

UR present object is to read a chapter of history which has almost been forgotten in the interest of greater institutions or more important events. And yet the influence of the catechumenate was felt for many generations; it modified all the general views of the nature of the church, and exercised a most extended and most peculiar power. But it has become so obsolete in its full significance and its influence has been so entirely superseded, that it is little more than referred to by most historians, by many not even mentioned; and its history must be sought in a few barbarous writers of the middle ages, and in the original sources, the fathers of the church. The almost total disregard of chronology by these authors of the middle ages, and their failure to treat the subject with any reference to its slow growth, adds to the difficulties of the explorer. The aim of this essay is to trace the history of the catechumenate from its weak beginnings to its full development. If the treatment of so obscure a subject demand an apology, let it be found in the strange nature and peculiar interest of the institution.

The catechumenate, in its highest development, was an exoteric Christianity, and by its influence temporarily transformed the Christian church into a vast secret society. To see the possibility of this, and to trace its growth, we must first notice the state of the church at the time of its origin. The first distinct notice of its existence

is in Tertullian, and all probabilities coincide in placing its origin about the middle of the second century. Schlegel, indeed, would refer it to the apostles,' and finds in 1 Corinthians iii. 2, and Hebrews v. 12, traces of its origin. But apart from the natural improbability of the statement, it finds most conclusive refutation in 1 Corinthians xiv. 23-25, where unbelievers are introduced into the meetings of the church. Indeed the catechumenate, in a full sense, could not exist in a simple state of Christianity. It was a fungus growth. Justin Martyr, too, has been quoted as revealing the existence of secresy in the church regarding its rites. Certainly the passages commonly quoted from his "Apology" (I, 65-67) sustain no such opinion. That the Eucharist was a Christian ordinance, he does say; but that it was in any sense secret, his language emphatically denies, and such secresy is an essential element of the completed catechumenate. Tatian, Justin's disciple, also testifies that the Christians' meetings were not secret in his day. We find its origin, then, at a time when the church was occupying ever varying relations to the Pagan government of Rome. Antoninus Pius, whose gentle yet firm and philosophic rule had endeared him to the Christians who were too often dependent on the whims of the populace, had given place to Marcus Aurelius, whose name is associated with all that is noble in heathenism, but who was nevertheless a bitter, and it is to be feared a superstitious, persecutor of the followers of Christ. Followed in turn by the brutal Commodus, an epoch of change was inaugurated, of alternate violence and peace, persecution and honor. Driven to death under Septimus Severus; highly favored by Alexander; persecuted again by Decius; favored and harassed by Valerian; forced to the extreme of misery by Diocletian, the Christians at length, through fiery trial, gained rest and empire under Constantine. Naturally it was a time of great internal changes in the church. Emboldened by peace the Christian apologists denounced the predominant religions, and, compelled by persecution, they in turn became reticent and secret. Incredible slanders were heaped upon the followers of Christ, serving but to broaden the already wide separations, and forcing the Christians, in very self-defense, to exclude from their meetings any whom they might suspect. Heathenism,

too, had been debased. Not only the brutality of Commodus, and the license of Elagabulus, but also the philosophic spirit of Aurelius and Alexander Severus, would have like tendency to deprive a decaying heathenism of the respect of its votaries.

So the times were ripe for the foundation of such an institution as

1 See Mosheim-Institutes, I, 81, n. 4. 2 Cf. Trollope's Edition of James' Liturgy, p. 47, n.

the catechumenate. Heathenism dying, the church increasing in its secret rites, Paganism deserting its gods, and in times of peace resorting to the Christian church as its last refuge, the church becoming the more exclusive and naturally demanding a fuller faith than of old was deemed sufficient, such were the conditions under which the catechumenate had its weak beginnings. The catechumenate, then, in its simplest form, was the preparatory school of the church, the ancient Sunday-school; and lost that form and became a preposterously unchristian institution as Christianity became more formal, and hence more unchristian. Tertullian shows in his Apology (c. 7) a decided departure from the simplicity of the early church, when he sneeringly asks the heathen where they obtain the knowledge on which to base their slanders, since "it is a universal custom in religious initiation to keep the profane aloof, and to beware of witnesses." In this passage a preparation of the initiated is implied, and a distinction of classes intimated-neophytes and initiated. But we need not press this. Tertullian already writes' of faithful and catechumens, and complains of the lack of distinction, in this respect, among the heretics, with whom there was no secresy-all worshipping together. The progress to a more complicated system was at once natural and rapid. Tertullian had distinguished between the churchmembers or the faithful, and the candidates or catechumens. But already in Origen (b. about 200) we find the catechumens in their turn divided into two classes, with separate duties and progressive privileges. He tells us that some are privately instructed' and that these, according to the length of the time of their instruction, and in accordance with their advancement, become either members with the faithful, or are placed in a higher class of those instructed, but are still kept aloof from the sacred mysteries. Some3 have thought that Origen shows a still further subdivision, but his language is best interpreted as here stated. He mentions two orders, into one of which are admitted after private instruction:

Those who have recently begun, and have been lately admitted, nor have yet received the symbol of purification; in the other of them those who have proved themselves to hold stoutly the things commanded, and that they should desire those things only which are pleasing to Christians. Certain ones are appointed among these who shall inquire into the life and habits of those admitted, that they may forbid those accused of crimes the entrance to their body.

It is the last clause only which has given rise to dispute, but it

1 De Præs. Heret., c. 41.

Contra Celsum, Book 3, c. 51.

3 Dr. Cave, Primitive Christianity, Part 1, c. 8, ad princ.