be slow to receive candidates from a distance. Thus they might equalize their own contributions to the cause, with the appropriations asked for their own candidates. In regard to these views and claims we observe:

1. That there is, and ought to be, no power to prevent church sessions from receiving to their membership young men of piety, who come to reside within their bounds for a term of years, to be educated for either of the learned professions, or any other pursuit.

2. If candidates for the ministry thus become members of a church in any Presbytery, they "naturally belong" to that body for all purposes of Presbyterial supervision. Nor can such Presbytery refuse to receive them under its care on any recognized principles of our system.

3. No churches or Presbyteries have such opportunities and advantages for the proper "inspection and government" of them, as those where they must constantly reside.

4. To say that candidates may receive licensure only from the Presbyteries within whose bounds they resided before they began to study for the ministry, is to say that none can study in seminaries distant from their homes, without incurring the expense and interruption to their studies involved in the necessary successive visits to their respective Presbyteries. This is but another form of saying that they, and especially poor and beneficiary students, shall not be at liberty to go to the seminaries of their choice, if far distant, e. g. that the students from New Jersey and other Eastern States, who have chosen to go to Lane, Chicago or Danville should not be free to do so. The Church will not make such restrictions on reasonable liberty.

5. Presbyteries who are thus crowded and loaded with special labors and responsibilities, must bear them patiently, as being the burden which the Master has specially laid upon them; and consider that other Presbyteries also have their special cares.

Finally, while Synods and Presbyteries should do their utmost to have their churches contribute to the Board according to their ability, whether this be enough, or more or less than enough, to sustain the beneficiaries within their bounds; and while they should recommend no beneficiary for aid, whom they would not deem worthy, if his support wholly came from themselves, it is quite another thing to say that the aid to candidates.

in any Presbytery or Synod should be graduated by the contributions of the latter to the Board. This would be virtually to leave the whole thing to Synods and Presbyteries to help their own candidates as best they may, and relieve from the obligation of proportionate giving those having great wealth and few candidates. It would do away with all need of a central or Assembly's Board of Education. The very idea of that Board is to bring the resources and the indigent candidates of the church together; to obtain the money where it can be found, and the men where they can be found; and thus to let each make the necessary contribution towards raising up a duly qualified ministry for the church, and sending forth more laborers into the harvest.

ART. VIII.-WHO WAS THE SISTER OF OUR LORD'S MOTHER? By the Rev. C. C. STARBUCK, Berea College, Ky.

We read John xix. 25: "Now there stood by the cross of Jesus, his mother, and his mother's sister, Mary the wife of Cleopas, and Mary Magdalene." The question is, Are three women mentioned here, or four? It is usually assumed that three are mentioned, and that the evangelist means to say, that his mother's sister was Mary the wife of Cleopas. This opinion is supposed to be confirmed by the parallel passage, Matt. xxvii. 56, where, omitting the Virgin, we have mentioned Mary Magdelene, Mary the mother of James and Joses, and the mother of Zebedee's children; and in Mark xv. 40, which mentions Mary Magdelene, Mary the mother of James the Less, and Salome, who is doubtless the mother of Zebedee's children. The fact that in these two passages three women are mentioned (the mother of Christ being omitted from both) favors the interpretation of the passage in John, as also mentioning three besides the Virgin. But waiving this for the present, let us see what bearing the relation of Mary, the wife of Cleopas, or Alphæus (two forms of one name) to James and Joses has on the ques

tion of her relationship to our Lord. We know that her son James was one of the twelve, and, as the less important of the two Jameses, we can easily understand why he is called James the Less. It has been usually assumed, that after the death of the elder James, or at least the more influential one, the brother of John, he rose to the presidency of the church at Jerusalem, and to the virtual headship of the Jewish believers, under the title of James, the brother of the Lord. This view derives force from the passage in Galatians i. 19, where Paul, after mentioning his visit to Peter, says: "But other of the apostles saw I none, save James, the Lord's brother." Assuming that James is here described as one of the twelve, he can of course only be James the son of Alphæus, and in this case his being called the Lord's brother would settle the relationship of his mother, as the sister of the Virgin, and would settle the fact that he is called the brother of Christ, according to the Hebrew idiom, by which collateral kindred, even more distant than first cousins, may be called brothers.

But there are grave objections to regarding this James as merely the cousin of Christ. In the first place, there is no necessity of regarding him as one of the Twelve at all. It is admitted that the Greek idiom allows us to interpret Gal. i. 19, thus: "But other of the Apostles saw I none, but I saw James the Lord's brother." Then, even supposing Paul to designate him as apostle, it by no means follows that he was one of the Twelve. Paul and Barnabas were both apostles, but they were not of the Twelve. And a man like James, the near kinsman of our Lord, an important circumstance in the eyes of Jewish believers (who after his martyrdom chose a cousin of Christ to succeed him), of earnest, prophetic character, the model of Israelitish piety spiritualized by the gospel, might well acquire a standing in Jerusalem equal to one of the Twelve, or even superior. Indeed, we find Paul placing bim, in the church of circumcision, even before Peter. Now, it is easier to conceive a highly-gifted man of Christ's immediate family rising to a rank in Jerusalem in some respects superior to the Twelve, than to suppose one of the Twelve themselves, one of the less important nine, (whose subordination to the chief three had, through our Lord's whole ministry, been so pronounced, and which must doubtless have rested on an inferiority of endowment),

afterwards taking precedence of Peter himself. Besides, in Acts i. 13, the brethren of Jesus are sharply distinguished from the eleven, and in 1 Cor. ix. 5, they are also distinguished from them, though not quite so decidedly. Moreover, 1 Cor. xv. 7, our Lord after his resurrection is said to have been seen of James, then of all the apostles. This, indeed, appears to include James in the number of the original apostles, although, if he had subsequently risen to isapostolic rank, he might in Paul's associations be identified with them anticipatively. If, however, we take James here to be one of the Twelve, it is easier to take him to be James the son of Zebedee than the comparatively unimportant James the Less. Still, there is a reason for Christ's special appearing to his brother James, supposing him to have been, as Acts i. 13 appears to determine, not one of the Twelve, which there is not for his appearing to any one of the Twelve, except Peter. We learn from John vii. 5, that during our Saviour's ministry his brethren did not believe on him. But there is not the least doubt that they were devout and pious Israelites. To believe otherwise of the household of Joseph and Mary is unnatural. And immediately after our Saviour's ascension we find them undoubting believers. The very decidedness of their Israelitish piety (beyond which type we do not find James ever proceeding) may have stood (to gether with the hindering influences of near relationship) in the way of their acknowledging the Messianic claims of their brother, till the outrageous iniquity of his crucifixion had severed them from the ruling party, and the stupendous miracle of his resurrection had overcome all their doubts. And our Lord may well have accounted the complete conversion of his own brothers, especially in view of its influence on Jewish feeling, worthy of a separate appearance to the eldest of them. Any motive of equal cogency for a special appearance to either of the Jameses in the number of the Twelve is, at least, not easy to make out.

Moreover, although the Hebrew idiom permits a cousin, in a general way, to be called a brother, yet even in the Old Testament, where attention is specifically drawn to the relationship, we usually find some nearer definition, as "Lot, Abraham's brother's son;"" the sons of the uncle of Aaron;" "Abner, the son of Ner, Saul's uncle;" "Shallum, the son of my uncle," etc. And in the New Testament, written in the more finely discrimi

nating Greek, and at a time when more delicate distinctions were made under Greek influence, we find, instead of "brethren," "kinsmen" more common, as repeatedly in Paul's salutations. So Mark is not called by Paul Barnabas' brother, but distinctly his cousin. And Ensebius says that James, the brother of our Lord, was succeeded by Simeon, a cousin of Christ, showing that the sense of distinction between the two degrees of kindred was by no means lacking to the church of Jerusalem, as indeed it never was lacking to the Israelites, though somewhat circuitously expressed.

Besides, we find early in our Lord's ministry mention made by the Nazarenes of our Lord's brothers, James and Joses and Simon and Judah, in a way far more natural as referred to the sons of his mother and of his supposed father, than to cousins. If, however, any one should be disposed to insist upon the perpetual virginity of Mary, these may be regarded as the sons of Joseph by a former marriage, and therefore legally the brothers of Christ. There is, at least, as Dr. Schaff well remarks, this in favor of such an opinion, that it still better explains their slowness to believe on him, and the tone of cold superiority which they assume toward him in John vii. 1-5. I myself, however, think it more natural to regard them as the sons of Joseph and Mary. In either case it removes all collateral reason for regarding Mary, the wife of Alphæus, as mother of kinsmen of our Lord, and leaves us free to make out the list of the women at the cross from the three passages which give their names.

Now, omitting the virgin, we may read John xix. 25: either "His mother's sister, that is, Mary the wife of Alphæus, and Mary Magdalene," which gives us two; or, "his mother's sister (unnamed), and Mary the wife of Cleopas, and Mary Magdalene," which gives three, like the two parallel passages. This is certainly so far in its favor. It relieves us of the embarrassment of supposing two sisters of the same name. I do not attach very great weight to this consideration, yet it has some; as the Jews appear to have individualized their daughters quite as distinctly as their sons, unlike the Romans, who gave all the daughters of a family the name of the gens, distinguishing them as Prima, Secunda, etc.

It seems, then, at least plausible to make out the list in John thus: "His mother, and his mother's sister (unnamed by John,