was a change in Catholicity, there would be some evidence of it in the historical documents of these times. There is no such evidence, but the contrary. The position of the papacy was consolidated since the age of Constantine, and from this time until the age of the Greek schism the popes were jealously watching the faith and discipline of the Church. A change could not have taken place in either; and, de facto, no change was attempted without exciting the most angry disputes, and the most protracted controversies. This is not all. There were writers in the fourth and fifth and sixth centuries, learned and voluminous writers, that touched upon every point of morals and discipline, and elucidated every point of faith. They were orthodox writers-the fathers-believed to be such, admitted to be the defenders of the " one " against the many. Their works remain. You can open and read for yourself. The doctrine of the fathers of the fifth and sixth centuries you will find to be the same as the doctrine of the Church at the time of the Greek schism; that is to say, if you read them without prejudice. You will find some difficulties in the mode of expression now and then. But take them all together, and form your judgment of the doctrine of the Church in these centuries on the broad basis of the patristic writers as a body. Take a large, many-sided view of their works, and you cannot fail to come to the conclusion, that the faith and discipline of the ninth century were the faith and discipline of the third.

Now the faith of the third century was the faith of the first, if we have fairly represented both periods in the extracts we have made in the course of this work. The faith of Paul was the faith of Cyprian. The faith of the old Church of Africa was identical with that of the primitive Church, founded in Judea by the Redeemer. So we are led back by a line of witnesses, posted up through time to the source of truth; and there we discover our predecessors in the faith, grouped about the same altars as ourselves, and imbibing from the same spiritual fountains similar vivifying draughts to those which are vouch

safed the faithful through the sacramental symbols, in our own day.

Wonderful identity of the Church of God! Wonderful vitality! Sublime and admirable continuity! Every one thought in primitive times that the empire would bury the Church. The Church was in the bloom of youth, when the empire was convulsed, tottered, and collapsed, and she stood over the ruins soliloquizing on the fall of human greatness and the decadence of all that is earthly. Nor can the second civilization effect what the first civilization attempted in vain; for the Church which saw beauty arise out of chaos, and return to chaos again and learning, in every variety of hostile theory, refute itself and die-and statesmen as proud in ancient times as in modern, and intellects as recusant and tongues as flippant in blasphemy-the Church which saw everything, and encountered everything, and which, because she preserves her traditions, remembers everything, is prepared for every crisis-nothing can be new to her-the honeyed accents of the seducer, and the ribald tongue of the reviler, and the uplifted arm of the persecutor; if she went into the catacombs again, it would be to come out in triumphant possession, for the yearnings of the world are towards her; and the human race-accustomed for so many centuries to see faith unbending and uncompromising-could not live in the religious anarchy whichsad and extended as it now is-must deluge the whole earth, if the Catholic Church-the mainstay of spiritual consistency—were removed for one year from the scene.

APPENDICES.

A.

IN various passages of the Epistles of St. Paul and the "Acts" we are enabled to obtain a glance at the religious meetings of the early Christians. The faithful, we are told (Acts xx. 7), asembled together on the first day of the week in the upper chamber of the house of one of the most independent members of the congregation. The Christians were for the most part poor. They had not erected edifices for divine worship; in fact, to build churches then, would be a source of additional danger, probably a signal for persecution to a jealous Pagan world. In Jewish edifices the upper chamber was the most honourable (1 Kings ix. 25); it was the most secure; and there are grounds for believing that the room in which the faithful assembled was reserved for their meetings exclusively, for in it there was an altar (Heb. xiii. 10). Here let us view the congregation assembled: there is much piety in its aspect, the women modestly covering their heads "because of the angels" (1 Cor. ix), the rich and poor seated together without any distinction of rank (James i. 11). The body of the Lord and the chalice of his blood are distributed from the altar to the members of the congregation, by the Apostle or presbyter who presides (1 Cor. xi. 20 and following, 1 Cor. x. 21). They who have received miraculous gifts use them for the edification of the faithful (1 Cor. xiv. 34). An instruction is given (Epistles to Tim. and Tit.); and all is associated with the sweet singing of hymns and the light of many tapers (Acts xx. 8).

B.

Many other questions regarding the "episcopi " and "presbyteri" of the primitive Church would form useful subjects for discussion in a history such as this; and among them a first place ought to be given to the question of celibacy.

Not a few Protestant writers imagine that they can clearly prove from the Scriptures that the bishops and priests of the apostolic Church were married men, and that they did not observe celibacy even after their election to the priesthood. We cannot undertake to decide peremptorily the controversy on this head, as there does not appear to be sufficient "data" for so doing in the books of the New Testament. St. Paul, in his Epistle to Timothy (1 Tim. iii.), pointing to the characteristics necessary in the candidate for the priesthood, says that he must be a man 66 of one wife;" and he recommends his disciples to examine if such candidate "has brought up his children well and governed well his own household." On a cursory glance at these directions, we might be disposed to conclude that celibacy was not practised by the clergy of the first century. On a close and sober examination of them, however, it must appear that St. Paul could not be expected to speak otherwise, even though sacerdotal celibacy was a divine institution. He could not prudently recommend the selection of priests from among the young and unmarried converts, whose virtue could not have been yet proved; nor would it be wise to set up as the lights of the Christian flocks old unmarried men, who, in that wicked Pagan world, had abstained from matrimonial engagements possibly to give looser reins to their passions; men who, in most instances, had been steeped the more deeply in iniquity in proportion as they advanced in years. St. Paul's advice to Timothy is merely a prudential counsel to select grave, settled, serious men for the office of the priesthood, men whose virtue had been proved by their works, men whose aptitude to preside over the faithful had been evinced by their discretion in governing their