off from our souls the presence of the living Christ. Thus our position by its very security becomes insecure, for when infidelity attacks with apparent success, some minor point of our Faith, we think the whole system in danger of falling. We deprive ourselves, too, of that blessing which the Bible was meant to convey-the knowledge of Jesus; for the Book itself, not the man greater than the Book, becomes the chief object of our veneration. The proper use of Scripture is to treat it mainly as a witness and a means to Christ, to make Him the key by which we shall interpret all its different portions. For every verse may be said to point more or less directly to Him, and becomes valuable in proportion as it adds to the general testimony to the Saviour. All the parts of the Holy Volume are indeed written by the Inspiration of God, but it does not follow therefrom that all are equally important. Some books are purely historical, and the Spirit of God guided the pens of their writers only so far as to make the record authentic. Some reproduce the struggles and aspirations of the human heart, and in these the Divine agency appears merely to make the representation truthful. While in some the essential truths of God's Nature and the way of salvation are revealed to the authors of Scripture, and in these the Holy Ghost seized on the mind of the human instrument, and used it for the benefit of mankind. But in all-History, Law, Poetry, Prophecy-the one idea of revelation is ever kept in view, and all add more or les directly to its development. The narrative portions show the sinfulness of men without God, their righteousness through Him. The Law becomes a schoolmaster to lead men to Christ by convincing them of their guilt. The Psalms speak of the soul's aspiration after a helping Lord and its joy in Jehovah. The Prophecies warn men of their danger and point them to their refuge. And thus the whole becomes useful to humanity wherever humanity is found, because to a greater or smaller degree it tends to lift the darkness which surrounds us, and to show us the

true Light of the world. To the extent to which each writer contributes to this needed knowledge does his work rank in value. We may not hold Gospel and Pentateuch, Psalm and Proverb, Chronicle and Prophetic Vision as one dead level. The Christ-idea is the magnet which binds all into a whole, but like a magnet, it attracts closest to itself the parts which have affinity for it, which contain the clearest revelations as to the Coming One.

In such a light as this should the treasure committed to us be read and studied. Its every word should be valued as a part of the oracles of God, but every word should not be valued alike. The Scriptures are to be searched, but not with thoughtless and unreasoning superstition. Mere acquaintance with their pages is not to be the end of our researches, nor should men be taught to depend on them as their hope of salvation, but through them as a means we must learn to come to the Christ to whom they bear witness, that in Him we may find eternal life. This truth more widely spread and more clearly understood, the Bible shall become more intelligible. The objections made to it shall lose their force, for all attacks upon it shall be seen to be upon the outworks only, not upon the citadel of the Faith. And more than all, the Holy Writings shall thus fulfill their intended purpose, in bringing the souls of men to the knowledge of the only True God, and Jesus Christ, whom He has sent.

EVERARD P. MILLER.

SOME LETTERS OF S. BASIL.-No. III.

After the death of St. Basil, his brother, St. Gregory Nyssen, pronounced an eulogy upon him, in which he uses the following language contrasting the condition of Cappadocia under his watchful and powerful government with that of all the provinces of the Eastern Empire: "What place," he says, "did not so great a catastrophe of the Churches overwhelm! What nation remained unattempted by the diligence of the heretics? Who that was of good repute in the Church was not driven from his work? What people escaped such indignities? Not all Syria, nor Mesopotamia, as far as the frontiers of the barbarians; not Phenicia, nor Palestine, nor Arabia, nor Egypt, nor the natives of Libya on the bounds of our inhabited world; not those in all these, the inhabitants of Pontus and Cilicia, Lycia, Lydia, Pisidia, Panphylia, Caria, the Hellespont, the islands up to the Propontis itself; not those of Thrace, as far as Thrace was, nor the nations around it to the very Danube. Alone of all, the Cappadocian people did not experience the common calamity of the Churches; because our great champion rescued it in the time of trial." At the beginning of the year 374, the affairs of the Church in the East were fast approaching the condition which justified this panegyric, nor was it so much of an exaggeration as might be thought. Demophilus at Constantinople, Euzoius at Antioch, and Lucius at Alexandria, were able to cover the whole Eastern Empire with their intrigues, and

'Greg. Nyss. quoted in Vita Basilii, p. 135.

there was nowhere but at Cæsarea in Cappadocia, a man who was strong enough to resist them, favored as they were by the policy of the Emperor.

As the year came in, the aged Bishop of Nazianzum, father of the more celebrated Gregory Nazianzen, went to his rest, and Basil attended to pay the last mark of respect to his remains. Gregory, the son, who persisted in his refusal to accept the see of Sasima, was persuaded to undertake the administration of Nazianzum ad interim, and so to foil the efforts of the heretics to gain a foothold there.

About the same time St. Amphilochius was made Bishop of Iconium and Metropolitan of the new province of Pisidia Secunda, or Lycaonia, about which St. Basil had written to Eusebius of Samosata the year before. Amphilochius was a native of Cappadocia, and a friend of Basil and Gregory, a man of liberal education, and held in high repute, both for his probity and his talents. He was very unwilling to undertake the Episcopate, and, in fact, for some time previous to his consecration he had avoided St. Basil, for fear the latter would make a clergyman of him against his will. On being made Bishop, however, he wrote to St. Basil, attaching himself to his communion, and shortly after made a visit on invitation to Cæsarea, where he found Basil prostrate with severe illness. Besides attending upon his friend, he preached in the church of Cæsarea, and his sermons were so acceptable, that Basil, on inviting him to come again in September to the Feast of St. Eupsychius, told him that the people desired his presence more than that of any other prelate, though they had many visitors. Having been bred to the bar, Amphilochius desired instruc tion from St. Basil, both in theology and canon law; and the latter not only wrote to him several letters on points of divinity, but also at his request, composed in this and the following year, his work on the Holy Spirit, and his three "Canonical Epistles" (Nos. 188, 199, 217), in which he digested into eighty-five canons the customs of the Church of Cæsarea on various matters of discipline. These letters

were of the same character as those which shortly after this time began to be sent to Western Bishops by the Bishop of Rome, to convey information or to answer enquiries about canons or customs, and which now figure in Canon Law as Papal Decretals.1

It was a great help to St. Basil to have so trusty a fellowworker as Amphilochius for Metropolitan of the new province, which had Iconium as its chief city, and he was enabled to make good use of him in extending the area of orthodoxy over the regions on which he bordered. Epistle 190 is to this prelate on the affairs of the Church of the Isaurians, which at this time seems to have been bereft of all its bishops. It illustrates the careful consideration that was necessary in the unsettled state of the Church, and the wise counsel that must be taken to avoid harm and to do good. The case was peculiar. Pisidia Secunda was a province made up of fragments, taken from other provinces, and among these was Isaura, a city which had formerly given its name to the province or district of Isauria,' the metropolis of which, under the new arrangements was Selencia. The changes made by the imperial government in the provinces were a source of constantly recurring trouble to the Church by reason of the disputes to which they led as to the rights of Metropolitans. They were finally set at rest by the rule that changes in the civil divisions of the country should not affect ecclesiastical jurisdiction; but this rule was not now in force, as we have seen in the case of Anthimus of Tyana and St. Basil; and, indeed, if it had been, Amphilochius himself would not have had metro

'Authors who tell us about the "False Decretals," speak of the Epistle of Siricius to Himerius of Farracona, as the "first authentic decretal." In fact, it is the first decretal that was ever issued by the Roman pontiff; for, as we have shown in former articles, the pontiñcal authority was assumed by Damasus, the immediate predecessor of Siricius. Whoever will compare that Decretal with St. Basil's Canonical Epistles, will see that they are of the same character, and that St. Basil's are just as much decretals, as those of the Roman Pontiffs. Vita Basilii, ch. xxxii, sec. v. p. 195.