Charles's notes. Once more The Resurrection of the Body. See Baruch, 1; li. On all these points we see what was the material in existing Jewish thought or, in other words, what were the existing developements of Old Testament belief, which the Christian inspiration had to work upon. The effect of the specifically Christian inspiration is chiefly seen (1) in selection among existing beliefs—taking some and utterly rejecting others; (2) in giving a definite and fixed form to current Messianic and other ideas which were continually shifting and incoherent; and (3) in spiritualizing and moralizing what it appropriated. Of course it is in the Revelation or Apocalypse of St. John that we have the most signal instance of the New Testament use of contemporary Jewish material. But such material holds a very large place in the whole of the New Testament, and there is no more important assistance to the study of the New Testament than is afforded by contemporary Jewish literature, especially that of an Apocalyptic character.

NOTE D. See p. 120.

THE BROTHERHOOD OF ST. Andrew

After the above passage was written, as to the need amongst us of a deeper idea of the obligations of church membership, it fell to my lot to go to the United States, to make acquaintance with the work of the Brotherhood of St. Andrew in that country, and to assist at its general convention in Buffalo. It seemed to me that nothing could be better calculated to revive the true spirit of laymanship than that society, 'formed in recognition of

the fact that every Christian man is pledged to devote his life to the spread of the kingdom of Christ on earth.'

It was started among a small band of young men, of the number of the apostles, nearly fifteen years ago, in St. James's parish, Chicago, and has spread till today it numbers more than 1,200 parochial chapters in the United States alone, and has taken firm root in Canada and other parts of the world. It has a double rule of Prayer and of Service. The point of the service required is that it should have the character especially of witness among a man's equals. So much 'church work' is directed towards raising those who are in some ways our inferiors, that we forget that the real test of a man is the witness he bears for Christ among his equals. There is many a man who, especially in his youth, fails to confess Christ in his own society, and then, if I may so express it, sneaks round the corner to do something to raise the degraded or takes orders and preaches the gospel. Nobody can possibly disparage these efforts of love, but a certain character of cowardice continues to attach to them, if they are not based on a frank witness for Christ in a man's own walk of life, where it is hardest. It is this witness which the Brotherhood requires.

The particular rule is 'to make an earnest effort each week to bring some one young man within hearing of the Gospel of Christ as set forth in the services of the Church and in men's Bible classes.' This rule is no doubt open to criticism. But it is interpreted in the spirit rather than in the letter, and for its definite requirement it is successfully pleaded that it keeps the members from vagueness and slackness.

Certainly the result appears to be excellent. The brethren are pervaded by a spirit of frank religious profession and devotion. There appears to be a general

tone among them of reality and good sense. Their missionary zeal does not degenerate into an intrusive prying into other men's souls.

The Brotherhood was developed in the atmosphere of the United States, and it remains a question whether it will flourish in England. The more sharply defined distinctions of classes among us; our exaggerated parochialism; the shyness and reserve in religious matters which characterizes many really religious Englishmen and degenerates into a sort of hypocrisy reversed,' or pretence of being less religious than one is these things will constitute grave obstacles. But the need is at least as crying among us, as on the other side of the Atlantic, to emphasize among professing Christians and churchmen the duty of witness. At least we may trust the Brotherhood will be given a good trial. But if it is to have a fair chance among us, the greatest care must be taken that it should develope as a properly lay movement; and while it receives all encouragement from the clergy, should not be taken up by them to be turned into a guild of church workers,' useful for purposes of parochial organization.

One of the most striking facts about the Brotherhood in the States is that, while the church spirit is unmistakable-as no one who was present at the corporate Communion of 1,300 delegates in October of this year at halfpast six in the morning in a great church at Buffalo could possibly doubt it has successfully avoided becoming either a party society or a society rent by factions.

It is because I believe the witness of this Brotherhood to the true church spirit has already proved invaluable that I venture to dedicate this little exposition of the great book of brotherhood-though without leave granted or asked to its founder and president.

NOTE E. See pp. 164, 166.

THE CONCEPTion of the Church (CatholIC) IN ST. PAUL IN ITS RELATION TO LOCAL CHURCHES.

By far the most frequent use of the word 'church' or 'churches' in the New Testament is to designate a local society of Christians or a number of such societies taken together, 'the church at Jerusalem,' 'the church at Antioch,' 'the churches of Galatia,'' the seven churches which are in Asia,' 'all the churches.' But it is used also for the church as a whole. In fact, before Christ's coming the word in the Greek of the Old Testament had passed from meaning an assembly of the people, as in classical Greek, to meaning the sacred people as a whole', as St. Stephen uses it in his speech 'The church in the wilderness' (Acts vii. 38). And it is exactly in this sense that it is used by our Lord in St. Matthew, xvi. 18. 'The church' which our Lord there promises to 'build' is the Church of the New Covenant as a whole. We might paraphrase His words (as Dr. Hort suggests 2) 'on this rock I will build my Israel.' Thus there is throughout the Acts and St. Paul's earlier epistles, a tendency to pass from the use of 'church' as a local society to its use as designating the whole body of the faithful. This was but natural seeing that each local society did but represent the one divine society, the church of the Old Covenant, refounded by Christ. See Acts ix. 31 : 'The church throughout all Judaea and Galilee and Samaria.'

1 Not, as Dr. Hort points out (Christian Ecclesia, p. 5), 'the elect (called-out) people.' The word has in fact no such association attached to it.

2 pp. 10, II.

xii. 1: 'Herod the king put forth his hands to afflict certain of the church.' xx. 28: The church of God which he purchased with his own blood.' Gal. i. 13: 'I persecuted the church of God.' I Cor. xii. 28: 'God hath set some in the church, first apostles,' &c. In this last passage and in St. Paul's speech to the Ephesian elders this general use of the term is unmistakable.

In the Epistle to the Ephesians, in which alone among his epistles St. Paul is writing not about the difficulties or needs of a particular congregation, but about the church in its general conception, this larger use of the term becomes dominant. And the point to be noticed is that the church in general, or catholic church, is conceived of, not as made up of local churches, but as made up of individual members. The local church would be regarded by St. Paul not as one element of a catholic confederacy1, but as the local representative of the one divine and catholic society. But the local church is not, according to St. Paul, a completely independent representative of. the church as a whole. The apostles, as commissioned witnesses and representatives of Christ, are over all the churches. They, or their recognized associates and delegates, like Barnabas, Timothy and Titus, represent the general church which every local church must, so to speak, reproduce. The apostles therefore, or their representatives, give to each church when it is first founded the tradition' of truth and morals which is permanently to mould it; and they maintain the tradition by a more or less constant supervision. Thus they are

1 Unless indeed, in Eph. iii. 21, we should understand 'every building' as meaning every local church which, fitted together with every other, grows into a holy temple, i. e. into that which only a really catholic church can be.

2 The same statement would be true of St. Ignatius of Antioch.