peror Julian, "that the Galileans should support the destitute, not only of their religion, but of ours."

As to the care of widowhood, it was undertaken as a distinct concern of the Church. This, it will be remembered, gave rise to that first board of finance, the Seven in Jerusalem. Later there was instituted in the city of Ephesus a roll of widows which likewise illustrated the kindness, and the common sense also, of early Christianity. To be entered upon this roll was to be entitled to the systematic almsgiving of the church. But the beneficiaries must be "widows indeed;" which is to say, dependently poor, at least sixty years of age, and without children, grandchildren, or other near relatives under natural obligation to provide for their support and able to do so. They must also have had but one husband (vòs åvôpòs yvvý). Nor was this all. These Christian widows were to be Christians indeed. Their previous life must have shown them to have been hospitable in their homes to visiting Christians and strangers, and well reported of as diligent in all good works."

Now it is not to be supposed, we may be sure, that only such as these would be kindly ministered to by the church. But no others were to be admitted into this special class of beneficiaries." The door of entrance into it must be opened and shut, not thrown down. For corporate charity, unguarded from abuse, may easily become promotive of individual idleness or stinginess a perversion against which church funds, like any other,

11 Tim. v. 3-16.

"It brings before our eyes not merely that far-off primitive Christian church of Ephesus, but also the present work of a Scottish country kirksession. When the bread-winner dies careful inquiries are to be made, whether the bereaved widow and orphans have any means of support, or can receive any aid from their relations, who are to be stirred up to do their duty to those who are left helpless. If the children or grandchildren are able to work, they are commanded to support her who has been left a widow; but if such help fails, and if the widow is too old to earn her own living and has always borne a good character, then she is placed on the poor roll of the congregation and supported by the community." (Lindsay, "Church and Ministry,” p. 148.)

need protection. Nor is there conflict, but, contrariwise, many points of friendly contact, between love and wisdom, kindness and criticism, Christianity and common sense. The wise and great-hearted Apostle who bade one Christian congregation see that they abounded in the grace of liberal ministration toward their needy brethren' reminded another: "For even when we were with you, this we commanded you, If any will not work, neither let him eat."

3. THE CHURCH NOT DISTINCTIVELY FOR THE RELIEF OF POOR. Furthermore it is not to be supposed that the Church was then, or is ever to be, distinctively a society for the relief of the poor. Many unsympathetic observers in the present day would seem to regard it as such; for the bitter charges of uselessness which they make against the Church are based almost wholly upon its alleged lack of sympathy with the wage-earner. But such a conception is so far below the truth as to be a serious misconception. They would make Christianity, in its organic form, what the people would at one time have made the Christ -a bread-king. But Christ would be followed as Saviour and Lord, not as dispenser of loaves. His Church, likewise, is the society for saving men, whatever their outward circumstances, and lifting them up into that eternal life which he came to give. It is to awaken and satisfy the sense of their spiritual needs. It is to win them unto the worship of God and the habitual doing of his will. The changed heart, with the consequent changed life, is its work in the world. Would any one say that ministration to the physical wants of the poor was the supreme or distinctive object of the life of Jesus? Neither is it the supreme or

12 Cor. viii. 7.

3

#2 Thess. iii. 10.

Cf. the earliest Christian manual: "If he [the stranger] will take up his abode with you and is an artisan, let him work and so eat; but if he has no trade, provide employment for him, that no idler live with you as a Christian. But if he will not act according to this, he is a Christ-trafficker. Beware of such." (Didache, c. 12.)

John vi. 13-15.

distinctive object of the Church, which is his body, wherewith he would continue his ministry to men.

Outside critics inquire freely as to the use of the Church, the particular ages of the world to which it seems adapted, and its promise of perpetuity. Very well; let us ask the same questions of all other great and enduring institutions-of such, for instance, as the civil government and the school. These institutions rest, each and all, upon some imperative human need. Men are so made as to require protection for their persons and property, and concerted action for the promotion of various material interests. Hence the fact of civil government. They are so made as to require knowledge and instruction. Hence the fact of the school. But just as truly are they so made as to require moral and religious guidance, teaching, reconstruction. Under every sky men are sinners needing release from their sins, they are spirits needing spiritual development. Hence the fact of the Church.

Looking at the Church, then, from the purely human point of view, we find it resting on a universal need of humanity. Here, indeed, is not a bodily, nor a civil, nor an intellectual, but a spiritual need-more deeply human than any other. And it is this truth that must give direction to all inquiries as to the Church's fidelity or unfaithfulness, its success or failure. Were it a question of an almshouse or a hospital, the demand for the institution would be measured by the necessities of our flesh and blood. But when the question is that of organized Christianity, another standard of measurement is called for.

Suppose the brightest dream of socialism realized. Poverty is annihilated. The overdriven and underpaid laborer is no more to be seen. The best medical and surgical skill is freely at the service of everybody. Music, art, literature open their doors wide to whoever may choose to enter. Neither wars nor rumors of wars are any longer heard-the once honored military school is remembered with a blush of shame. Men have learned at last to form a universal brotherhood, and by substituting collective for individual economic endeavor, to provide abundant

wealth, together with abundant rest and leisure, for all. The development of the hitherto untouched riches of field and mine, earth and air, sunlight, ocean, electricity, ether, and their application to the supply of human needs goes on to its far-away brilliant conclusion. Science and industrial art have wrought their last beneficent miracle. Farewell to drudgery. The world's physical work is done not by muscle, whether human or sub-human, but by the forces of nature, with man as director— immeasurable cosmic force under the guidance of intelligent

will.

What then? Would men be satisfied? would their sins depart with their poverty? would they care for no other life and no other good? On the contrary, as strongly as ever since the beginning of the world the spirit would cry out for the living God. As deeply and as universally as ever the Church's message of eternal life in Christ, and all her means of spiritual culture, would be needed. For "it is written" where no man's hand, one's own or another, can erase it: "Man shall not live by bread alone."

We should only fall into exaggeration, therefore, to assert, with a noble Christian teacher of the present day, that "it might almost be said that the Christian Church was organized for the care of the poor." Nevertheless care for the poor, or, to speak somewhat more broadly, friendly ministration to the afflicted, is a most conspicuous feature of the work of Christ's Church in our sorrow-stricken world. And wherever this feature does not appear, there an indispensable evidence of the Christianity of the heart is lacking.

4. THE RISE OF THE DEACON TO HAVE BEEN EXPECTED.

It is not a matter of surprise, then, that a class of officers. should arise in the churches everywhere, charged with the duty of beneficent financial administration-that the Christian diac

'Gladden, "The Christian Pastor," p. 448.

onate should appear.

It would rather have been matter of

surprise if such officers had not arisen.

The word deacon in its Greek form (diákovos) is freely used in the sense of servant or attendant, both in classic literature and in the New Testament.' In the New Testament it is given to household servants, as, for instance, in the narrative of the wedding in Cana-"But the servants (diákovo) that had drawn the water knew;" to Christian ministers in general, as in Paul's expostulation with the schismatic Corinthians-"What then is Apollos? and what is Paul? Ministers (diákovo) through whom ye believed;" and even to civil rulers-"For he is a minister (diákovos) of God to thee for good." So, not only Timothy, Paul, Apollos, Tychicus, and Epaphras, but Roman magistrates also are called deacons.

Our Lord himself, coming into the world as he did, "not to be ministered unto but to minister (diakovĥσα),” is called by the Apostle Paul a diákovos to confirm the truth of God to Israel and to show forth his mercy to the other peoples.

This, therefore, was the common term which, through a process of specialization such as one may see going on at any time in any language, was fixed instinctively upon a certain class, or order, of church officers. So they were called, not in a general sense but technically, deacons."

What, then, were the deacon's official duties? To such a question the New Testament, strange as it might seem, offers no

'It also occurs a few times, and in the same sense, in the Septuagint; as, for example, in Esther ii. 2: "Then said the king's servants that ministered (ol diákovo) unto him." (See also ch. i. 10 and ch. vi. 3.)

*John ii. 9.

"The primary meaning of diákovos, as it meets us in Greek literature generally, is a servant or slave in the household, whose chief duty consists in waiting on his master at table, and sometimes in marketing for him." (Hort, "The Christian Ecclesia," p. 202.) It is one of the words that the gospel has glorified.

1 Cor. iii. 5.

'Rom. xiii. 4. See also 1 Thess. iii. 2; Eph. vi. 21; Col. i. 7.

Rom. xv. 8.

"Phil. i. 1: 1 Tim. iii. 8.