OLD NEWS BETTER THAN NONE.

NOTES ON CHURCH HISTORY.

No. VIII.

WHEN Mr. Jones sent back Butler's paper, Hyde happened to be with him, and Mrs. Hyde also, who had called after some copy-books for her little girl. She took as much interest as her husband in these matters, and was very glad to have the paper read to her. But when it was finished, she looked a little disappointed.

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'Well, now, my good wife, what's the matter?" said Hyde: "tell it out by all means, and have done with it."

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Oh, nothing at all," she said at first; but on being pressed a little, she owned that she had expected rather more of detail in the personal history of the Apostles; for instance, in the account of the martyrdom of St. Peter.

"Well," said Butler, "I own that there are some things left out here which Fleury mentions: how St. Peter's wife is said to have suffered before him; how he, seeing her led away to death, congratulated her on her returning to her true country, exhorted and consoled her; and, calling her by her name, said, 'Remember our Lord.' They had a daughter, named Petronilla, who lived a virgin, and died, after a life of holiness, in Ronie." H. "Perhaps Mr. Jones thought these things hardly certain enough to set down in Notes on Church History."

Mrs. H. "Still, perhaps, we may think of them as possibly true, and obtain encouragement in good by them."

H. "To be sure, I can imagine many a husband, aware of this tradition about St. Peter, finding himself the more enabled to support himself and his wife in afflictions of any kind."

Mrs. H. "And many a woman strengthened in heart to serve God, if such be His will, in loneliness, when she thinks of the Apostle's orphaned daughter."

B. "Just as the other and better known tradition, about his suffering with his head downwards, may instruct all sufferers, while they remember our Lord in their sufferings, still (if I may say so) to keep their distance' from Him."

Mrs. H." And is there not something like it told of St. Andrew?"

B. "Yes: his cross, the shape of which, you know, is said to have been chosen by him on purpose to make a variety from our Saviour's Cross."

Mrs. H "And so there was a family likeness in the two brothers?"

H. "Each longing to follow our Lord, but fearing lest he should prove unworthy."

Mrs. H. "Well, these are the touches which I delight in, in pictures from Church History: and I should be disappointed,. if Mr. Jones should commonly think it necessary to leave them out, by reason of their uncertainty."

B. "I dare say he will not: there is a great deal that is very probable, though not always quite enough to satisfy one's fancy."

H. "But now, Master Butler, if you please, I should like for you and me to do as we often do when we are going up hill together to pause awhile, as it were, and cast our eyes around us, and see how things in general look, in that point of the Church's History to which we are come. I should like to have some tolerably distinct notion, how far the Church had spread at the time of the two great Apostles' martyrdom, and the complete Foundation of the Primitive Church in Rome."

B. "You know, of course, that we cannot tell exactly: it having pleased God to hide from us almost entirely the proceedings of most of the Apostles, and to shew us but glimpses, here and there, of the three or four whom we are able to trace a little. But even by the fragments which are preserved, we may judge how wonderfully the grain of mustard-seed had thriven, already during the lifetime of those two Apostles. I have got," he added, rummaging in his desk, "or ought to have, a memorandum about it, which I wrote to help me with the boys."

'Look at the map of St. Paul's travels, and see how large a portion of the world he is known to have visited :—from Spain, on the west, to the Euphratean desert, on the east; and from the borders of Thrace, on the north, to the southern coasts of Cyprus and Crete. St. Peter, if he fall short of this on the west, (for there is no record of his having gone farther than Rome,) equalled it in Greece, Asia Minor, and Syria, and surpassed it (according to tradition) on the south, by preaching in Egypt. By these, we may judge of the labours of the remaining Apostles whereof St. Andrew is reported to have gone very far north, St. Thomas very far east, and St. Matthew very far south.

And wherever they went, it was their way, no doubt, not only to make an impression, and gather a Church, in the first place,

but also, at times, again to " pass through all quarters," and to go about "confirming the Churches," as we read that St. Peter and St. Paul did. These Apostolic visits were a bond of visible union for the time; and, when it seemed good to them, the Apostles ordained for each chief place, what we should call a Diocesan Bishop. Much as it is in Missionary work now. The Bishops and Priests who first set up a Church in Australia, Africa, or America, very often have to make many visits, to go backwards and forwards a great many times, after they have succeeded in drawing the people's attention, before they establish a regular Church,-a Bishop with Clergy and Laity under him, -to be the City set on a hill, the Catholic Church in that place.

When it is set up, it maintains communion in various ways with the Churches which existed before it receiving Clergymen and other Communicants from them, with proper letters; and doing nothing which concerns the whole body of Christ, without consulting with those other Churches.

In this way, the Church, in the year 66 or 67, had grown to be a large body, united within itself, spreading through the greater part of the Roman Empire ;—that is, the greater part of the world which was then civilized;-and practising throughout,, a wonderful agreement in doctrine, Sacraments, and discipline. So that there was every where one visible kingdom of God, to take the place of the old Jewish Church, or Synagogue, just then on the eve of perishing, and to draw to itself the good Israelites, who had real trust in the Old Prophecies.'

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Mrs. H. "Oh, thank you, Mr. Butler. What you have read to us has made it clearer to me than before, both how that first Church came in place of Israel and Judah, and how it is in fact the same body which we trust we are part of now. But you have said nothing about the Scriptures; were they not the necessary foundation of that early Gospel Church, as the Law of Moses was of the Church in the wilderness?"

But at

B. "No doubt that is understood all along. The first Christian Churches were of course founded upon the Scriptures, so far as the Scriptures were then written and known. the time we are speaking of, and until a good while after, the whole of the New Testament was not as yet written and known. There were the first three Gospels, the Acts of the Apostles, and their Epistles, so far as they were published and acknowledged. But it took some time to verify an Epistle or Gospel, and to

inform the Church thoroughly of its being part of God's Scriptures. And so, even some of the writings of St. Peter and St. Paul had yet to be generally received; and St. John's were not so much as written until many years after."

Mrs. H. “If I understand you rightly, there were at that time complete Churches without the Scriptures."

B. "Not altogether without the Scriptures, but without the whole of the New Testament."

H." And why, dear wife, should you look surprised at that? it is no more strange than that there should be good Christians now, as I thank God there are a great many, who cannot read the Bible at all."

Mrs. H. 66 I see partly what you mean: Christians who are no scholars must take the Bible, and the Creed, and all, on trust from those who are scholars. And before the New Testament was written or known, the necessary truths contained in each Book must have been taken on trust from the sayings of those who wrote or might have written the Book: that is, from inspired persons."

B. "True: and before those inspired persons, Apostles, or companions of Apostles, died away, it pleased God that they should from time to time set down on occasion more or less of necessary truth: so that by the time they were all gone, their writings, abiding in their stead, were a complete treasure of all doctrines needful unto salvation."

H. "I understand: the truth itself, the Creed, was in substance (not in words) just the same as it is now, neither longer nor shorter by one single Article: but the proof of it then could not be made complete, without taking in more or less of unwritten tradition, the sayings of the Apostles and their followers; now, by God's Providence, Scripture has been so enlarged, that the Church is able to prove the whole Creed from it. The Inspired Unwritten Voice did not at all cease to speak until the Inspired Written Voice had taken up the words, and recorded them for all time."

B. "Even so: but at the moment we are now speaking ofthe moment of the great Apostle's martyrdom-this process was yet going on. The Rule of Faith, even the substance of it, was still partly unwritten; for none of the writings of St. John .as yet existed and those of St. Paul and others, it seems, were far from being universally known."

Mrs. H. " Yet, if I rightly understood you, no Christian,