NEWS OF THE CHURCHES. The foundation-stone of a new The following reports of MINIS. Sunday School and classroom has TERIAL CHANGES have reached us been laid in connection with since our last issue :-The Rev. J. Bartholomew Street chapel, Exeter, Collins, of Penge, to John-street, of which the Rev. E. S. Ñeale is the Bedford-row, London; the Rev. G. minister. A new chapel has been J. Edgeley, of Swindon, to Bow; the opened in Chester-street, Denbigh, Rev. W. E. Winks, of Wisbech, to for the ministry of the Rev. S. D. St. Mary-street, Cardiff; the Rev. Thomas.-A new chapel has been E. Dyson, of Ossett, near Wakeopened at Bingley, Yorkshire, for field, to Stanningley, near Leeds; the ministry of the Rev. E. Copey. the Rev. H. Tarrant, of the Metro-The foundation-stone of a new politan Tabernacle College, to chapel has been laid at Llanidloes. Romney-street, Westminster; the Montgomeryshire, for the ministry Rev. J. Berryman, of Nantyglo, to of the Rev. J. Edwards.-The Caerwent; the Rev. G. H. Malino, chapel at Chiswick, London, under of Marlborough-crescent, Newcastlethe care of the Rev. E. H. Edwards, on Tyne, to Stoney-street, Nottingof the Metropolitan Tabernacle ham. The Rev. G. P. Gould, M.A., College, has been re-opened after eldest son of the Rev. G. Gould, of alteration. A new chapel has been Norwich, has accepted an invitation opened at Spennymore, Durham, to assist the Rev. H. C. Leonard, for the ministry of the Rev. M. M.A., in the pastorate of the Baptist Morris.-Widcombe chapel, Bath, Church meeting at Bournemouth under the care of the Rev. J. and at Boscombe. The Rev. J. Huntley, has been reopened after Lee has resigned the pastorate of the alterations. The chapel at Pennar, Church at Slacklane, Keighley, after Pembroke Dock, under the care of a ministry of twenty-one years. the Rev. W. Rhys, has been re- The Rev. J. G. Hall has resigned opened after alteration and im- the pastorate of the Church at Astley provement. Bridge, Bolton. The Rev. F. Hughes has resigned the pastorate of the Union Church, Leyton. The Rev. W. Millington has resigned his pastorate at Measham and Netherseal. The Rev. W. James, late of the College, Haverfordwest, has been recognised as the pastor of the Church at Llangynidr, Breconshire; the Rev. H. Hughes, of the Church at Countesthorpe, Leicester; the We regret to announce the death Rev. J. Cave, of the Church at of the Rev. J. C. Pike, of Leicester, Kingsbridge, Devon; the Rev. Secretary of the General Baptist W. Williams, of the Church in Missionary Society, at the age of Bousfield-street, Kirkdale, Liver- fifty-nine; also of the Rev. J. pool; the Rev. J. Hanson, late of Huddersfield, of the Church at North Bradley, Wilts; the Rev. W. H. Payne, late of Bugbrook, of the Church at Lyndhurst, Hants. Rothery, late of Brampton, Devon, at the age of eighty; also of the Rev. J. E. Sargent, late of Madeley, Salop, and formerly of Wyken, near Coventry. NOVEMBER, 1876. ON SOME OF THE SUBORDINATE CHARACTERS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. BY THE REV. WILLIAM BROCK. XI.-LUKE. WE have seen that during the years of his activity, Paul was rarely without a band or body-guard of loyal companions attached to his person and associated in his work. Those must have been golden days in the progress of Christian enterprise, when Silas was with him, and Titus, and Timotheus, and a loving group besides; days like those of the ancient chivalry, "When every morning brought a noble chance, Even in his earlier imprisonment the apostle had with him a faithful few whose names are united with his own in the salutations of his epistles. But at last the group is scattered. Some have proved untrue and others are on distant errands; and in his most urgent need Paul is left with one solitary comrade in the Roman prison. Only Luke is with me," he writes to Timothy; and there is a touch of pathos, if not of sadness, in the words. But who is this stedfast follower, cleaving to his master like the bold Sir Bedivere, in the legend, to his dying king; and why should he, above all others, be honoured to remain beside him in his last adversity? 66 Our sources of information appear, at first sight, extremely slender. Besides the reference already given, the name occurs in two, and in two only, of the epistles; those to the Colossians and Philemon, both written during Paul's first imprisonment at Rome.*" There salute thee Marcus, Aristarchus, Demas, Lucas, my fellow-labourers." "Luke, the beloved physician, and Demas, greet you." In the Acts, there no mention of such a man by name. And if one of the four gospels is entitled according to Luke," still the writer is not so designated in the body of the narrative, and is there anything more than a coincidence in the names? is Now there is more than a coincidence; for the two men are really one and the same. Christian writers of a very early age assure us of the fact that the Evangelist Luke was the well-known physician and companion of Paul; and some of them add that he wrote his history under Paul's direction. But if he was the writer of the third gospel, he was also the writer of the Acts of the Apostles; since the one book refers so pointedly to the other as a "former treatise" from * Col. iv. 14; Phil. 24; 2 Tim. iv. 11, VOL. XIX. N.S. XI. "" 66 the same hand. This, too, those primitive authorities confirm. And now comes further light upon the man's identity in a rather curious manner. Up to a particular point in the Book of the Acts, the narrator uses the third person in his descriptions, after the ordinary method of historians. Suddenly the third person is changed to the first: 66 we endeavoured to go into Macedonia; we came with a straight course to Samothracia." But the form of speech is dropped after a few verses in favour of the former one; and again, after an interval of three chapters, it is resumed, and is continued to the end of the book.* The inference is a tolerably secure one that the writer of the history was to this extent an eye-witness of its events: that Luke must have so far accompanied Paul in his travels, shared his labours, and enjoyed his confidence. We can trace him in fact to Rome; and at Rome come in the allusions in the epistles. Such are our materials; we have now to see what use we can make of them. Of personal incident there is evidently very little. Whether Luke was Jew or Gentile, or to what country he belonged, cannot be decided; though tradition has fixed his birth-place at the Syrian Antioch, and criticism has judged that he was a native of Philippi. Under whose ministry he became a Christian is equally uncertain; for his own statement merely shows that he was not among the immediate disciples of our Lord. Nor can we fix distinctly the scene and scope of his missionary labour. When he joins the company of Paul, they are preparing to cross from Asia into Europe; and, if the guidance of the pronouns may be trusted, he must have been left behind on their departure from Philippi. When he reappears it is again in the neighbourhood of Philippi, after a lapse of five or six years; Paul being then bound for Jerusalem on the final journey which led to his captivity. Conjecture has been busy as to Luke's occupation during that interval; and it has been rather confidently assumed that he remained in charge of the Philippian Church, and laboured in that part of Macedonia. That is possible; but the certainty we must be content to leave in that silence which, with singular modesty, Luke has observed about himself. Whatever he did we know was done worthily and wisely, or he would not have been marked out by his leader with the honourable title, "my fellow-labourer." We reach clearer ground when we proceed to consider the personal care and companionship which he was called on to exercise toward Paul. Every reader must have observed the remarkable fulness and precision which distinguish the last seven or eight chapters of the Acts of the Apostles, even above those which precede. These marks correspond exactly with that sign of the writer's presence which has been already indicated; and we have reason therefore to believe that, from the hour when they left Macedonia together for Judæa, Paul and Luke were scarcely separated. Luke must have witnessed the farewell of the Ephesian elders on the seashore at Miletum, the * Acts xvi. 10–17; xx. 5–15; xxi. 1-17; xxvii.; xxviii. 1-16. tearful expostulation of the brethren at Tyre and Cæsarea, the arrival in Jerusalem, and the conference with the elders there. Luke must have known, if he was not actually present, of the riot in the temple, the arrest, the imprisonment, the trial before the Jewish council, and the appearance before Felix and Agrippa. Luke is believed to have shared much of the two years' confinement at Cæsarea. Certainly he shared the perils of the stormy voyage to Italy, and seems to have kept a regular journal of its stirring incidents. He was there, when at last they came near the city itself, and saw the joyful meeting between Paul and the Roman brethren, who came out forty miles along the Appian Way to give him welcome. He entered Rome beside his master, remained with him during that first imprisonment, and, as we have seen, returned to cheer him in the second. Now was there not a cause why Luke, above all others, should be kept in these later days, so close to the side of Paul? He was a beloved friend; but so were many others whose presence was far less constant and careful than his. He was the beloved physician, and therein the difference lay. For we know that even during his most active years Paul was a great and frequent sufferer. The thorn in the flesh, whatever was its nature, buffeted him so sorely that again and again he cried out for deliverance from it. How aggravated would it become with increasing years, with the exposure, the hardship, the continual confinement! Even the hard Roman winters tried him terribly. And while Titus is despatched in one direction and Crescens in another, Luke stays with Paul because he can do him most good. Not that human art could extract what divine wisdom had declined to remove, or that a longer term of life was greatly desired. But it is cheering to remember that what the healing science of those days could suggest was done to soothe and to alleviate; and it is noteworthy that the apostle who was ready to be offered, and even anxious to depart, sought relief from the skilful and affectionate care of his "beloved physician." The great monument to the memory of Luke, however, is to be found in his immortal histories. Apart from their divine inspiration, they are priceless relics of Christian antiquity. They recount to us the two lives which we most desire to know the life of our Lord, and the life of the early Church. Of the latter we should have had no adequate conception but for the Acts of the Apostles. The former is told us in the third gospel, with a setting of peculiar value. In both books we recognise a man of education, exact in his information, and picturesque in his description, delighting to communicate details of place or time, and to make his history live before his reader's eye. But the special interest lies in the spirit which they breathe. The man shines through the writer and seems to grow familiar as a friend. There is not the abundance of Old Testament reference which distinguishes the pages of Matthew, nor the depth of spiritual discernment which is manifest in those of John; but there is an element of feeling 284 ON THE SUBORDINATE CHARACTERS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. peculiar to Luke; a mingled breadth and warmth, which remind us continually of the Christian teaching and temper of the last and greatest of the apostles. There are traces and traditions which connect Paul with the actual composition of the Gospel of Luke. The intimate friendship in which the two men lived would doubtless lead the apostle to relate to the evangelist much of what he had received from the Lord, and to counsel him in his selection of materials. If the third gospel was written during the imprisonment at Cæsarea, as is reported, the connection becomes the more probable. Too much stress, however, is not to be laid upon this point. Luke certainly gathered his information from a great variety of sources, and was in direct communication with the original apostles. The link which attaches him to Paul is rather in the inward view which he takes of Christian truth, and the spirit in which he labours to present it. Let it suffice to instance two characteristics. The The Salvation by grace is confessedly the leading theme of Paul's preaching and of Paul's epistles. He was the apostle of the Gentiles, commissioned to present the gospel in its simplest and freest form, clear of all limitations. Now if we had to choose out of the four gospels the one most suited to the heathen, as distinguished from the Jews, and most adapted for general circulation, should we hesitate to choose the Gospel of Luke? Christ appears in its pages as emphatically the Saviour; as the Saviour of the world, and especially as the Saviour of the lost. The famous fifteenth chapter is really the key to the whole book. Seeking the lost is its burden from beginning to end. outcasts of society become the objects of Christ's care and cure. characters we meet are the beggar Lazarus, the poor widow with her two mites, the despised Samaritan, the publican pushed into the outskirts of the temple court, the prodigal son. To the Saviour's feet creeps the fallen woman of the city; the sinner Zaccheus runs to see Him; on the very cross the penitent robber craves His mercy. own Him, and all are by Him accepted. Let the contrite and troubled heart turn hither! For here we meet the fulness of redeeming mercy which, comprehending the vilest, cannot exclude us; and here we see in exercise that simple principle of humble confidence which justifies the ungodly" Thy faith hath saved thee; go in peace." It is Paul's great doctrine of justification by faith, illustrated in the action, and impressed in the words, of Christ. All No less prominent in Luke is that other leading element in Paul's teaching which he calls "joy in the Lord." The third gospel is, above all, the gospel of gladness. The angels' song is echoed from one page to another: "Behold, we bring you good tidings of great joy." A happy Christian heart, one feels, has been concerned in the choice and composition of its materials. For the people "rejoice at all the wonderful works" of Christ; and the seventy "return with oy" from their missionary travels; and the sinner, whose house the ord enters, "receives him joyfully;" and "there is great joy in the |