FATHER Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible," is the Confession of the Nicene Creed. "I believe in GOD the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth," is the Confession of the Apostles' Creed. In the records of the earlier dispensation, in which the revelation was mainly of the Unity of the Godhead, this is not so distinctly traced; but, nevertheless, it is taught, and still oftener implied. The FATHER is Himself the source and self-existent Essence of the Divine Nature, and is properly a Father in that He hath an only-begotten Son, the eternal WORD (Ps. ii. 7; Heb. i. 5). Therefore, in the highest, most proper sense, HE is the FATHER of the WORD, and holds and displays in the Divine perfectness all the relations and attributes which belong to the FATHER towards His Son (St. John v. 19, 20, and vs. 17). He grants to His Son all the privileges, and demands for Him all the honors which belong to Him as His Son (St. John v. 21-23). He gives of His own to His Son (St. John xvi. 15). In the Unity of the Divine Essence the Son is all that the FATHER is, in Majesty, Glory, Power, Eternity, and Incomprehensibility, save in that which belongeth to GoD as the FATHER (St. John x. 30; xvii. 5, 21, 22). But, as He is FATHER of the eternal nature, so that Son is no less His Son when by the HOLY GHOST He took upon Himself flesh, and was born of the Virgin Mary, and became man. GOD so loved the world that He gave His only-begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life" (St. John iii. 16). This onlybegotten Son, born of the Virgin, and called then the Son of GOD (St. Luke i. 35) was testified to by the Voice from heaven, "This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased" (St. Matt. iii. 17). By the eternal Son of GOD, who in His human nature, being the Son of Adam, was also the Son of GOD, we become immortal sons of GOD in partaking His nature, putting Him on us as becoming

man.

"For

He became the Son of GOD, as we are, by creation. He was glorified openly by His FATHER. He was confessed by the Devils (St. Mark iii. 11). He gave to them that received Him power to become the sons of GOD, even to them that believe on His name, which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of GOD. Through His revelation and gift we have GOD to our Father in the highest sense, for He is not ashamed to call us brethren. But in the Christian Church this is only attainable. "For as many as are led by the Spirit of GOD, they are the sons of GOD;... ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry ABBA, FATHER" (Rom. viii. 14, 15; cf. Gal. iv. 5, and St. Mark xiv. 36). So the LORD's Prayer, "Our FATHER," etc., sets forth the crowning act of our right as sons of GOD; and the first imploration of the Litany but repeats it. Yet this Son of GOD was born a Jew, ac

cording to the flesh, and in this dispensation the FATHER'S love is shown, for the Psalmist cried, Like as a father pitieth his children, even so the LORD pitieth them that fear Him." They that remember the LORD shall be spared, "as a man spareth his own son that serveth him" (Mal. iii. 7). In the first chapter of Proverbs the Fatherhood of GOD is brought out, for the Father and the Mother are GOD and the Church. Moses exclaimed in his song, "Is not He thy Father that hath bought thee?" GOD sent His message by Moses to Pharaoh concerning the people in their bondage. Israel is my son, my first-born. Wider cry yet cometh from the Gentiles through the Prophet Isaiah: "Doubtless Thou art our Father, though Abraham be ignorant of us, and Israel acknowledge us not: Thou, O LORD, art our Father, our Redeemer; from everlasting is Thy name" (Is. lxiii. 16). And these who so stretch out their beseeching hands to GOD are the sons of Adam, who is the son of GOD. Therefore, in the Creeds, in the LORD's Prayer, in every address to Him as the FATHER, we approach Him by the right of creation in Adam, of revelation in the Jew, of sonship through His Son, who standeth evermore at the right hand of the FATHER, to receive our prayers and to give us access, as He has said, "No man cometh unto the Father but by Me."

Fathers, The. The crudest notions are entertained by the antagonists of Episcopa lians respecting their estimation of the Christian Fathers. They look upon us as regarding the Fathers like a secondary sort of Evangelists or Apostles; as though their assertions ranked next to Scriptural ones, if not quite equal to them. They fancy we treat them as St. John would fain have treated the Angel in the Apocalypse, and give them reverential homage if not downright worship.

It is really hard to impress upon them the simple but essential distinction that the Fathers, like many other authors, sustain a twofold character,-that of divines and that of witnesses. As divines, they may have peculiar and personal opinions. St. Augus tine, for example, is supposed by multitudes to have been what would now be called a Calvinist, because he talked so freely of predestination; albeit, his idea of predestination was a predestination to grace in this life, and not a predestination to glory or perdition in the next. St. Jerome was monkish, and Tertullian what we might call somewhat of a Quaker. But, as divines, we receive any peculiarity in their opinions as we receive the opinions of divines now living, for what they are worth, and not as authoritative or directive because of the men who entertained them.

It is as witnesses to Christian history, and especially as witnesses to a general or Čatholic interpretation of Scripture, that we chiefly value them. They lived near the times when the Christian Scriptures were written;

and of course could tell us how primitive Christians had received their signification, as handed down by the Apostles and their contemporaries. This sort of interpretation in relation to ancient documents, and documents whose signification has been a matter of serious dispute, is of the very highest authority, common sense and common law teach us this; for we find one of the established maxims of courts to be," Contemporanea expositio est optima et fortissima in lege," "A contemporaneous exposition is the best and strongest in law." (Wharton's Legal Maxims, p. 57.) This is the exposition which a judge upon the bench esteems above any mere opinion, or grammatical criticism, of the present day. A man's genuine meaning, in anything he says or writes, is what he intends by that which he says or writes. The dictionary and grammar may make a man's apparent intention, in his last will and testament, quite unlike his real and actual intention. And therefore a surrogate, or judge of probate, cares much less for the dictionary and grammar than for the genuine intention of the testator, if he can reach it without them. And the same rule should govern if the question respected the signification of a Constitution, a Statute, a Treaty, or a Contract. We want the aim, the design, the inward resolve of the authors of a Constitution, a Statute, a Treaty, or a Contract as a key, and the best of keys, to their actual and permanent signification.

Now it is under the influence of such sentiments that we go to the Fathers for the proper construction of the Scriptures and primitive Christian History. They are the persons to tell us what was the contemporaneous exposition of the Bible, what construction the Primitive Church put upon the Bible, because they are the best witnesses in the case we can possibly obtain. They were nearest the minds of the Apostles among all in the old Christian world. They were conspicuous and trustworthy persons. As witnesses, they could hardly be mistaken concerning the books which the Primitive Church gathered into a volume, which it called the Bible. They could also tell what sort of a Church had come down from Apostolic times, what rites it cherished, what officers governed it, and how it perpetuated its own existence.

Where else could we go (if we neglected or discarded such witnesses) when the drift of the Bible about such matters is called in question? The Bible does not attest its own

Canon, or the construction of its disputed passages. It is a Latin Church book, or a Greek Church book; an Episcopal book, or a Presbyterian book; a Baptist book, or a Congregationalist book; a Methodist book, or a Quaker book; a Unitarian book, or a Free Church book; or, finally, a Rationalistic book; as denominations, or schools, or selfsatisfied thinkers choose to account it. We must go outside of it for contemporaneous

interpretation, or we must dispute and wrangle to the world's last day.

"We hold, and say we prove, from Scripture plain, That CHRIST is GOD; the bold Socinian, From the same Scripture, urges he's but man. Now what appeal shall end the important suit? Both parts talk loudly, but the rule is mute." Even such a mind as Dryden's, layman if he were, could see this issue by an act of intuition, and put it to his fellows in a most characteristic way. (Works, 12mo ed., pp. 146, 147.)

True, he put it in the shape of poetry. But Dryden is said to have reasoned better in poetry than in prose; and certainly there is unmistakable and fruitful logic in his quoted lines.

The Church of Rome once saw, and insisted triumphantly, that the Scriptures must be interpreted according to the unanimous sense of the Fathers. Well, this test was applied to one of her most favorite authorities, the text in Matthew, so often appealed to as establishing the Pope's supremacy. The unanimous consent of the Fathers, however, did not sustain her. Cardinal Newman saw this at a glance, and so he broached his theory of Development, which finds the germs of Romanism in the Bible, but not its full-blown dogmas.

But suppose the question to have been, Did the Primitive Church acknowledge a Trinity in the Godhead, or an Episcopacy in Church Government ?-and we can find even a Gibbon acknowledging that such things were notorious down to the sixteenth century. And this leads us to say that the general, the all but unanimous, testimony of history respecting chief matters, fundamental matters, is singularly uniform. The Church Catholic, to this very day, believes in such points with all but consolidated unanimity. And if the Church Catholic would take the two points instanced and make them a basis of a Concordat, she would be a consolidated unity still, and the Communion of Saints exist no longer as a mere article of a creed. They are sufficient for the basis of a Concordat which would render all Christendom essentially and harmoniously one. And this is not spoken without book. When the American Episcopal Church first sent a Bishop to the East, he was charged by our Presiding Bishop to offer Christian communion, the fellowship of Christianity, to all who would receive it on the basis of the Nicene Creed for doctrine, and Apostolic Episcopacy for discipline, leaving form of worship and liturgies out of the question, as matters which might be

conformed to national customs and educated tastes. The offer was listened to, and proved enough for Greek Christians and Oriental Christians generally.

But Rome, on the one hand, and antiEpiscopalians on the other, will not accept

such a basis for a Concordat. By no means. There must be a Pope on this side, or ministerial parity on the other side, or the hand

Chood cannot cross the chasm and asp of consanguinity. Who, 00 binderers, who the schismthe Church of CHRIST is still and not likely to be one for cen

Aotiess we Episcopalians are considered

exclusive and a very uncharitable cule; but we have asked of our tallest Charchmen again and again, and of the most elligent among them, too, if the Nicene Creed for doctrine, and Apostolic Episcopacy for discipline, would not be enough to start from, for a Concordat, with any body of Christians under heaven. And the invariable and cheerful answer has been that it would be. And is not this enough to show that, while we continually deprecate "false doctrine, heresy, and schism" in our Litany, our prayers are as continually answered, and that we are as free from "all uncharitableness" as any body of Christians beneath the sun,-as near a primitive standard as any other Christian body, and that the Bible, interpreted according to the unanimous consent of the Fathers, is our true profession and our filial inheritance?

REV. T. W. COIT, D.D.

Feast. It is a principle in natural religfon to seek by some joyous observance to express our religious feelings of happiness or thankfulness. This natural readiness, shown in innumerable heathen festivals and holidays, was used by Divine Providence for the teaching of His religion and for training mankind in His Life. He used it for the Israelities, beginning with the Passover. "And this day shall be unto you for a memorial; and ye shall keep it a feast to the LORD throughout your generations: ye shall keep it a feast by an ordinance forever" (Ex. xii. 14). And so of the other Feasts, of Pentecost, of Tabernacles, of Trumpets, the weekly sabbath, the seventh year, the year of Jubilee. Thrice a year each male was to appear before the LORD. It is not the place here to do more than note the binding unifying effect of such feasts as these. Since, then, the demands of natural devoutness and GOD'S command conjoin to make Feasts a necessity, the Church has followed this principle; in fact, the Passover has become our Easter, Pentecost is Whit-Sunday, and by the guidance of the Spirit the Sabbath of the Jew has been transferred to the LORD's day, Sunday. These are Feasts commemorating redemptive acts by, and enabling gifts from, our LORD; the round is completed by the Joyful celebration of Christmas-day. The Christian year falls into two distinct parts, (1.) the Sundays from Advent to Whit-Sunday, in which the Life, Work, Passion, Crucifixion, Death, and Resurrection, Ascension of CHRIST, and His sending to us the allcontaining gift of the HOLY GHOST are commemorated; and (II.) the Sundays extending from Trinity-Sunday on till Advent is reached again. All Sundays are minor Feasts of the Resurrection, but with this they

as well as certain week-days have an added teaching and memorial joyfulness. Christmas-day and Epiphany generally, and Ascension-day always, fall upon a week-day, but all other Feasts founded on His work fall on Sunday. Feasts are divided into movable and immovable. Those are movable which

depend upon Easter, which Feast depends upon the full moon on or after the 21st of March, giving a latitude of a month (from March 22 to April 25). Upon Easter depend the number of Sundays after the Epiphany, the date of the Ascension-day, WhitSunday, and Trinity-Sunday, as these fall at fixed spaces before or after Easter. Those which are immovable are the Feasts which fall on days of the month. Thus Christmasday is always the 25th of December, and may fall on any day of the week, and Epiphany is the 6th of January, and also may fall on any day of the week.

The Act of Edward VI. (5 and 6, c. 3, s. 1) so clearly sets forth these reasons, is the foundation of our Table of Feasts, and shows Cranmer's hand so plainly, that the first section is here given:

"For as much as men at all times be not so mindful to laud and praise GOD, so ready to resort and hear God's holy word, and to come to the Holy Communion and other laudable rites which are to be observed in every Christian congregation as their bounden duty doth require; therefore, to call men to remembrance of their duty, and to help their infirmity, it hath been wholesomely provided, that there should be some certain times and days appointed wherein Christians should cease from all other kinds of labors, and should apply themselves only and wholly unto the aforesaid holy works properly pertaining unto true religion; the which times and days specially appointed for the same are called holidays, not for the matter or nature either of the time or day, nor for any of the saints' sake whose memories are had on those days (for so all days and times considered are God's creatures and all of like holiness), but for the nature and condition of those godly and holy works wherein only GOD is to be honored and the congregation to be edified, whereunto such times and days are sanctified and hallowed, that is to say, separated from all profane uses, and dedicated and appointed not unto saint and creature, but only unto God and His true worship; neither is it to be thought that there is any certain times or definite number of days prescribed in Holy Scripture, but that the appointment both of the time and also of the number of days is left by the authority of GoD's word to the liberty of CHRIST'S Church, to be determined and assigned orderly in every country by the discretion of the rulers and ministers thereof as they shall judge most expedient, to the true setting forth of GOD's glory and the edifica tion of their people; it is, therefore, enacted that all the days hereinafter mentioned shall be kept and commanded to be kept holidays

and none other; that is to say, all Sundays in the year, the days of the Feast of the Circumcision of our LORD JESUS CHRIST, of the Epiphany, of the Purification of the Blessed Virgin, of St. Matthias the Apostle, of the Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin, of St. Mark the Evangelist, of St. Philip and Jacob the Apostles, of the Ascension of our LORD JESUS CHRIST, of the nativity of St. John the Baptist, of St. Peter the Apostle, of St. James the Apostle, of St. Bartholomew the Apostle, of St. Matthew the Apostle, of St. Michael the Archangel, of St. Luke the Evangelist, of St. Simon and Jude the Apostles, of All-Saints', of St. Andrew the Apostle, of St. Thomas the Apostle, of the Nativity of our LORD, of St. Stephen the Martyr, of St. John the Evangelist, of the Holy Innocents, Monday and Tuesday in Easter-week, and Monday and Tuesday in Whitsun-week; and that none other day shall be kept and commanded to be kept holy or to abstain from lawful bodily labor." will be observed that the Feast of the conversion of St. Paul and the Feast of St. Barnabas were omitted in the act, but their names are inserted properly in the Table of Feasts.

We have here the rules clearly laid down upon which the Churches of England and of these United States have acted in these matters, and from which their practice has never swerved. The office for Thanksgiving-day is a movable one, being the only link which connects the Church's offices with the authority of the State in the appointment of national holidays.

To close with Hooker's noble words: "Well to celebrate these religious and sacred days is to spend the flower of our time happily. They are the splendor and outward dignity of our Religion; forcible witnesses of ancient truth, provocations to the exercise of all piety, shadows of our endless felicity in Heaven, on earth everlasting records and memorials; wherein they which cannot be drawn to hearken unto that we teach may, only by looking upon that we do, in a manner read whatsoever we believe." (Hooker, Eccl. Pol., v., sect. 71, ad fin.)

Festival. The main difference between the words Feast and Festival seems to be that Feast is more often applied to the sacred Feasts which commemorate our LORD's life, while the Festival is applied to the days commemorative of GOD's Saints. And here we may remark that wherever in the calendar there is a Feast of our LORD's life falling on a week-day there should be a celebration of the Holy Communion. The Epistle and Gospel are ordered in all cases for both classes of Feast-days as well as for Sundays for such a celebration. This is their purpose. But at the least, the Feasts not only of Christmas and Ascension, but also of the Circumcision and the Epiphany, should be so kept. It is a growing custom to commemwhich the Church intends should be had, by orate the Saints' days by that celebration

providing the Liturgic Scriptures of the Epistle and Gospel, for it is the sign of our unity in the Body of CHRIST which is His Church, and we profess the Faith once given to the saints as unchanged and unchangeable.

It may be asked, Why not commemorate the Saints of the Old Testament as well as those of the New? Hooker's reply is complete when he remarks that " we are content to imagine, it may be perhaps true, that the least in the Kingdom of CHRIST is greater than the greatest of all the Prophets of GoD that have gone before." (Eccl. Pol., v., sect. 71.) We thank GOD for their examples, praying that we may walk in their holy footsteps, and we desire to be made partakers of that blessedness He has given them, and we acknowledge thereby the deep bond of a common brotherhood in CHRIST Our LORD, and note wherein we too can tread in those holy ways which He has prepared for us to walk in.

Filioque. In the controversies which raged in Spain between the Orthodox and the Arians (580 A.D.) the procession of the HOLY GHOST from the SON as well as from the FATHER was a powerful argument against the heretics. The third Council of Toledo (589 A.D.) directed that in the Creed, the clause upon the procession of the HOLY GHOST should read, Qui, ex Patre, Filioque, procedit. It was accepted in the Spanish and Gallican Churches. It was noticed as an interpolation by the Greek ambassadors at the Council of Gentilly (767 A.D.). Popes Adrian I. (790 A.D.) and Leo III. (806 A.D.) declined to sanction it, though it was persistently used in Gaul. But Nicolas I. (866 A.D.) found it convenient to use it in his controversy with Photius, the intruding Patriarch of Constantinople. Photius expressed the general denunciation of the East against it, and it continued to be the subject of sharp contentions between the Greek and the Latin Churches till the final rent (1054 A.D.). A conference upon it was held at Nice (1234 A.D.) and a Council at Nymphæa without fruit. So, too, it was dis cussed at Lyons (1274 A.D.). A reluctant assent to it was wrung from the Greek envoys at Florence (1439 A.D.), which was immediately repudiated by the Oriental Churches. The only discussion of any value since, was at Bonn (1874 A.D.), where its insertion was declared to be illegal, and an effort for its removal was urged. Repeated efforts both in the English Convocations and in our General Convention have been made to have it removed. But it was felt that the reception was so general in the West that it would be well, in view of the apparent course of events, to have it done by a larger portion and more representative of the Western Church than by merely the Anglican Communion acting alone, however needful the removal of the offend

ing clause may be. The objection of the Eastern theologians is that it may be made

ada jual source of procession, for the kas self-existing is the sole source procession of the SPIRIT, the mission sing through the SoN. The interpoaca was also bitterly condemned as wholly mes, as incurring the anathema of the Council of Chalcedon against all tampering with the Creed, and as necessarily forcing a sedism in the body of CHRIST. This is a continued protest, and will so remain till she Filioque is cast out. It must be added that these objections do not lie against the imploration in the Litany. There the words are liturgically used, to Him who proceedeth by His mission from the Son to teach us how to pray aright.

Finance, Church. First, the Basis. The ministrations of public worship and of Christian charity cannot be sustained without a large outlay of money. But in our LORD'S teaching the Kingdom of GOD is that thing which a man is "first" to "seek." For one's self, therefore, and for one's family, when one is making up the table of the very necessaries of life, nothing can take higher rank on that list of things indispensable than the ministrations of religion. Nothing can more reasonably expect for itself adequate provision. This is the mere prudence of a wise man in taking care for himself and for his own household.

But the Church is the Representative of that CHRIST who came to this world upon a Foreign Mission, and who both took to Himself a human nature and went about doing good, healing men's bodies, enlightening men's minds, lifting burdens from human souls. The precept is, "Let this mind be in you which was also in CHRIST JESUS." The Church that is His must be a missionary Church. Hospitals, likewise Asylums, Homes for the Aged and for the Orphans, Training Schools of Nurses, and seminaries of good learning spring up wherever this Church has gone.

Reason commends the stern words written in Scripture of him "that doeth the work of the LORD negligently." Here, if anywhere, low maxims and loose practices must be shunned. Titles to Church property and insurance of buildings require honest, that is, scrupulous attention. It ought to be clearly understood that rashly to incur debt in the building of churches is just as reprehensible as to do it in other relations. To leave the rector's salary unpaid a week after it falls due is the same thing as to let a note lie dishonored at the bank. Those clergymen, held in esteem of their people, who have distinctly declared at the first that they should instantly resign the charge if ever the salary was one hour behind in the payment, have done good service in toning up the lazy flocks. And, in all the undertakings of Christian beneficence, the business parts require the same sound principles, wise methods, and careful attention for which men look in secular affairs.

Second. The methods of securing moneys

and of disbursing them, and the tenure of Church property.

The Diocese, the real churchly unit as distinguished from the parish, both carries on works within itself and aids works without itself; within the Diocese, the local (parochial) and the more general.

Provision for parochial needs in selfsustaining parishes and the management of their finances the Diocese now leaves almost wholly with the parish. Through the parish the Church fixes the rector's salary and provides for its payment. In this way all parochial needs are met, with few canonical regulations or restrictions, provided the canonical requirements regarding offerings for specified Diocesan objects without the parish be not set aside.

Parochial Needs, the rector's salary, the parish's portion of the Bishop's salary, and other current local expenses are met in various methods. The chief source of rev enue are Pew-rentals, Subscriptions, Pledged Weekly Offerings, Unpledged Weekly Offerings, and Endowment Funds.

From Rental of Pews very many large and important parishes derive their income. Among these must be counted many that are most liberal in contributions to Missions and to all works of love. Taking men with their inherited views and habits, in the average strong city parish probably so large and so steady an income for parochial uses as comes through the Pew-rental will not at first be yielded in any other way. It is also true that the system of renting pews for revenue is often so charitably adjusted to individual cases, and is so guarded otherwise, as to be free from the worst evils that accompany it when it is severely carried through. But to large numbers of Churchmen it seems a grave evil that privileges in GOD'S House should be sold for money, an evil that would become a wrong if perpetrated after it can reasonably be brought to an end. So profound has this feeling become with the more vivid apprehension of what is meant by our LORD's Incarnation, that other methods have been sought out for the maintenance of the LORD'S House more in harmony with primitive practice, and involving no special privileges accorded to wealth in sacred things.

Probably in every Diocese churches will now be found in which no pews are rented. In several more than half the congregation do not resort to Pew-rentals. A few Bishops no longer deem it right to consecrate to Almighty GOD a House afterwards to be sold in parcels, and never do it. "Tolerate no restriction at the door, by pride or tax, which can bar out any child of the FATHER," are the earnest words of the House of Bishops in their Pastoral Letter of 1883 A.D. Wherever Pew-rentals are not had, the aim is to bring the parishioners to contribute each according to his ability to meet the parochial expenses, for these plainly must be met in some way.