his office-work as an evangelist he seems in no respect to have been inferior to other preachers of the time. In 2 Tim. iv. 5, it is said to Timothy, "Do the work of an evangelist; make full proof of thy ministry." What was Timothy's public office-work? He was not an apostle. In 2 Cor. i. 1, it reads, "Paul, an apostle, and Timothy our brother; again, Col. i. 1, "Paul, an apostle of Christ, and Timothy our brother." If Paul had regarded Timothy as an apostle, while calling himself one, he would not have been so uncourteous as to say that Timothy was not one, but only a brother. Again, Timothy was not bishop of Ephesus, or settled pastor of the church there. When Paul, according to Acts xx. 1, went into Macedonia in the year 60, he besought Timothy to abide at Ephesus to regulate certain disorders in the church at that place-"to charge some that they teach no other doctrine." Addressing him at Ephesus in the 1st Epistle to Timothy, he informs him what qualifications should be possessed by teachers, bishops, and deacons. He tells him to "rebuke not an elder, but entreat him as a father;" to "lay hands suddenly on no man ;" that is, to ordain no one for the church hastily. These directions imply that the church at Ephesus was to have officers who were other persons than Timothy. They were given Timothy as directions to aid him in securing proper men for the offices in the church. But further, the sojourn of Timothy at Ephesus was not intended by Paul to be permanent, as it would have been had he, in modern language, been settled over the church. In the second Epistle, probably written from Rome, Paul says, "Do thy diligence to come shortly unto me." "Do thy diligence to come before winter." Hence it appears that Timothy, at the request of the apostle, spent several years at Ephesus on a special mission, from

which he was recalled when the work was done. The general duties of this work were indicated when Paul wrote, "Do the work of an evangelist." This work included acting for the church in the ordination of officers, teaching and exhorting and preaching the word as did Philip the evangelist, but there is no proof that Timothy, in the modern sense, was ever installed over any church. He labored not as a settled pastor, but as a stated supply, an evangelist at and about Ephesus.

The work of Titus was similar. He was not a permanent bishop or pastor in any church, but was left by Paul in Crete to act for the churches in the ordination of their bishops or elders. Paul did not intend that he should settle there, for in chapter iii. 12, he says, "when I shall send Artemas unto thee, or Tychicus, be diligent to come unto me to Nicopolis,"- we find him expected at Troas, on a mission to the church at Corinth,—and on another to Dalmatia.

He was never settled, but labored for the churches wherever the providence of God opened the way.

It is not essential to the argument that we should be able to adduce a score of instances like these, but only to mark, the nature of the work performed by these evangelists. As we are not arguing with believers in Episcopacy, it is not necessary to prove that they were not diocesan bishops, that they did not ordain men by their own authority. They performed the ceremony of ordination for, and in the name of, the churches, as did other ministers. They preached, they baptized, and, by parity of reason, administered the ordinances of the church, and possessed the same prerogatives to act for churches at their request in matters now committed to councils, as did bishops or elders. The angels of the seven churches in Asia Minor could not have performed more official acts

than did these men. They were not surpassed in this respect by any modern pastor, even those who have been settled from three to seven times. But to prove beyond question that the order of New Testament evangelists was not merely a temporary measure for those times, we have only to apply the old principle, "Ratio manet, lex manet.”

4. The circumstances which rendered it necessary to establish the order of evangelists in the days of primitive Christian churches still exist, even in nominally Christian lands, and will continue to exist until the millennium.

This is a sufficient answer to the assertion that no provision is found in the Scriptures for the perpetuation of this order of men. If this be so, which is doubted, the reply is, the command to continue the order exists in the still existing circumstances which at first led to its institution. There is no direct command to continue the order of deacons in modern churches. If it be said the qualifications of deacons are given, thus implying the permanency of the order, then the charge of Paul to the evangelist Timothy gives the qualifications of the order, and implies its permanence. We infer that the diaconate should continue, because the state of things which led the Head of the church to appoint it still continues. What better reason than this do we need for continuing the office of evangelists? In the days of the apostles, there was need of men to go, like Philip to Samaria, and preach and secure the existence of new churches. There was need of men to preach to churches that could not have settled pastors and to take care of them, as Titus did of the churches in the Island of Crete, until men could be found who could be ordained elders or pastors of them. In wide regions of our own country, we find to-day that the same necessity exists. In thousands of communities, and some of them in regions where there

are settled ministers, as we learn from the recent missionary enterprise undertaken in New England by one who was lately a beloved secretary of the American Home Missionary Society, there is need of ministerial effort to gather believers into little churches, to preach to them, to carry them through a period of weakness. It requires no mean order of talent, no imperfect degree of experience and piety for this work. The infancy of such churches must be watched over by men who can be to them all that any installed minister can be to his church; and yet these churches can not settle a preacher because the men who preach to them must each have several churches in the same condition under their care, or because where the preacher spends all his time with one church, it is too unsettled itself to think of settling its minister, — too dependent on missionary aid to assume the obligations of a church receiving a pastor. This is the "logic of events" by which we prove that the New Testament order of evangelists is now valid. These are "the stubborn facts" which some of our brethren overlook when they write of "the uncongregational way of ordaining ministers" without installing them over some particular church, and intimate that we are guilty of spiritual concubinage at the West. ("Cong. Quarterly," 1864, page 360.) If so, we are less guilty than some of the evangelists mentioned in the New Testament. They often had more than several of these young concubines; Western ministers generally have only from one to four.

But how should the order of evangelists be ordained? This is not a difficult question. Indeed it is, in practice, solved by our New England churches. In the contest of our Puritan fathers against Episcopal ordination, they took the ground "that the essence of the outward call of an ordinary officer consisted in his free election by the church

and his acceptance of that choice"-that "in churches where there are no elders, imposition of hands on officers elected may be performed by some of the brethren orderly chosen by the church for that service"-that "particular churches are the first subjects of this power of ordaining." ("Apology for the Liberties of the Churches in New England," pages 61, 62.) The theory was, that or dination must be an act of some particular church, for itself. The person ordained must become the pastor of the church ordaining him, and hence their custom was, "a new imposition of hands upon every new call to an exercise of the ministry." (Ib. 148.) That is, the dismission of a minister so far unordained him that the next church calling him must perform the ceremony again. But this theory was not strictly carried out. In a letter of Charles Morton, he says, "Yet to us who came from Europe, Mr. Bayley and myself, it (the imposition of hands) was abated."

It was too much to treat those good men as wholly unordained, and in modern installations the same custom prevails. The candidate is viewed as more a minister than a licentiate, as virtually ordained and only to be installed pastor. We have a feeling that one who has been once solemnly ordained, and has performed all the functions of the ministerial office, is not really unordained by honorable dismission. By common consent such ministers are allowed to preach and administer the sacraments. In practice, our churches do not abide by the logic that a pastor is ordained by some church for its own pastorate, and that when he leaves this, he ceases to be an ordained minister. The local church, in feeling and in practice, ordains the candidate for life or during good behavior. If he is dismissed honorably, he is furnished with papers commending him to the churches "as an able and devoted minister of the gospel." A pastor of course he is not,

until elected by another church to its pastoral office; but he is deemed an ordained minister. It will be impossible to change this custom. It need not be changed.

The ordination of Timothy may have been by the Presbytery of a particular church. It was certainly in accordance with the wishes and wants of the churches, and it qualified him to be a "stated supply" at Ephesus, or to exercise the functions of the ministry elsewhere. By whom such men as Barnabas and Titus and Philip were ordained, we are not told. A divine call to the ministry is the principal and only essential point. Good order requires that one so called should be formally inducted into the ministerial office by those to whom Christ has delegated that power. If ordained by some church for its own pastoral office, in the intention of that church he may be ordained for them so long as it is wise for him to remain, and, also, for service after that as an evangelist, until settled as pastor of some other church. If a suitable person for the ministry sees a field in which he can do the work of an evangelist, he may ask some church for ordination, that he may go and perform it. If a church not prepared to receive a pastor can find a man qualified for ordination, it may call a council to ordain him without installation.

But we have only to analyze the act of installation and settlement, to show that one who is ordained and preaching to a church or churches, without formal installation is entitled, as respects his people, and in councils where sent by his people to act for them, to the same rights and powers that pertain to installed ministers. The essential things in a settlement are a divine appointment to preach, and a contract between the minister and the people, pledging him to faithful service, and them to Christian co-operation and to his material support.

Leaving out of view the mixed and unscriptural arrangement of church and society which prevails in New England, and making the church, as it was in the primitive days of Christianity, the only party in the agreement with the preacher, one who by mutual consent is chosen by a church to act as its religious teacher, and is desired by the church to fill, in all respects, the of fice of a minister of the gospel for it, is virtually just as much its pastor in respect of rights and duties, as he could be if a council should meet and sanction the agreement.

If the council, according to our theory, has no installing power originating in itself, if this power is from the church and is exercised by the council for it, a minister who has entered into a contract with a church has complied with the essential thing, and the church may deem him its minister and ask him to be its moderator, to control its pulpit, to represent it in councils, with just as much propriety as if a council had reviewed the proceedings and sanctioned them. This is the practice in the West, and no evils result from it. Where the mongrel system of church and society does not exist, there is no need of installation to legalize the contract. Our churches will be held by moral obligation, and by legal too, if the contract is a matter of record on the books; yet a minister will rarely ever find it necessary to appeal to Cæsar for help to collect his salary if he is a prudent man and fit to be in the ministry. We would not, however, recommend that the custom of installation by a council be dispensed with when the contract between people and preacher can be made with a prospect of permanence. But where this is a matter of experiment and doubt,

installation will make it no less so, and it may embarrass both parties.

Where such a custom prevails, as at the West, churches can be regulated in the matter of fellowship with each other in a very simple way.

Our Associations examine the credentials of ministers coming to us and asking a recognition, and our conference of churches receives no church into its body until its covenant and articles of faith have been submitted for examination.

In the West we find it necessary to adopt such action. We believe it scriptural. We shall restrict and weaken ourselves if we refuse to go beyond the doctrine of our old "standards” on this question. They were formed in the mold of circumstances, which do not surround us. They contain truth, but not all truth; they were wise for conditions of society then existing, and for similar conditions now existing. But I misapprehend the genius of Congregationalism if it has no expansive power-no power to adapt itself to new circumstances, none to advance with light and order into the regions of moral chaos which Christ bids us enter. If the system is only adapted to communities already Christianized, it is not the gospel. If it will do for New England, but is not fit for the West, it is not the gospel; for the gospel is adapted to regenerate the West, and to reconstruct the South. The hour has come for Congregationalism to develop its evangelizing agencies. It has the order of evangelists. Let it increase their number, understand their efficiency, and give them its moral and material support.1

1 For comments upon this article, see Editor's Table.