His answer to the later utterances of the materialistic school. interest in this task was most touching. He said, almost plaintively, “I want to deliver those lectures; and if I can only complete that course, I think I shall be ready to go." But it was not to be. His work was drawing to its close. He began to yield to the conviction that he must leave the battlefield, and turn his face homeward. He said one day to an old friend, "I have ceased to cumber myself about the things of time and sense, and I have had some precious thoughts about death." On the evening of the 16th of December he was present at the house of Dr. Henry M. Field, with that circle of brethren where he was always found on the Saturday evening, when his health would permit. The night was intensely cold, and he imprudently walked to his home, nearly a mile distant, and never left it again until he left it for his Father's house above. He lay quietly week after week, not as hopeful for himself as his friends were tempted to be, willing to stay by the flesh if God so willed, yet knowing that to depart was to be with Christ. He said, one day, "I have trusted in the Lord Jesus Christ, and have tried to serve him in spite of everything." "And you do now?" was asked. "Yes," was the emphatic reply, "with all my heart." Just before the last sad days when he entered the dark ante-chamber of death, and unconsciousness drew the veil between him and earth, while so feeble that it was doubtful if he could understand the question, some one asked, "Are you able to pray?" The reply came very feebly, "Verbally, no. Actually, yes. I can't talk of much of these things." On Sabbath afternoon, the 4th of February, it seemed as if the hour of release was near. The tidings came as the church which he loved was gathering at the Lord's table, and the thought added deep solemnity to the heightened feeling of the hour, that while the church was drawing nigh to her Lord through symbols, he was passing to the open vision of the King in his beauty. Yet the day waned and the night passed, and still another and another day and night, and yet he lingered. It seemed to those who stood by his bedside, as though a spent swimmer, with distressful breath, were oaring his way over a restless sea, pausing at intervals to look for shore, and then renewing the struggle. And at last, as the morning broke, the beloved son who watched him suddenly saw a great peace come into his face; the lines of struggle faded out, and he knew that land was near. The panting breast was still, the tired child was in his Father's arms. He lay in his last, peaceful sleep, where he had most loved to be in his life, among his books, in the chamber where his active brain had wrought so vigorously for God's truth, and where he had held such high and earnest communion with the mighty dead of the ages. So he has passed unto the general assembly and church of the first-born, which are written in heaven. He is with the Christ whom he loved forever. He sees no more through a glass darkly, but face to face. Being dead, he yet speaketh: speaketh through the lips of the scores of Gospel ministers who have gone from under his hand to their work; speaketh in the written thoughts which will none the less go on with their work of moulding minds and hearts in knowledge and love of the truth, now that the hand which penned them is still; speaketh in the ever-loudening voice of the church, to whose service his life was given, and to heal the divisions of which his calm wisdom contributed so much; speaketh in the impress of his character, so sweet, so true, so strong, so tender, upon those who knew him best, and therefore loved him best. "For safe with right and truth he is! As God lives, he must live alway; No night for children of the day." To him, as to Jacob, the vision of the angels has come. The sleeper has gone away. The ladder and the angels are not for our grosser sense, and the stones are black and bare; but there is still the pillar, the monument of consecrated character, and so it is bright sunshine on the spot where the pilgrim "tarried for a night," and we say, as we draw near, "This is the gate of heaven." Art. V-EVANGELISTS AND LAY-EXHORTERS.* By Rev. J. M. P. OTтs, D. D., Wilmington, Del. PART FIRST-EVANGELISTS. THERE is no reason to suppose that the four evangelists have given an exhaustive account of all that Jesus said and did in that last interview with his disciples on the Mount of Ascension. But, as some of them record facts omitted by others, we may safely infer that many things were said and done on that memorable occasion, not recorded by any one of them. They all have chronicled the great commission given by the Master to his church, as the enlarged charter for the new dispensation, in which it was then made the duty of the church to go into the world, to preach the gospel in every nation, and to teach every creature to observe and do all things whatsoever he had spoken unto them. But they are all silent as to what offices Christ instituted by which this great commission was to be carried into effect. It is, however, the economy of the Holy Scriptures, that one inspired penman should supply the omissions of others, where this is necessary to complete this revelation; and, as this is done incidentally, it furnishes a strong internal evidence of the truthfulness of the sacred records. We have an instance of this in the case before us. The evangelists tell us that Christ, on the ascension-day, gave a new and enlarged commission to the church, and then the apostle Paul, in one of his epistles, incidentally supplies what seems to be lacking, by telling us that among his ascension gifts was the appointment of certain offices by which the gospel commission was to be put into execution. When he ascended on high he gave gifts unto men, and among these gifts were apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers. Two of these, apostles and prophets, in the very nature of their offices, were intended to be temporary, and when they had served their specific purposes they ceased to exist, leaving evangelists, pastors, and teachers as the permanent officers, who are to go into all the world, to preach the gospel in every nation, and to teach every nation to know and do the will of *Evangelists in the Church. By Rev. P. C. Headly. Henry Hoyt, Boston. Christ unto salvation. Collating Eph. iv. with Rom. xii. and I Cor. xii., we find that the permanent officers in the Christian dispensation are evangelists, pastors and teachers, ruling elders and deacons, by whose official labors, as supplemented by the prayers, exhortations, and services in various ways of the general brotherhood, the gospel is to be spread over the world, until the knowledge of Christ shall fill the whole earth as the waters do the great deep. But it is not our purpose in this essay to give a dissertation on ecclesiastical polity in general, but to select from among our Saviour's ascension gifts the office of the Evangelist, and inquire into its import and importance. We begin by inquiring, what is the nature and import of the evangelistic office? This question can be best answered by a careful consideration of the public duties and labors of those who, in apostolic times, filled this office. It is, therefore, necessary for us to know, at the outset, who, of those mentioned in the New Testament, held this position. We may enumerate as evangelists, Luke, Mark, Titus, Timothy, Philip, Epaphras, Epaphroditus, Tychichus, Trophimus, Demas, Apollos, and, on Calvin's authority, "perhaps, also, the seventy disciples, whom Christ ordained to occupy the second station of the apostles."* From among these we will select Timothy, and prove that he was an evangelist; and then, from the official instructions imparted to him by the apostle Paul about his labors, and from his official acts, deduce the nature and functions of the office he filled. Well, then, was Timothy an evangelist? He was a pastor, an apostle, a diocesan bishop, or an evangelist. It is quite evident that he was not a pastor, because he was all his ministerial life an itinerating preacher. He never had a settled flock over which he could have been the pastor. He could not have been an apostle, because he was destitute of the prime qualifications requisite to that office. He never saw the Lord Jesus Christ, either before his crucifixion or after his resurrection. The apostle was a witness on personal knowledge of the fact of the resurrection. In order to give this qualification for the apostolic office to Paul, Christ appeared unto him by miracle, as to one born out of due season. There is no inti* Vide Inst., book iv, chap. iii, sec. 4. † Acts i: 21, 22; xxii: 14, 15; and 2 Cor. xii: 12. mation to be found in Scripture that Timothy was an apostle. On the contrary, Paul, in writing to him, is careful to style himself an apostle, but equally careful not to give this appellation to Timothy. Paul always addressed Timothy as being inferior to himself in office. His style of address is inexplicable on the hypothesis that Timothy was an apostle. Hence, the argument is narrowed down to the alternative-Timothy was either a diocesan bishop or an evangelist. This brings us into the great battle-field between Prelacy and Presbytery. We might summarily dismiss this point by saying that we have already shown that Timothy was not, and could not have been, an apostle, because he never saw the risen Lord; and, inasmuch as it is claimed that diocesan bishops are successors to the apostles, therefore, he could not have been a bishop in the prelatic sense of the term. This would be simply denying that there is, or can be, in the church any such office as that of diocesan bishops and successors to the apostles. This is what we believe to be the fact; but allowing as a conceit what we cannot concede as a fact, we hold that Timothy could not have been a diocesan bishop, for the following reasons: 1. He could not have been a diocesan bishop in the modern sense of the office, because he was ordained to his office " by the laying on of the hands of the presbytery." Of the particular session of the presbytery which ordained him, Paul was a member-very probably the moderator. In either case, he would have, conjointly with the other presbyters, imposed his hands on Timothy in the act of ordination.* Presbytery, according to the prelatic theory, could not have ordained a diocesan bishop. 2. Timothy could not have been the bishop of Ephesus-of which he was bishop, if bishop at all-because he remained there only at the earnest entreaty of Paul, and that, too, for a specific reason assigned. It would have been a very curious thing for Paul to have exhorted the bishop of Ephesus to remain at home and discharge his diocesan duties. If Timothy was the bishop of Ephesus, he must have been a very delinquent bishop, to have given occasion for such a charge. Such a bishop deserved to be ignored, as, indeed, Paul did subseti Tim. i: 3. 19 *1 Tim. iv: 14; and 2 Tim. i: 6. New Series, No. 22. |