such unspeakable benefits are to be reaped, you whine about your want of leisure and your poverty?

'But, at any rate,' he proceeds, 'the very poorest of you, if he attends to the continual reading of the Scriptures that takes place here, need not be ignorant of anything that the Scriptures contain. You will say this is impossible. If it is, I will tell you why it is impossible. It is because many of you do not attend to the reading that takes place here ; you come here for form's sake, and then straightway go home; and some who remain are not much the better than those who go away, being present with us only in the body, not in the spirit.'

But there is another reason which Roman Catholics give now for keeping back the Scriptures from common use, namely, that they are too difficult for the unlearned to understand. You shall hear how St. Chrysostom dealt with that excuse when his people tendered it as a reason why they did not read the Bible.

'It is impossible for you to be alike ignorant of all; for it was for this reason that the grace of the Spirit appointed that publicans and fishermen, tentmakers and shepherds and goatherds, and unlearned and ignorant men, should compose these books, that none of the unlearned might be able to have recourse to this excuse; that the words then spoken might be intelligible to all; that even the mechanic, and the servant, and the widow-woman, and the most unlearned of all mankind might receive profit and improvement from what they should hear. For it was not for vainglory, like the heathen, but for the salvation of the hearers, that these authors were counted worthy of the grace of the Spirit to compose these writings. For the heathen philosophers, not seeking the common welfare, but their own glory, if ever they did say anything useful, concealed it, as it were, in a dark mist. But the Apostles and prophets did quite the reverse; for what proceeded from them they set before all men plain and clear, as being the common teachers of the world, that each individual might be able, even of himself, to learn the sense of what they said from the mere reading.

'And who is there that does not understand plainly the

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whole of the Gospels? Who that hears "Blessed are the meek," "Blessed are the merciful," "Blessed are the pure in heart," and so forth, needs a teacher in order to comprehend any of those sayings? And as for the accounts of miracles and wonderful works and historical facts, are they not plain and intelligible to any common person? This is but pretext and excuse and a cloke for laziness.

'You do not understand the contents; and how will you ever be able to understand them if you do not study them? Take the book in your hands; read the entire history; and, when you have secured a knowledge of what is simple, come to the obscure and hard parts over and over again. And ir you cannot by constant reading make out what is said, go to some person wiser than yourself; go to a teacher, communicate with him about the thing spoken of; show a strong interest in the matter; and if God see you displaying so much anxiety, He will not despise your watchfulness and earnestness; but if no man teach you what you seek for, He Himself will surely reveal it.

'Remember the eunuch of the Queen of the Ethiopians, who, though a barbarian by birth, and pressed by innumerable cares, and surrounded on all sides by things to occupy his attention, aye, and unable, moreover, to understand what he was reading, was reading, nevertheless, as he sat in his chariot. And if he showed such diligence on the road, consider what he must have done when staying at home. If he could not endure to let the time of his journey pass without reading, how much more would he attend to it when sitting in his house? If, when he understood nothing of what he was reading, he still would not give up reading, much less would he after he had learned. For, in proof that he did not understand what he was reading, hear what Philip saith unto him; "Understandest thou what thou readest ?" And he, upon hearing this, did not blush nor feel ashamed, but confessed his ignorance, and said: "How can I, unless some man should guide me?" Since, then, when he had not a guide, he was occupied even so in reading, he therefore speedily met with one to take him by the hand. God saw his earnestness, accepted his diligence, and straightway sent him a teacher.

'But there is no Philip here now. Aye, but the Spirit that influenced Philip is here. Let us not trifle, beloved, with our salvation. All these things were written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the world are come. Great is the security against sin which the reading of the Scriptures furnishes. Great is the precipice and deep the gulf that opens before ignorance of the Scriptures. It is downright abandonment of salvation to be ignorant of the Divine laws. It is this that has caused heresies: it is this that has led to profligate living it is this that has turned things upside down; for it is impossible for anyone to come off without profit who constantly enjoys such reading with intelligence.'

I dare say that will strike you as good Protestant preaching, and you will be curious to hear what Roman Catholic advocates have to say in reply. Well, what they answer is, that Chrysostom only recommends what they call the ascetic use of the Scriptures, or, as we should say, their use for practical edification and instruction of life. I readily grant that this was the object Chrysostom appears to have had primarily in view in most of the sermons I have quoted, and I will, into the bargain, throw in the concession that Chrysostom would have been very sorry if his hearers had put any heretical meaning on what they read. But all this is beside the present question, namely, Were the Fathers of the ancient Church afraid of their laity reading the Bible, or did they not, on the contrary, recommend and urge them to read it ? Suppose the question was whether calomel ought to be prescribed in a certain disease, and that a doctor who thought its use highly dangerous was pressed with the example of some great authority who had always prescribed it. Suppose, after denying this for some time, he had prescription after prescription shown to him, in which calomel had been employed, what would you think of the answer, 'Oh, he only prescribed calomel for its purgative properties; he did not intend the drug to operate in any other way?' Surely, it is common sense that, if you administer a drug, you cannot prevent it from exercising all its properties. If you let people read the Bible, you cannot prevent them from reflect

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ing on what they read. Suppose, for an example, a Roman Catholic reads the Bible; how can you be sure that he will not take notice himself, or have it pointed out to him, that, whereas Pius IX. could not write a single Encyclical in which the name of the Virgin Mary did not occupy a prominent place, we have in the Bible twenty-one Apostolic letters, and her name does not occur in one of them? The Church of Rome has very good reason to discourage Bible reading by their people; for some of them are very likely to be struck by the fact that the system of the New Testament is very unlike that of modern Romanism.* The ancient Church had

I have not troubled myself to give formal proof of the discouragement of Bible reading by the modern Church of Rome, because I consider that, as I have said above, if her theory be true, her practice is quite right. But as her advocates are now often apt to be ashamed of this practice, I copy the conditions under which, according to the fourth Rule of the Congregation of the Index of Prohibited Books, approved by Pope Pius IV, the exceptional favour of being allowed to read the Bible was granted to persons only able to read it in the vernacular :- Since it is manifest by experience that if the Holy Bible in the vulgar tongue be suffered to be read everywhere without distinction, more evil than good arises, let the judgment of the bishop or inquisitor be abided by in this respect; so that, after consulting with the parish priest or the confessor, they may grant permission to read translations of the Scriptures made by Catholic writers, to those whom they understand to be able to receive no harm, but an increase of faith and piety, from such reading: which faculty let them have in writing. But whosoever shall presume to read these Bibles, or have them in possession without such faculty, shall not be capable of receiving absolution of their sins, unless they have first given up the Bible to the ordinary.'-See Littledale's Plain Reasons, p. 90, where some account is given of subsequent dealings of the Roman Catholic authorities with this subject. But it is needless to produce documentary evidence to anyone who knows the small circulation of the Scriptures in Roman Catholic countries; and even in this country, the small knowledge of the Bible possessed by Roman Catholics in other respects well educated. laudable attempt of a pious French Roman Catholic (Henri Lasserre) to make the Gospel History better known to his countrymen, received ecclesiastical sanction for a time, which has been since withdrawn. I do not think anyone will dispute what Lasserre states in his preface, as to the kind of acquaintance with the Gospel History possessed even by devout Roman Catholics, 'Le Livre que Dieu a placé dans les fondements de l'Eglise-l'Evangile,-est en réalité très rarement lu, même par ceux qui font profession d'être des catholiques fervents. l'est jamais par la multitude des Fidèles. Interrogez en effet vos proches et vos amis, tous ceux qui forment votre entourage; interrogez vousmême, cher lecteur; et vous ne tarderez pas a constater, non peut-être sans un étonnement profond, que, sur cent personnes qui pratiquent les sacrements, il n'en est souvent pas une seule qui ait ouvert l'Evangile

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no such fear. They never desired to teach anything that was not in the Bible; and so they were not afraid of the people discovering contradictions between the Bible and their teaching.

Now, I do not want any quotations I may read to you to mislead you into thinking that the Fathers of the fourth century were English Protestants of the nineteenth. I suppose there is not one of them to whose opinions on all points we should like to pledge ourselves. But such quotations as I have read show that they thoroughly agree with us on fundamental principles. Where they differ from us they differ as men do who, starting from the same principles, work them out in some respects differently. In such a case there is hope of agreement, if each revise carefully the process of deduction from the principles held in common. But our conclusions differ from those of the Church of Rome, because we start from different principles, and pursue a different method. The difference will be the subject of the next Lecture.

autrement qu'au hasard, et pour en parcourir ou en méditer çà et là quelques versets isolés. Le plupart des enfants de l'Église ne connaissent du Livre divin que les fragments, sans ordre logique ni chronologique, reproduits dans le Paroissien, à la messe des fêtes et dimanches de l'année ; et ils n'en ont guère retenu que ces citations particulières, qui se rencontrant plus fréquemment que les autres sur les lèvres des prédicateurs et dans les ouvrages de piété, finissent par prendre, bon gré mal gré, possession des toutes les mémoires et par faire, pour ainsi dire, partie du domaine public. Nous croyons ne rien exagérer en présumant qu'il n'y a peutêtre pas, en moyenne, trois Fidèles par paroisse qui soient allés au delà de cette notion vague." Lasserre considers that the great success in France of Renan's romance purporting to be a life of Jesus, was owing to the prevalent ignorance of the Life as related in the Gospels.