without open rupture and public debate. We need not occupy space in showing that it also works to the advantage of the minister.

Such are some of the excellencies and defects of the itinerant system, as they seem to us. We have tried to discuss the subject fairly, extenuating nothing which weighs against our system, nor setting down aught in malice against others. There remains as yet unnoticed one point of vital importance, in reference to which we cannot well in this paper do more than state our convictions and hint our reasons. Holding firmly to the itinerant principle, believing it to be good, wise, and efficient, we doubt whether in our case two important elements of strength are adjusted to each other in due proportion, as the laws of the Church now stand. Slowness and deadness on the one hand, and instability on the other, are the dangers that beset the Church of God, the Scylla and Charybdis of the waters which we navigate. The coming of a new pastor rouses the Church and community, and attracts new hearers. His personal acquaintance with the people, his knowledge of their spiritual state, and their respect and friendship for him, are among the instrumentalities which consolidate the Church, and bind men to their duty. The coming of the new messenger tends to attract; his remaining for a time tends to make permanent the results of his ministry. The Church whose forces are rightly adjusted will possess in a good degree both elements of strength. The Methodist Episcopal Church has the elements which give force and effect in rousing the community and attracting hearers; but has she in an equal degree the elements of solid strength and stability? Is she as powerful to hold as she is to reach? We think not. We appeal to our statistics for evidence.

In the year 1856 there were 800,327 souls, members and probationers, in our fold. Since that date nearly 1,000,000 of probationers have been reported. About 90,000 deaths have also been reported. Had there been no losses except by death, we would this day have numbered about 1,700,000 members and probationers, whereas the numbers reported in 1864 are only 928,320. In eight years three quarters of a million of names strangely disappear from our Church records. At the General Conference of 1864 the bishops reported a

decrease of 50,951 during the previous four years, and accounted for it on the ground that the war had broken up Churches and scattered societies over all the area where raged the battle. Yet during those same years more than 100,000 accessions were annually reported. How shall we explain this fearful depletion? Some other denominations, the Congregationalists for instance, in publishing their statistics report in a separate column the members who have removed their residence, and yet have not formally transferred their membership. These form a considerable item in the aggregate, and so they would in our Church were we to number them; still, after due allowance thus made for non-resident members, there remains a vast multitude not accounted for, save on the ground that they are cases of religious failure. The fact is appalling. It calls for the deep and prayerful scrutiny of every lover of Zion. It is only too apparent that instability is the weakness, the sin, the shame of our Church. Yet we do not believe that the grace of God is any less powerful with us, or human nature any worse than with others.

We cannot resist the conviction that our forces are not well adjusted. We are powerful to attract and weak to hold. We cast the net on the right side of the ship and inclose a multitude of fishes, but the net breaks. We believe that the recent lengthening of the pastoral term will tend to give us stability, and that this tendency would have been stronger if the term had been extended to five years instead of three.

The great problem to which the most accurate observers and the closest thinkers of our Church should apply themselves, is to find some remedy for this mighty evil, if there be any remedy within the reach of human hands. Divine power is indeed the source of all true religious life, both in its beginning and its continuance; nevertheless we are bound so to adjust our plans of action to the divine methods that we may not "frustrate the grace of God."

ART. IV.-LIFE AND MARTYRDOM OF STEPHEN.

It is very natural that our attention, while seldom dwelling upon the martyrdom of the other disciples and early Christians, except for a specific purpose, should be fixed especially upon that of Stephen, succeeding so soon the death of Christ, so early in his Christian ministry, and being with the attending circumstances the only prominent event recorded of his life. Usually, therefore, we speak of Stephen as the first martyr and leave his story there, without pausing to note the sig nificant importance of his earnest Christian life with its sad and sudden termination. But such a life cannot be so short nor closed so suddenly as not to enthrone itself among the active and eternal moral forces of the world. The seed dropped from the hand of a faithful servant of truth in the space of an hour will be springing up and bearing fruit ages hence, while he is slumbering in the tomb. It may be a little leaven, but it shall add its force in leavening the whole lump.

THE APPOINTMENT OF STEPHEN AS ARCHDEACON OF JERUSALEM.

The first notice we have of Stephen is his appointment as chief steward or deacon in the distribution of food and money to the destitute Christians of Jerusalem. The establishment of this board of stewards was an outgrowth, we may say a necessary outgrowth, of the circumstances of the times and the genius of Christianity. For many of the Jews of Palestine were extremely poor, and of this class very many became Christians. The cry then was, as now, "The poor ye have always with you." In other cases the odium of bearing the Christian name undermined the livelihood of those dependent upon their labor for support, and thus extensive almsgiving on the part of the wealthy became necessary. It is a fact recorded of the apostolic Church, that one of its chief characteristics was its bountiful charities. The work of making these distributions seems to have been left at first, under a general supervision of the disciples, to Jews of Hebrew descent who were either careless, or purposely less attentive to those who spake the Greek language than to those of their own dialect.

This led to the following complaint: "And in those days, when the number of the disciples was multiplied, there arose a murmuring of the Grecians against the Hebrews, because their widows were neglected in the daily ministration." The term widows is here put by a figure of speech for all poor and needy persons. The apostles listened attentively to the statement of these grievances, and, though willing to do everything in their power, deemed it expedient to inform the complainants that they themselves could not attend to such work, for the ministration of the word and prayer was their peculiar mission.

The apostles did not build church edifices; they were not universal business agents, neither voluntarily, nor did they allow such offices to be forced upon them. They preached to the poor as well as the rich, to the rich as well as the poor, and for this they prepared themselves; few public teachers have been better prepared. They preached at home and abroad; at Athens and at Rome; in Britain and in Spain; everywhere healing the sick that were brought unto them; but the charitable ministrations to the poor and the business affairs of the Church were placed in other hands.

Complaint is sometimes made that the ministry of the present time is not apostolic, because a careful pulpit preparation, in many instances, is made the first business of the preacher. Possibly, in other respects, the modern ministry falls short of the primitive standard, but in this respect it is thoroughly apostolic. If space were allowed in this article it would be easy to show, on the other hand, that a Church modeled after the apostolic plan would relieve the ministry, instead of imposing duties upon it that could be performed equally well by the laity. It would not call upon a minister to superintend the erection of its edifices, make him chairman of all business committees, nor leave to him almost exclusively the care of the poor and the sick. Religion and religious duties, in such a Church, would not be paid for with money; Christians would not live by proxy, nor go to heaven by proxy, but live as they ought and go there themselves. The apostles, to relieve themselves entirely from these duties, which properly belonged to others, that they might give themselves continually to prayer and the ministry of the word, and to make a proper division of labor, and also to provide carefully against future partiality,

recommend the appointment of seven men to take the entire charge of this business, from the defective performance of which complaints had arisen. Their first choice was Stephen who was thus constituted president or chairman of the board. The qualifications required for this office were of a high order, and Stephen is especially commended and singled out from among the seven. There is a reiteration of emphatic and almost superlative phrases used respecting him. His name and appointment would indicate that he was a Hellenistic Jew, speaking the Greek language, and familiar also with the Hebrew. He was very likely a convert of St. Peter's on the day of Pentecost; and his character, as set before us in the Acts, is the happiest evidence of the soundness of his conversion. The Fathers speak of him as a man of extensive learning; which is also indicated in his speech before the Sanhedrim, and in the skill and power with which he met and overthrew his opponents in the synagogues of the city. "In fact," says Howson, "by his peculiar power he shot far ahead of his six companions and far above his peculiar office." He was a leading man among the disciples even, and in some respects superior to any of them. And had he lived he would undoubtedly soon have been appointed a regular preacher, relieved of his duties as local deacon, and have been numbered among the apostles.

STEPHEN BEFORE THE HELLENISTIC SYNAGOGUE.

There was in Jerusalem at this time a synagogue of learned foreigners, called the synagogue of "The Libertines, and Cyrenians, and Alexandrians, and of them of Cilicia and of Asia." Stephen by his education and nationality was a prominent member of this body, and retained his connection with it even after his conversion. Synagogues in Jerusalem were then numerous, distinguished, like different sects of modern Christians, by the peculiar views held. The early Christian Church, therefore, might, without impropriety, have been called the Galilean synagogue; for the disciples at first, following the example of Christ, did not separate themselves from the Jewish nation, the public festivals, nor from the temple worship. The separation and development were gradual, and find illustration in the formation of our own Church. Wesley and his followers, while organizing Methodism, very