Page:A short account of the rise and progress of the African Methodist Episcopal Church in America.djvu/111

 whose office and order I shall say very little, since there is no great controversy about it, and had it not been to have rendered this discourse complete and entire, I should in silence passed it over. Briefly, therefore, their original institution, as in Acts, 6th chapter and 2d verse, was to serve tables, which included these two things—a looking after the poor and an attendance at the Lord's table. As for care of the poor, Origen tells us that the Deacons dispensed to them the church's money, being employed under the Bishops to inspect and relieve all the indigent within their diocess. As for their attendance at the Lord's table, their office with respect to that consisted in preparing the bread and wine, in cleansing the sacramental cups and other such like things; whence they are called by Ignatious, Deacons of meats and cups; assisting, also, in some places at least, the Bishops or Presbyters in the celebration of the Eucharist, delivering the elements to the communicants; they also preached,&c, and in the absence of the Bishops and Presbyters, baptized. In a word, according to the signification of their name, they were, as Ignatious calls them, the church's servants, set apart on purpose to serve God and attend to their business, being constituted, as Eusebius terms it, for the service of the public." See Lord King, page 82, 5th chap, and 1st verse; also, page 84, 5th chap, and part of the 3d verse.