Page:Three introductory lectures on the study of ecclesiastical history.djvu/20

12 often the very opposite of these—its merely accidental, outward, ceremonial machinery. We call a contest for the retention or the abolition of vestments "ecclesiastical," not a contest for the retention or the abolition of the slave-trade. We include in "ecclesiastical history" the life of the most insignificant bishop or the most wicked of popes, not the life of the wisest of philosophers or the most Christian of kings. But such a limitation is as untenable in fact as it is untrue in theory. The very stones of the spiritual temple cry out against such a profanation of the rock from which they were hewn. If the Christian religion be a matter not of mint, anise, and cummin, but of justice, mercy, and truth; if the Christian Church be not a priestly caste, or a monastic order, or a little sect, or a handful of opinions, but 'the whole congregation' of 'faithful men,' 'dispersed throughout the world;' if the very word, which of old represented the Chosen "People", is now to be found in the "laity;" if the ancient maxim be correct, Ubi tres sunt laici, ibi est ecclesia; then the range of the history of the Church is as wide as the range of the world which it was designed to penetrate, as the whole body which its name includes.

By a violent effort, no doubt, the two spheres can be kept apart; by a compromise, tacit or understood, the student of each may avoid looking the other in the face; under special circumstances, the intimate relation between the course of