Page:Three introductory lectures on the study of ecclesiastical history.djvu/28

20 as in that of the world, in the history of the Christian Church, as in that of the Jewish, there is a distinct unity of parts, an onward progress from scene to scene, from act to act, towards an end yet distant and invisible; a unity and a progress such as gives consistency and point to what would else be a mere collection of isolated and disjointed facts.

Let us then, before we conclude, briefly notice the successive stages through which, eventually, our course of study must lead us, and the interest especially attaching to each.

The first period is that which contains the great question, almost the greatest which Ecclesiastical History has to answer,—How was the transition effected from the age of the Apostles to the age of the Fathers, from Christianity, as we see it in the New Testament, to Christianity, as we see it in the next century, and as, to a certain extent, we have seen it ever since?

No other change equally momentous has ever since affected its fortunes, yet none has ever been so silent and secret. The stream, in that most critical moment of its passage from the everlasting hills to the plain below, is lost to our view at the very point where we are most anxious to watch it; we may hear its struggles under the overarching rocks; we may catch its spray on the boughs that overlap its course; but the torrent itself we see not, or see only by imperfect glimpses. It is not so much a period for ecclesiastical History, as for