among masses, lifted, as the old Gentile world was lifted, into a possibility of appreciating and accepting such teaching; larger, fuller ways of making HIM known and loved, so that men should delightedly walk in HIS ways; these are indeed plans right worthy of Churchmen counselling in Wales-like him with whom we began, "Wardens of Faith and Lovers of their Land."

May I be allowed to name, with great respect, the following pamphlets :The Earl of Selborne's Address at Lampeter, October 28th, 1887 (Macmillan). Canon Bevan's "Two Essays" (Hay, 1881). "The Church in Wales;' "The Case of the Church in Wales ;" and "Is the Church in Wales an Alien Institution? (Church Defence Institution). The Rev. A. G. Edwards' (now Bishop of S. Asaph) "Facts and Figures," and "The Church in Wales " (Morgan, Carmarthen). Rev. John Morgan's "The Church in Wales" (Rivingtons). "Some Facts about the

Church in Wales," by Rev. Griffith Roberts (35, Wellington Street, Strand). "The Church in Wales," by a Welsh Rector (Wrexham).

66 Now ye are the body of Christ and members in particular.”—1 Cor. xii. 27. It is impossible to read the Epistles of S. Paul without seeing how large a place in his thoughts and his hopes is occupied by the Church of Christ. To him the Church is no mere human society, however richly endowed with spiritual gifts, however perfectly organized under Apostolic rule.. Before his mind there rises the vision of a spiritual body filling the whole world and enduring through all time; a body instinct with life, even the life of God; a body in which the Incarnate God as truly dwells, and lives, and works, as He did in the body which was born of the Virgin Mary; a body in which He is incorporate rather than incarnate, and by which he carries on upon earth His work of love for us men and for our salvation. To S. Paul the Church of Christ is at once the extension of the Incarnate life of the Son of God and the fruit of His Cross and Passion. In the Church, the Saviour sees of the travail of His soul, while principalities and powers in heavenly places behold in it the manifold wisdom of God. It is the embodiment of redeemed and sanctified humanity; passing on to its perfection and to its heavenly glory; gathering within its embrace the ransomed children of men, and thus continuously taking the manhood into God. It is the counterpart of Christ's own life on earth. Like Him it is conceived by the Holy Ghost; like Him it is compassed with infirmity, but filled with the Spirit; like Him it is tempted and persecuted; it has its hours of prosperity and its hours of affliction; but amidst its changing fortunes, its final triumph is secure; the gates of Hades

shall not prevail against it. S. Paul delights to regard this body from every different point of view. Sometimes, as in the passage before us, he is considering it in the detail of its various parts, and recognising as its analogue the framework and constitution of the human body. He sees in the Church of Christ a diversity of members, each in his own place, with his own gifts and his own functions; but all under the guidance and government of Christ who is the Head. He is not content with stating the general analogy; he pursues and unfolds it in the minutest detail. The members are not merely collected together in a framework, but they are bound together by a living principle, the life of Christ. And in this fellowship each is vitally united with the other, and each depends upon the other. They are members of Christ, but they are also members one of another. In this body he sees a Divine energy at work in every member according to his place or power. Elsewhere he tells us that the body, in closest union with the Head, is compacted together by that which every joint supplieth, according to the effectual working of every part in its measure, and that thus the body is at once increased and perfected; growing up into Him in all things which is the Head, even Christ. It is on this last thought that S. Paul especially delights to dwell. The supreme glory of this glorious body is in its glorified Head. In a passage of surpassing eloquence in his letter to the Ephesians, the Apostle in speaking of the exaltation of Christ to the right hand of God, declares how God who gave His Son to die for us, gave Him also in all the glory of His exaltation to rule over us. "He put all things in subjection under His feet, and gave Him to be Head over all things, to the Church which is His body, the fulness of Him that filleth all in all." In that Church is stored up all His fulness, all His gifts, all His graces, all His blessings, but best of all, Himself. He filleth all in all. He who once gave Himself to die for us, now gives Himself that we may live by Him. No lesser gift could avail for our redemption, no lesser can work out our full salvation. As on the cross He ransomed us by His death, so in the Church He saves us by His life. To S. Paul this is the great hope of our calling, this is the riches of the glory of our inheritance among the saints, our union with Christ in His Church. In his work for the Master this was the faith which nerved him and urged him on; even in his trials and sufferings this was the faith which sustained him. "I am filling up on my part that which is lacking of the afflictions of Christ in my flesh for his body's sake which is the Church."

Such was the vision ever present with the Apostle. But it was no empty dream-it was no mere forecast of a far off future; it was a vision, truly seen, although seen with the eye of faith. It was, to him, a great fact in the history of the world, a living and personal power working out results at once

stupendous and everlasting; a vast organism at once human and divine. He sees in it the fulfilment of God's work alike in creation and redemption; the perfecting of His creature, the exaltation of humanity. To S. Paul, Christianity was no mere ingenious device for the salvation of souls from everlasting ruin ; to him the life of faith was no mere scramble for a place of safety, no "sauve qui peut" from the battlefields of sin and death. It was the restoration of humanity, the gathering together of the children of God which are scattered abroad, the perfecting of the Saints, the building up of the body of Christ; above all, the personal union of the creature with the Creator, in whom alone the human heart can find its final and perfect rest. To S. Paul nothing was more real than the Church which is Christ's Body, and Christ Himself in His Church. It underlies all his teaching; it characterizes all his theology; it finds continual expression in his writings. To him the Church is the Spouse of Christ, and she and her Lord are one. Her life is His, her work is His, in all her joys and sorrows He has His share.

It might seem to us, perhaps, that after all this is only a magnificent conception, so far above us and so distant from us. that it can have but little practical influence upon our own position and our work for God; but S. Paul sets the truth before us in a very practical way. It might be said that the picture of the Church which we find in his writings is a picture of the Church universal, the Church of all lands and of all ages; and that the privileges and the blessings which he proclaims, as well as the gifts and the duties of which he speaks, cannot be supposed to belong to the Church of any one nation, especially in these later days; in short, that we cannot claim them for ourselves, or find in his words any comfort or guidance amidst the difficulties and trials and shortcomings of our own life and work in the Church of England. But it must be observed that the words of my text are found not in a Catholic Epistle addressed to the whole of Christendom, nor to an ideal Church of absolute perfection. S. Paul was writing to an infant branch of the Church, whose very infancy had been exceptionally soiled with grievous sin, the Church of a very limited locality, the Church of Corinth. It was to this religious community that he had been unfolding the mystery of the Divine Society, the Church which is Christ's Body, and he ends by bringing home to them in the most practical way their share and interest in all its privileges and all its duties. "Now ye are the body of Christ and members in particular." He reminds them not only that they form part of the body, but that each branch of the Church has the characteristics of the whole. S. Chrysostom in commenting upon this passage expounds the words of the Apostle thus: "Your Church," he says, "is part of that Church which

is throughout the whole world, and of that body which is constituted of all Churches." In that sense of the words they apply to the Church of England as well as to the Church of Corinth. We may apply them to ourselves to-day; "Now ye are the body of Christ and members in particular."

The Church then is a body, and each branch of the Church is also a body. If this be so, there are least three conditions which must be present in every Church. There must first of all be unity. The Church is Christ's body, and it is one. Each single body is a reproduction of the whole. When we speak of the body of man, its nature and its structure, its parts and its organs, we speak of that which is in every man. What is true of the body of man is true of each human body. So it must be in the Body of Christ. The order and organization of the Church, which is His body, must be the same in each single Church. It cannot otherwise be the Body of Christ. There must be unityunity of life and unity of structure. There must not only be one Lord, one faith, one baptism-but one body. The unity of the Church is the unity of her Lord. "As the body is one and hath many members, and all the members of that one body, being many, are one body, so also is Christ." The expression is remarkable, for it is the Church which the Apostle thus designates by the name of her Lord. To him the Church is Christ. He lives in His Church; the Church which is His body. The Church can say, like the Apostle, "I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me. To me to live is Christ." But there is only one body. There are different members, but there cannot be separate bodies. If members are separated they cannot form another body of Christ, or many bodies. The Church has unity in itself; a continuous existence, an unchanging form, an unvarying character. Its ministry is apostolic in its origin and perpetual in its organization. What it has been from the first it must continue to the end. It is the distinctive form which belongs to the body. "The body is one "-not one in time, for it endures through all time; not one in place, for it extends throughout the world; but one in faith and one in form, one life and one body. "So also is Christ." As He dwelt among men in the days of His earthly life, there were others around Him in many respects similar to Himself. To the eye of the world He was only one of them. Yet they were all distinct and separate from Him. They were sons of men, but He was "the Son of Man." They were children of God, but He was the onlybegotten Son; their only hope was to be made one with Him, to be grafted into Him; they could only be heirs of God when joint heirs with Christ.

But if this be so, in what light are we to regard the separated religious communities of our own day, and of our own country. It is not for us to sit in judgment upon