THE CHURCH AND THE MINISTRY IN THE EARLY CENTURIES.
The Church and the Ministry in the Early Centuries: the Eighteenth Series of the Cunningham Lectures. By Thomas M. Lindsay, D.D., Principal of the Glasgow College of the United Free Church of Scotland. (Hodder and Stoughton. 10s. 6d.)—It is not possible in a short notice to give an adequate account of Dr. Lindsay's learned and able lectures. Although the author does not conceal his own opinions, he writes as an historian, and not as a controversialist. The various theories which have been advanced in England and in Germany during recent years regarding the or- ganisation of the Church are lucidly presented and discussed with conspicuous fairness. The book may be recommended not only to students of Church history, but to all interested in the origin and early history of social institutions. Dr. Lindsay's own opinion is that the spirit of early Christianity was democratic. The demo- cratic genius of Christianity, he thinks, if left to itself, might have evolved an organisation which, starting from the unit of the con- gregational meeting, and rising through a series of Synods with widening areas of jurisdiction, might have culminated in a represen- tative Oecumenical Council or Synod which would have given a unity of organisation to the whole Christian Church, and at the same time preserved its primitive democratic organisation. The idea is alluring, if perhaps somewhat Utopian. The book should be read by all interested in the subject. It is pleasing to find quiet scholarly statements, supported by adequate historical learn- ing, taking the place of dogmatic assertion and angry rhetoric in a discussion regarding the constitution of the early Church.
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