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Victory might remain in such a contest with the more ignorant and fanatical.

But now a decisive question must be put, Is the principle so clearly formulated in 1661 to be the last word to be said in the British East Africa of the 20th century and in the mission field generally? Is no rider to be attached, when the principle is applied along the Uganda Railway, and when Episcopal Englishmen meet Presbyterian Scotsmen outside Great Britain?

It is, then, to be noted that the Episcopal system is asserted in the Preface to the Ordinal affirmatively for the Church of England, but that no repudiation is made of any of the systems adopted by other Churches or Christian bodies. It is declared that the three Orders are scriptural and apostolic, and therefore that they are to be maintained in the Church of England,'* but it is not said that ministrations are invalid wherever the three Orders are not found. No other Christian system is attacked. The preface to the Ordinal takes up strong defensive ground; it asserts that From the Apostles' time there have been these Orders of Ministers in Christ's Church; Bishops, Priests, and Deacons.' It does not, however, maintain that the Episcopal system is Catholic or universal according to the threefold test of the Vincentian Canon (quod ubique, quod semper, quod ab omnibus'), but only that it belongs to the 'quod semper.' It is, therefore, permissible to a faithful member of the Church of England to admit, e.g. (if the historical grounds seem to him to be strong enough) that there existed also a Presbyterian system in the Apostolic and later generations of the ante-Nicene Christian Church. In the Ordinal, the most authoritative document in the matter we are considering, the Ecclesia Anglicana,' while confessing her own whole-hearted adhesion to the Episcopal system, deliberately abstains both from condemning other systems and from denying the efficacy of the ministrations of non-Episcopal Churches. Does the Bishop of Zanzibar regard the Ordinal as therefore, by defect, heretical?

III. A third important criticism passed by the Bishop on the proposals of Kikuyu is substantially contained in

* This phrase is repeated with emphasis in this Preface.

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that which has just been discussed. The scheme 'does not provide a Priest for the Celebration of the Holy Communion.' The Kikuyu proposal under this head is, That the administration of Sacraments shall be normally by recognised Ministers of the Church occupying the District.' Now the first comment which is to be made with justice on this formula is that it does not imply (as the Bishop's criticism might suggest) a movement towards ecclesiastical irregularity, but just the reverse. As regards the Celebration of the Holy Communion it means that an attempt is to be made to improve present conditions in British East Africa. A recognised minister is (so far as possible) to be made responsible for the due Celebration of the Eucharist.

And here it is necessary to put one side of the case (which is sometimes ignored) quite plainly. Those who wish to prove to demonstration that the presence of a priest has been held necessary by the Church from the earliest times to secure a valid Eucharist set themselves an impossible task. Can they explain the implication of such a passage as Matt. xviii. 20* without most serious misgiving? Can they turn back the evidence of Didache X with its direction that 'prophets' (who may or may not be 'priests') are to be allowed to offer the Eucharist in any terms they please? Can they feel quite sure that Tertullian expresses only the Montanist view when he writes (de Exhort. Cast.' 7), 'Ubi tres, ecclesia est, licet laici'? Can they be certain that the statements asserting the priesthood of the laity which occur down to the fourth and fifth centuries were merely otiose?† Did laymen never act upon them? and, if they did so act, did they indeed draw upon themselves any ecclesiastical censure for the action? Doubts on these points are too deeply founded to be set aside. The doctrine that the action of a priest is necessary to secure

For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.'

+ Ambrosiaster (quoted by Lightfoot, 'Philippians,' page 185, note) writes: In lege nascebantur sacerdotes ex genere Aaron Levitae ; nunc autem omnes ex genere sunt sacerdotali, dicente Petro Apostolo, “Quia estis genus regale et sacerdotale," etc. Ambrosiaster applies the text (1 Pet. ii, 9) to individuals, though the reference of the words is in the first place collective to a priestly community (Hort in loco).

a valid celebration of the Eucharist is not, in the full sense of the word, Catholic.'

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Both the Church of England and the Church of Rome appeal to Scripture and to History in support of the views which they severally take as to the Threefold Ministry and the necessity of a priest for the Eucharist. But the Church of England, in revising her Ordinal in 1552 and again in 1661, took to heart a lesson from experience. She realised the truth that universal statements are liable to revision from time to time as fresh evidence is accumulated. So she did not commit herself to the position that Episcopacy prevailed in the days of the Apostles and in the succeeding generations as the only lawful form of Church Government. Her statesmen-scholars had learnt how difficult it is to prove the existence of a universal custom and absolute rule. So, with English moderation and practical common-sense, the men of 1552 and of 1661 were content to assert that the Episcopal system which they had received was Apostolic and primitive. Every other 'particular or national church' (Art. 34) was left to read Scripture for itself and to establish the same conclusion for its own system, if it could.

A crisis big with the future of East and Central Africa has overtaken religion in these opening years of the 20th century. If at such a time an unproved theory of Orders or of the efficacy of the Sacraments is allowed to prevent Christian federation and so to check the progress of Christian missions, East Africa in its present state of semi-awakening may fall back either into a revived heathenism (with Voodoo practices!) or into a superficial Mohammedanism. The Issues of Kikuyu' might well be submitted to the Lambeth Conference' of the Bishops of the whole Anglican communion. But, as the Conference does not meet this year, the business will come, on July 27, before the Central Consultative Committee (18 members-six from Great Britain and Ireland), which might be described as the quintessence of it. The next word is with this Committee.

W. EMERY BARNES.

Art. 12.-ROGER BACON.

1. Roger Bacon, sa vie, ses oeuvrages, ses doctrines, d'après des textes inédits. By Émile Charles. Paris: Hachette, 1861.

2. Roger Bacon: Essays contributed by various writers on the occasion of the commemoration of the seventh centenary of his birth. Collected and edited by A. G. Little. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1914.

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3. Rogeri Baconis opera quaedam hactenus inedita. Edited by J. S. Brewer. Public Record Commission, 1859. 4. The Opus Majus' of Roger Bacon. Edited by J. H. Bridges. London: Williams & Norgate, 1897-1900. 5. The Greek Grammar of Roger Bacon, and a Fragment of his Hebrew Grammar. Edited by Rev. E. Nolan and S. A. Hirsch. Cambridge: University Press, 1902. 6. Opera hactenus inedita Rogeri Baconi (fasc. 1 Metaphysica; ff. 2, 3: Communia Naturalium: f. 4: De Celestibus). Edited by R. Steele. Oxford: University Press, 1905, etc.

7. Un fragment inédit de l'Opus Tertium de Roger Bacon, précédé d'une Étude sur ce fragment. Edited by Pierre Duhem. Quarrachi, 1909.

8. Fratris Rogeri Bacon Compendium Studii Theologiae. Edited by H. Rashdall. Aberdeen: University Press, 1911.

9. Part of the Opus Tertium of Roger Bacon, including a fragment now printed for the first time. Edited by A. G. Little. Aberdeen: University Press, 1912.

THE modest ceremony which took place on June 10the unveiling of Mr Hope Pinker's statue of Roger Bacon in the Museum at Oxford-may be taken as a recognition by his University of the efforts of European students in recent years to elucidate the work and to publish the writings of one of the greatest of Oxford men. His own Order chose its most learned and famous member to do honour to its long-forgiven son; Rome sent from the Vatican the Vice-Prefect of its library, a polished medievalist; the University of Paris, his second Alma Mater, despatched as her representative that one of her distinguished sons who has done most to make his work familiar in France; the Collège de France, a

monument of the French return to classicism, and the Institut, the intellectual centre of modern France, joined in the celebration, and emphasised the international character of his fame; and English science, in the person of one of its titular heads, handed over the statue to a Chancellor of academic as well as political distinction.

It is not inopportune at such a time to endeavour to trace the history of the change in Bacon's position from contempt to reverence in the estimation of modern Europe since the Renaissance, and to gather up what is known or can be reasonably assumed as to his life, his writings, the teachers he followed, his doctrines, and their influence on his contemporaries and successors. At no time since his death could such an enquiry have been entered on with an equal wealth of materials; and, though many gaps occur in our knowledge which are hardly likely to be filled, we have sufficient facts to ensure a general accuracy of outline in our picture.

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The first mention of Roger Bacon in modern literature is made by Pico della Mirandola, the brilliant young nobleman and friend of Lorenzo de Medici. A marvel of classical learning-witness his famous positions 'de omni re scibili' ('et de quibusdam aliis,' as Voltaire wittily remarked)-his writings show much knowledge of the great teachers of the 13th century, and a not inconsiderable acquaintance with some of them only to be read in manuscript, including the 'Opus Majus,' the 'De Erroribus Studentium Theologie,' and the Compendium Studii Theologie' of Bacon. Pico's interest in the Cabbala, which he took to be a system as old as Abraham, but which we now know to be, in the main, a creation of the 13th century, led him to a general attack upon astrologers, in the course of which he reflected very severely on Bacon for his credulity and his reliance on magic and astrology, while in another work he ridiculed the explanation of the moon's action upon the tides, which Bacon had adapted from Grosseteste. Pico's nephew, Francesco, repeated the attack; and to him and Pico may be ascribed the origin of Bacon's European reputation as a magician. It is probable that the strictures of Pico were one of the contributory causes to the printing of Bacon's epistle De Secretis Operibus Naturae et de Nullitate Magiae' in 1542, which gave

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