UNIV. OF ORDINATION ADDRESSES THE DIACONATE Or ministry, let us wait in our ministering.-ROMANS xii. 7. THE ordination of a deacon or deacons alone, apart from the ordination of priests, is so uncommon in most dioceses in these days, that one is rather astonished to find the order of the Church in the rubric at the beginning of the service prescribing a sermon on the duty and office of such as come to be admitted deacons, how necessary that order is in the Church of Christ, and also how the people ought to esteem them in their office. It is on a somewhat free interpretation of that rubric that I am going to say this morning a few words on the subject, in its practical aspect, as contemplated on the present occasion, and, indeed, generally at the present day in our own Church. So I will only advert to the necessity of the institution as a partial fulfilment of the original and primitive order of the three-fold A ministry which our Church maintains in its integrity, with only such obvious and superficial modifications as the experience of the ages has brought to us. And I will not say more of the historical origin of the order, as described to us by St. Luke in the Acts, than this, that as it was instituted to relieve the apostles from some portion of the merely ministerial part of their work, it is regarded by our Church as very largely conversant with the ministerial and mechanical working of pastoral service, although not by any means so restricted as in some communities, in which the name of deacon is given to the lay collaborators of the ministry proper. However purely ministerial the work may be regarded, it is still work for which the help of the Holy Ghost is asked and required, and also in itself a step towards the higher work of priesthood and pastorate. It is no use to say more as to what I am not going to say. At the present moment the work of the deacon during his diaconate is to prepare himself for the priesthood and pastorate, in those matters which his office inherits from the original diaconate as first understood, and which are amplified and defined in the fifth question put to the deacon and answered by him, before the laying on of hands, in the words, "I will so do by the help of God." These, as apart from the service in church, are chiefly two, the instruction of the youth in the Catechism and the visitation of the poor. And it is of these that I shall speak shortly now; and I would do it with such urgency as our present circumstances allow, and as I would say it if there were the candidates alone to hear it. There is, in the first place, a misgiving to be met, that the teaching in school and visitation of the poor is not work of a high spiritual character, and is less intrinsically a part of a clergyman's duty than study, preaching, and divine service in church. Well, the answer to that is that the welfare of the flock is the leading idea of the ministerial work, as it is the leading idea of our Lord's own incarnate ministry; that it is for them that the spiritual mission of the priest is ordained, and that as the atonement of the great High Priest is offered, so, however precious in the sight of God devout service of worship may be, it is for the salvation of men's souls that the ministry was ordained, and that without that close intercourse which school-work and houseto-house visitation involves, the hold of the clergyman on the flock is not maintained, and a very great part of the spiritual side of his ministry is null and void. I say a great part, for it is not all-the intercessory work of prayer is of great and intrinsic value; but even allow |