yet carefully defined body of Churches in view of a serious trial to which they are about to be exposed.

Second Peter, James, and First John are quite indefinite in their address to all Christians. But all of them are

separated by a broad and deep division from the literary epistle written for the public eye. They are informed

and inspired with the intense personal affection which the writers felt for every individual of the thousands

whom they addressed. They are entirely devoid of the artificiality which is inseparable from the literary

epistle; they come straight from the heart and speak straight to the heart; whereas the literary epistle is

always and necessarily written with a view to its effect on the public, and the style is affected and to a

certain degree forced and even unnatural. It was left for the Christian letter to prove that the heart of man is

wide enough and deep enough to entertain the same love for thousands as for one. The Catholic Epistles

are therefore quite as far removed from the class of "literary epistles" as the typical letters of Paul are from

the class of "true letters," as those classes have been defined; and the resemblance in essentials between

the Catholic and the typical Pauline Epistles is sufficient to overpower the points of difference, and to justify

us in regarding them as forming a class by themselves.

This remarkable development, in which law, statesmanship, ethics, and religion meet in and transform the

simple letter, was the work of St. Paul more than of any other. But it was not due to him alone, nor initiated

by him. It began before him and continued after him. It sprang from the nature of the Church and the

circumstances of the time. The Church was Imperial, the visible Kingdom of God. Its leaders felt that their

letters expressed the will of God; and they issued their truly Imperial rescripts. "It seemed good to the Holy

Spirit and to us" is the bold and regal exordium of the first Christian letter.

Christian letters in the next two or three centuries were often inspired by something of the same spirit.

Congregation spoke boldly and authoritatively to congregation, as each was moved by the Spirit to write:

the letter partook of the nature of an Imperial rescript, yet it was merely the expression of the intense interest

taken by equal in equal, and brother in brother. The whole series of such letters is indicative of the strong

interest of all individuals in the government of the entire body; and they form one of the loftiest and noblest

embodiments of a high tone of feeling common to a very large number of ordinary, commonplace,

undistinguished human beings.

Such a development of the letter was possible in that widely scattered body of the Church only through the

greatly increased facilities for travel and intercourse. The Church showed its marvellous intuition and

governing capacity by seizing this opportunity. In this, as in many other ways, it was the creature of its time,

suiting itself to the needs of the time, which was ripe for it, and using the conditions and opportunities of

the time with true creative statesmanship.

As has been said, correspondence is impossible without some safe means of conveyance. A confidential

letter, the real outpouring of one's feelings, is impossible unless the writer feels reasonably sure that the

letter will reach the proper hands, and still more that it will not fall into the wrong hands. Further, it has been

pointed out that there was no p ublic post, and that any individual or any trading company which maintained

a large correspondence was forced to maintain an adequate number of private letter-carriers. The great

financial associations of publicani in the last century BC had bodies of slave messengers, called tabellarii, to

carry their letters between the central administration in Rome and the agents scattered over every province

where they conducted business. Wealthy private persons employed some of their own slaves as tabellarii.

But if s uch messengers were to be useful, they must be experienced, and they must be familiar with roads

and methods of travel: in short, any great company which maintained a large correspondence must

necessarily organise a postal service of its own. The best routes and halts were marked out, the tabellarii

travelled along fixed roads, and the administration could say approximately where any messenger was likely

to be at any moment, when a letter would arrive and the orders which it contained be put in execution, when

each messenger would return and be available for a new mission. All this lies at the basis of good

organisation and successful conduct of business. As to the details we know nothing; no account of such

things has been preserved. But the existence of such a system must be presupposed as a condition, before

great business operations like the Roman could be carried on. A large correspondence implies a special

postal system.