preserved must be immensely multiplied to give any idea of the number really despatched. The importance

of this correspondence for the welfare and growth of the Church was, as has been shown, very great. Some

provision for the safe transmission of that large body of letters, official and private, was obviously

necessary. Here is a great subject, as to which no information has been preserved.

It must be supposed as was stated above, that the bishops had the control of this department of Ch urch

work. In the first place the bishop wrote in the name of the congregation of which he was an official: this is

known from the case of the Roman Clement, whose letter to the Corinthians is expressed in the name of the

Roman Church. The reference to him in the Shepherd of Hermas, Vision, ii., 4, 3, as entrusted with the duty

of communicating with other Churches, confirms the obvious inference from his letter, and the form of the

reference shows that the case was not an exceptional, but a regular and typical one. This one case,

therefore, proves sufficiently what was the practice in the Church.

In the second place the bishop was charged with the duty of hospitality, i.e. of receiving and providing for

the comfort of the envoys and messengers from other Churches: this is distinctly stated in 1 Timothy 3:1ff

and Titus 1:5ff. To understand what is implied in this duty, it is necessary to conceive clearly the situation.

As has been already pointed out, the Christian letter-writers had to find their own messengers. It cannot be

doubted that, as an almost invariable rule, those messengers were Christians. Especially, all official letters

from one congregation to another must be assumed to have been borne by Christian envoys. Epaphroditus,

Tychicus, Silas and others, who occur as bearers of letters in the New Testament, must be taken as examples

of a large class. St. Paul himself carried and delivered the first known Christian letter. That class of travelling

Christians could not be suffered to lodge in pagan inns, which were commonly places of the worst character

in respect of morality and comfort and cleanliness. They were entertained by their Christian brethren; that

was a duty incumbent on the congregation; and the bishops had to superintend and be responsible for the

proper discharge of this duty. It must therefore be understood that such envoys would address themselves

first to the bishop, when they came to any city where there was an organised body of Christians resident,

and that all Christian travellers would in like manner look to the bishop for guidance to suitable quarters.

Considering that the number of Christian travellers must have been large, it is entirely impossible to interpret

the duty of hospitality, with which the bishop was charged, as implying that he ought to entertain them in

his own house.

In the third place, it seems to follow as a necessary corollary from the two preceding duties, that the letters

addressed to any congregation were received by the bishop in its name and as its representative.

From the fact that the letter-carriers were usually Christian, we must infer that they were not likely as a rule

to be, like the tabellarii of the great Roman companies, slaves trained to the duty and doing nothing else. In

many cases, certainly, the letters were carried by persons who had other reasons for travelling. But in a great

province like Asia, it was necessary to have more regular messengers within the province, and not to

depend entirely on accidental opportunities. Undoubtedly, messengers h ad often to be sent with letters

round the congregations of the province. In the earlier stages of Church development, probably, those

messengers were volunteers, discharging a duty which among the pagans was almost entirely performed by

slaves: just as Luke and Aristarchus, when they travelled with St. Paul to Rome, must have voluntarily

passed as his servants, i.e. as slaves, in order to be admitted to the convoy. In such cases, it is apparent

how much this sense of duty ennobled labour and raised the social standing of the labourer, who was not a

volunteer, making himself like a slave in the service of the Church. In this there is already involved the germ

of a general emancipation of slaves and the substitution of free for slave labour.

As time passed, and the work grew heavier, the organisation must have become more complex, and

professional carriers of letters were probably required. But as to the details we know nothing, though the

general outlines of the system were dictated by the circumstances of t he period, and can be restored

accordingly. Thus, as soon as we begin to work out the idea of the preparations and equipment required in

practice for this great system, we find ourselves obliged to admit the existence of a large organisation. The