of baptism, which certificate such minister is hereby required to deliver immediately after the baptism, whenever the same shall be then demanded, on payment of the fee of one shilling, which he shall be therefore entitled to receive; and the said registrar or superintendent registrar, upon receipt of such certificate and on payment of the fee of one shilling, which he shall be therefore entitled to receive, shall, without any erasure of the original entry, forthwith register therein that the child was baptized by such name, and the registrar shall thereupon certify upon the said certificate the additional entry so made, and shall forthwith send the said certificate through the post-office to the registrar-general."

1 Vict. c. 22, s. 2, says, "The registrar or superintendent registrar as the case may be."

SECT. 3.-No Fee for Baptism.

It has always been a maxim of ecclesiastical law that no sacrament of the church shall be denied to any one upon the account of any sum of money, though it has been said that immemorial custom may in certain special cases (t) warrant the demand for a fee after the sacrament has been performed. In England, however, the exception to the general law with respect to baptism appears never to have been admitted (u).

(t) "Firmiter inhibemus, ne cuiquam pro aliqua pecunia denegetur sepultura, vel baptismus, vel aliquod sacramentum ecclesiasticum, vel etiam matrimonium contrahendum impediatur. Quoniam si quid pia devotione fidelium consuetum fuerit erogari, super hoc postmodum volumus per ordinarium loci ecclesiis justitiam fieri, sicut in generali concilio expressius est statutum. Absonum etiam judicamus, quod de cætero pro chrismate et oleo aliquid exigatur, vel erogetur, cùm toties hoc prohibitum reperiatur. Si quis verò contra hoc facere præsumpserit, Anathemate sit innodatus." Erogari. Sc. tempore ministrationis hujusmodi sacramentorum. Lynd

wood, Provinciale, lib. v. tit. 2, "De Simonia," p. 278.

(u) "By the ancient canons it was simony to take any thing for the sacraments of the church, because they ought to be administered freely.

And

though some ministers have sued their parishioners for a fee due to them on baptism, yet I cannot find anything due for it by virtue of any custom or otherwise; and, therefore, when the curate of Bridlington, in Yorkshire, libelled against his parishioner for a shilling, as due to him for baptizing his child, a prohibition was granted." Ayl. Par. 106. By 13 & 14 Vict. c. 41 (The Parish of Manchester Division Act, 1850), s. 34, all fees for baptisms

In the case of Burdeaux v. Dr. Lancaster, Burdeaux, a French protestant, had his child baptized at the French church in the Savoy, and Dr. Lancaster, vicar of St. Martin's, in which parish it is, together with the clerk, libelled against him for a fee of 2s. 6d. due to him, and 1s. for the clerk. A prohibition was moved for, and it was urged, that this was an ecclesiastical fee due by the canon. By Holt, Chief Justice: Nothing can be due of common right, and how can a canon take money out of laymen's pockets? Lindwood says, it is simony to take anything for christening or burying, unless it be a fee due by custom; but then, a custom for any person to take a fee for christening a child when he doth not christen him, is not good; like the case in Hobart, where one dies in one parish and is buried in another, the parish where he dies shall not have a burying fee; if you have a right to christen, you should libel for that right, but you ought not to have money for christening when you do it not (x).

or registration of baptisms in the parish are expressly forbidden. A similar provision is made as to new parishes created under

6 & 7 Vict. c. 37, by s. 15. also 14 & 15 Vict. c. 97, s. 17.

See

(x) 1 Salk. 332; Holt, 319; 12 Mod. 171; Hobart, 175.

CHAPTER III.

CATECHISM.

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Origin of word. CATECHISM (a), or "catechismus," is derived from the Greek word "xarxiv," signifying originally to sound a thing in the ear of the person spoken to, then to exhort and then to instruct. It is used in various significations in the New Testament (b). "In 'xxnxw," says Bishop Andrewes, "is included an iteration, and from xέw,' we have our word echo. 'Hxw' is indeed to sound the last syllable,' and such sounders haply there are enough; but * κατηχέω is to sound in the whole after one again.' And such is the repetition which is required of the right and true xarx ouμevo,' young catechised Christians, and those places are called 'x2Tex eis,' that give the whole verse or word again"(c).

Distinction of catechists and catechumens in the primitive church.

To catechize is here understood in the ecclesiastical sense of giving elementary instruction in the Christian religion by the form of dialogue. The teacher is the catechist, the pupil the catechumen, the guide of instruction the catechism.

ages

Catechists constituted no distinct order in the earliest of our church, but were chosen from the other orders for the purpose of instructing the catechumens in the first principles of religion, and thereby preparing them for the reception of baptism. The bishop himself sometimes performed this office, catechising on Palm Sunday such catechumens as were to be baptized on Easter-eve. At other times, presbyters and deacons performed this office. St. Chrysostom, while presbyter of Antioch, entitled one of his Homilies “ κατήχησις πρὸς τὰς μέλλοντας φωτίζεσθαι 4wTitovo, or the "illuminate," being one title by which Christians, whose education was complete and perfect, were discriminated from catechumens. Their other titles, πιστοὶ, μεμυημένοι, τελείοι, all answered the same end of distinguishing the faithful initiated perfect baptized from the comparatively uninitiated state of catechumens. These

(b) Acts of Apostles, xviii. 25, xx. 21; Rom. ii. 18; Gal. vi. 6.

(c) Introd. to Pattern of Catech. Doctrine.

66

catechumens in

latter also bore several designations, such as "novitioli, novitioli," Distinction of tyrones," &c. &c., all indicating that they were as yet catechists and but imperfect members of the church. In the apostolic the primitive age the interval was never long between conversion and church. baptism. The history of Cornelius, the Ethiopian Eunuch, Lydia, and the gaoler of Philippi, in the Acts of the Apostles, demonstrate that in these days catechizing and baptism immediately accompanied one another. In after ages the church, fearing to admit vicious members, or those whom persecution would render apostates, prolonged the interval, and provided that a prescribed course of discipline and instruction should be previously undergone. Thus Justinian enacts, in the 144th Novell, "Per duos primum annos in fide instituantur et pro viribus Scripturas ediscant, tuncque demum sacro redemptionis offerantur baptismati." Another reason for late baptism was the prevalence of a persuasion in the third century, that if no sin intervened between baptism and death, salvation was secured to the baptized. Constantine was not baptized till a very brief period before his death, being influenced by this conviction to remain a mere catechumen the greater part of his life (d).

Catechumens were also designated "auditores" (e). In the 5th book of his Ecclesiastical Polity, Hooker says, "Ways of teaching there have been sundry always usual in God's church. For the first introduction of youth to the knowledge of God, the Jews even to this day have their catechisms. With religion it fareth as with other sciences; the first delivery of the elements thereof must, for like consideration, be framed according to the weak and slender capacity of young beginners: unto which manner of teaching principles in Christianity, the apostle in the sixth to the Hebrews is himself understood to allude. For this cause, therefore, as the Decalogue of Moses declareth summarily those things which we ought to do; the prayer of our Lord, whatsoever we should request or desire so either by the apostles, or at leastwise out of their writings, we have the substance of Christian belief compendiously drawn into few and short articles, to the end that the weakness of no man's wit might either hinder altogether the knowledge, or excuse the utter ignorance of needful things. Such as were trained up in their rudiments, and were so made fit to be afterward by baptism

(d) Bingham, Eccles. Antiqu. passim, and Giannone, Istoria Civile del Regno di Napoli, 1. 2, c. 4, s. 1.

(e) Also genuflectentes, allowed to join in some prayers, and competentes, prepared for baptism.

Catechists and

our colonies.

received into the church, the Fathers usually in their writings do term hearers; as having no further communion or fellowship with the church, than only this that they were admitted to hear the principles of Christian faith made plain unto them."

By the office for the ordination of deacons, catechising catechumens in is made the especial duty of the deacon. In our colonies catechists constitute an intermediate class of teachers between missionaries and schoolmasters, not in holy orders, though very often candidates for admission to them.

In India catechumens, being previously instructed in the rudiments of Christianity, are admitted into the porch or the verandah of the church, and undergo a probation of two years, before they receive the rite of baptism. A very long probation in the verandah is enjoined to all such as have relapsed before the period of their catechumenship has expired (c).

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Mr. Blunt observes, that when the offices of the Church of England were translated into English, a catechism was inserted in the office for confirmation. "This was of course to be learned during the period of preparation for confirmation; but the rubric directed that when the rite was to be administered, the bishop, or some one appointed by him, should appose' the persons to be confirmed by requiring them to answer such questions of this catechism as the former should see fit. The object of this was stated to be that those who were about to be confirmed might then themselves, with their own mouth, and with their own consent, openly before the church, ratify and confess' what their godfathers and godmothers had promised for them in their baptism. This custom was continued until the last revision of the Prayer Book in 1661; but in 1552 the word 'confess' in the rubric (used in the sense of confessing or professing our belief) was unfortunately altered to confirm,' and the rubric being then adopted as a preliminary address in the confirmation service (while that which had been referred to by the word was removed from it), a confusion of ideas was originated which connected the expression ratify and confirm with the ordinance of laying on of hands instead of with the catechizing by which it is preceded. The catechism which thus stood in the Prayer Book from 1549 to 1661 (under both the general title of 'confirma

(c) See in the Report of the Society for Propagation of the Gospel for 1838, p. 69, a very

interesting letter from the Bishop of Calcutta on this subject.