Transcribed from the 1870 W. H. Bartlett and Co. edition byDavid Price,
A PAPER READ AT ST. MARY’SSCHOOLS,
WEST BROMPTON,
ON THE EVENING OF NOVEMBER 17th, 1870.
BY WILLIAM BAIRD, M.A.
VICAR OFHOMERTON, MIDDLESEX.
PUBLISHED BY REQUEST.
LONDON:
W. H. BARTLETT AND CO. 186, FLEET STREET.
1870.
This paper is printed in obedienceto the wishes of Lord Lawrence and others, who heard it. Itwas originally drawn up without any view to publication, and wasread at more than one of the Conferences held in different partsof London under the auspices of the Diocesan Association ofLay-helpers. The writer could not but yield to the urgentrequest of those who asked him to print the paper, but at thesame time he does so with a full consciousness of its defectiveand fragmentary character. Such as it is, he ventures tocommend it to the charitable consideration of hisfellow-churchmen, and trusts that it may, by God’sblessing, be a means of promoting the practical good at which therevived organization of Lay-help aims.
The Vicarage, Homerton.
Nov.1870.
It is needless for me to enlarge onthe vast importance of the subject which we are gathered togetherto consider to-night, for that importance is on all handsconfessed. Differ as we may on other points, EnglishChurchmen, Roman Catholics, and Protestant Dissenters feelequally that one of the great questions of our age is how to callout and to regulate Lay-help. It may be that in thisrecognition of a common want we may dimly discern the fact that,if ever the scattered portions of the Church are to be united inone, it must be not only on the basis of the common profession ofabstract truth, however valuable such profession may be, butrather on the basis of common work for Christ. My objectto-night, however, is not to set before you any merespeculations, but to put into shape some thoughts, which may behelpful to us in any work which we undertake for the glory of Godand the good of His Church.
I believe you will find on reference to Ecclesiastical historythat the most healthy periods of the Church’s life havebeen those, in which there has been the largest development ofLay activity. The Apostolic Church was one great communityof workers. True love to Christ found its vent in activeministries of love towards the suffering members of His spiritualBody, and in p.6increased earnestness in carrying the message ofsalvation to perishing souls. Throughout the Apostolic agethe link runs unbroken, “Epaphras our dearfellow-helper,” “the beloved Persis, who labouredmuch in the Lord,” “Euodias and Syntyche,”though not always of the same mind, yet striving to forget theirdifferences in a common work. “Clement and otherfellow-workers whose names” were “in the Book ofLife”—these and many another, whether ecclesiastic orlay-workers, whose names swell the goodly list of Apostolicgreetings at the conclusion of each Epistle, show that the EarlyChurch was a community of living workers striving to spread thefaith of a living Lord, not