which had fallen at different times through long periods. It was said it had been penetrated for a mile, but we had no means of verifying the somewhat doubtful statement. It was over the mountain containing this cave that General Concha led his army which delivered Bilbao in the last Carlist war, and which contributed greatly to bring the war to a close. Some of the bones of the men who fell there were until lately to be seen bleaching on that mountain ridge. We descended in time for me to take the last train to Portugaletta, thirteen and a half miles, to the hospitable accommodation of my esteemed friend, and prepare for my journey next day to Madrid.

Having stayed at the intermediate towns on former occasions, and wishing to spend Sunday in Madrid, I left my friends at seven in the morning to catch the train from Bilbao for the capital at nine, and made a very pleasant journey. On Sunday morning I inquired at my hotel, the largest in Madrid, the Hôtel de la Paix, where the chief Protestant place of worship was, and was told there was now no Protestant place of worship in Madrid except at the British Embassy. I asked to be directed to that, and obtained certain indications from an Irishman, a sort of hanger-on of the hotel, long resident in Spain, which turned out to be very wide of the mark. However, I found it at length, and joined in the service, after which I spoke to the clergyman, and inquired if he knew where the Rev. Mr. Jameson was to be found, for whom I had an introduction. Oh, yes," he said, "close to here," and he gave me the precise address. Another clergyman, present from a parish not far from me at home, said, "I know Mr. Jameson, and will show you the street as we go out -so now I felt myself fortunate.

I called upon Mr. Jameson; he is a missionary supported by the Free Church of Scotland, and he has a congregation, with schools, library, colporteurs, and every appliance for usefulness. It was soon evident to me that he was the right man in the right place. He informed me there were six Protestant congregations in Madrid where the Word is preached in Spanish. He has been several years in operation-I think eleven-and is assisted in preaching by Don Cipriano Tornos, formerly a Franciscan preacher, a gentleman of considerable eloquence, whom I heard in the evening. I inquired if there were any hindrances now to Protestant freedom of worship? He said, "Nothing of any account. No one interferes with us." "Something has been said," I remarked, "about not having a board up announcing your name and worship, what is that?" "Well," he said, "that is So. It is a very small piece of business; but you can have it over your door in the hall, in large letters, so that passersby can read it, but

not on the outside wall. The present Ministry, less liberal than their predecessors, construe a board on the outside wall to be demonstration in the streets, which is forbidden." "And what about your singing? I have heard that a congregation was forbidden to sing because the people in the street could hear." "Oh, yes," he said, "I know the case; they were a society of Methodists, worthy people, but the minister had rather led them to show their zeal by the amount of noise they made, and they really were a nuisance to the neighbourhood. It was not persecution; it was only moderating a very disagreeable noise. really was desirable in the interests of art."

While I remained at Madrid I was present at a little conference held at Mr. Jameson's respecting getting the Rev. Ben Oriel out of prison, a converted Jew and Protestant missionary acting for an American society. He was charged with insulting the authorities in the discharge of their duty. In a question of burying a Protestant he had not only aided the friends in resisting the employment of Roman Catholic ceremonies, but had done it harshly and violently. However, the poor gentleman had been already two months in an unwholesome prison, and it was very desirable to get him released. There had been some neglect on the part of one of the pastors in getting an application for release ready for the Council of Ministers, who would probably, it was thought, have set him free, and so it seemed he would be detained some time longer. I had had a pleasant interview at Bordeaux with General Grant, and he had come on to Madrid, and was then staying at the same hotel at which I was accommodated. I advised the pastors to wait upon him, as he was very approachable, and ex-President of America, and Ben Oriel was an American missionary, accused only of an indiscretion, to ask as a favour for his release. I left Madrid the next day early for Toledo, and don't know whether or not my suggestion was carried out, but very soon after I read in the papers that Ben Oriel was released.

Madrid is a large city of 350,000 inhabitants, of good, wide, spacious, and lofty buildings. It has much of a French or German air about it, nothing of the ancient Spanish or Moorish character. It was selected as Court residence by Charles V., and confirmed as the only capital by Philip II. It has a magnificent palace, and a fine museum or picture-gallery, but is not at all the unequalled city the Spaniards boast it is. Many of our leading provincial towns are equal or superior to Madrid, and the want of trees in its neighbourhood is a grievous defect and greatly to be regretted. They say that the trees were cut down to build the city and have never been replaced.

However that may be, the beauty of the environs of Madrid, and doubtless its healthiness as well, would be immensely increased by giving a park-like aspect to the country, instead of the brown, dry, and dreary appearance of a landscape without trees. The journey to Toledo in my next. (To be continued.)

SCRAPS OF CHURCH HISTORY.

NO. III. THE NICOLAITANS.

THE Nicolaitans were a sect of Judaizing Christians belonging to the school of the Docete, who denied the reality of the Resurrection of the Lord, alleging that it was simply a phantom which had appeared to the disciples.

Irenæus and Tertullian incline to the belief that this sect derives its name from that Nicolaus (Nicolas) who is mentioned in Acts vi. 5 as a proselyte of Antioch, who was, together with Stephen and others, ordained as a deacon at a time when the apostles desired to be relieved from the performance of certain other duties in order that they might devote themselves altogether to prayer and the ministry of the Word. Other writers, however, allege that there is not sufficient evidence to charge the deacon with the sin of apostasy and heresy, and that, therefore, it is more reasonable to suppose that the name of Nicolas was used unwarrantably in order to throw a cloak of decency around the heresy.

The term "Nicolaitans " may be literally translated conquerors, or destroyers of the people, and this name was probably given to the members of the sect because, in the opinion of the early members of the Christian Church, their principles were calculated to destroy the sentiments of morality and religion. For the Nicolaitans not only insisted largely upon the necessity of keeping the ceremonial observances of Judaism, and that they might lawfully join in the heathen feasts upon the occasion of sacrifices being offered to idols, but they also insisted that a community of wives was allowable, and that the sin of fornication was absolved after the eighth day.

It was doubtless because these latter tenets were seen by the apostles to be of a tendency precisely similar to that of the snare devised by Balaam that the Nicolaitans were also termed Balaamites.

This sect is referred to by the apostle Peter in the second chapter of his Second Epistle in very vigorous terms. So also in the second chapter of the Apocalypse we find the sect referred to. The Lord accounts it as a redeeming feature in the Church at Ephesus that "this thou hast, that thou hatest the deeds of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate." Again, to the Church at Pergamos He says, "I have a few things against thee, because thou hast there them that hold the

doctrine of Balaam, who taught Balac to cast a stumbling-block before the children of Israel, to eat things sacrificed unto idols, and to commit fornication. So hast thou also them that hold the doctrine of the Nicolaitans, which thing I hate."

The Nicolaitans, like the Nazarenes and Ebionites, are generally classed among the followers of Simon Magus, who entertained the idea that it was not altogether unlawful to resort to the arts of magic. The heresy of Menander, which arose about the same time, was, however, much more pronounced in its adherence to magical arts and discipline. Nicolaitanism may justly be counted as a heresy, because it not only attacks the doctrines of Christianity, but also tends to undermine the virtues of the Christian life. Like its modern successors (Mormonism and Free-Lovism), Nicolaitanism found ready acceptance among those who disliked the restraints of the religion preached by the Lord and His apostles.

In denying the reality of the Lord's Resurrection, the members of this sect denied the fact which was regarded by the apostles as the strongest evidence which they could bring of the reality of the Lord's mission. In maintaining the binding obligation of the Jewish ordinances, they imposed upon themselves heavy burdens whose uses were now really obsolete. In teaching the lawfulness of partaking of the sacrifices at heathen feasts, they encouraged a practice which was as reprehensible as the conduct of the Israelites who yearned for "the flesh-pots of Egypt;" and in permitting the community of wives, they showed an utter disregard to the Saviour's teaching, that "He who made them at the beginning made them male and female," and He said, "For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they twain shall be one flesh; wherefore they are no more twain, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder." We cannot wonder, therefore, that the apostles and other preachers of the early Church should have deemed these views and practices worthy of the most severe reprehension, and that Peter, after teaching that "the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost," should go on to say, "But there were false prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction. And many shall follow their pernicious ways."

Correspondence.

(To the Editor of the Intellectual Repository.)

To keep the Intellectual Repository neutral on all matters pertaining to the temperance controversy were an intelligible and an equitable policy. But having allowed one side to be advocated (page 36 of the

January number), the Editor is of course bound in fair play to do the like for the other.

S. T., in all the emphasis of italics, legislates for every member of the New Church, by whom (he says) "pure fermented natural wine ought alone to be used" in the Holy Supper. But he does not tell us how to get, nor show how to guarantee, it. Such wine scarcely ever reaches the shores of this country, and, when it does, very seldom remains such. If none other is to be used, and we are to be quite sure about it, most of us will have to manufacture it for ourselves.

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This difficulty, which applies to "pure fermented natural wine," becomes an impossibility if we accept S. T.'s definition of that fluid. According to him, 'pure fermented natural wine" must be "the juice of the grape which has been freed by the process of fermentation from all the leaven or ferment it naturally contains, and has been converted from a corruptible juice into a clear, bright, aromatic fluid, capable of preserving itself for an almost indefinite period-a true correspondence of Divine Truth." This requirement is very hard upon pure fermented natural wine," and more than the poor thing can pretend to fulfil. For, firstly, the juice of the grape, so long as it is in its natural skins, "naturally contains" no leaven or ferment whatsoever. Not till the skin is broken can the juice come in contact with the yeast-fungus, which is carried to it by the atmosphere. Of itself naturally it contains no such admixture. Secondly, "pure natural fermented wine," when let take its natural course, rapidly passes from vinous to acetous, and can only be preserved in the vinous stage by human artifice, which includes management and care in cask and bottle. Nature, if she had her way, would very soon make vinegar of it; and even when man has succeeded in baffling her, and has at last got his fermented wine in the domestic decanter, it is so far from "being capable of preserving itself for an almost indefinite period," that unless kept well stoppered it soon becomes undrinkable. In short, "pure natural fermented wine" capable of preserving itself for almost an indefinite period" does not exist, never did, and never will exist anywhere in the world.

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But see with what calm assurance S. T. takes for granted in his argument things wholly unwarrantable. First, he implies that " a corruptible juice" is lower in correspondence, because corruptible, than it would be if "capable of preserving itself for an almost indefinite period." If this were true, then oil, which, exposed to warmth and light, soon goes reasty, would be inferior to water. Next, he assumes that a "6 clear, bright, aromatic fluid, capable of preserving itself," must needs be a truer "correspondence of Divine Truth" than a fluid that has no such qualities. In which case milk for babes were less respectable than laudanum. Thirdly, he takes for granted that the juice of the grape, fresh and genuine, is a less "true correspondence of Divine Truth" than it becomes after the yeast-fungus has preyed upon, propagated itself throughout, and decomposed it. In other words, that grapes improve in their correspondence, even up to