It seems from the words of Apollinaris, which Eusebius goes on to quote (v. § 17), that the Montanists claimed that their prophets and prophetesses were the successors of Ammia and Quadratus, but Maximilla had now been dead for some years, and the bishop challenges his opponents to point to any living prophet who had succeeded her: "And if you have no succession of prophets then," he urges, "you must give up your claim to represent the Christian Church. (For the apostle shows that the gift of prophecy shall be in all the church until the coming of the Lord)." What would have been the bishop's answer if the Montanists had turned on him with the demand that he, too, should produce his living prophets within the pale of the great church? In view of what he has told us, may we not believe that his answer would be somewhat on this wise: "The gift of prophecy has never been removed from the church; though it may be dormant as far as such prophecies as those of Quadratus are concerned, it may be called forth again at any time by the Divine will, and will be recognised at once by the bishops, who are the divinely appointed authorities, without whose approval no true prophet will act. And if there be no such prophets [p.47] now, in any church, the bishop takes their place, expounding as is fit the will of the Lord to the people, and guided himself by the Holy Spirit"? How are we to explain this remarkable change that we have thus witnessed, and was it the necessary and right development of the Church which led to it? To those who know how, in the seventeenth century, another experiment was begun, which after nearly nine generations, is not yet ended, in the holding together of religious communities of which an essential feature has always been the freedom of prophesying, it may, at first sight, seem easy to reply that the change was no necessary one.