'The (parish) community was completely organized with a constitution which recognized the rights of the whole and of every adult member to a voice in self-government, but kept the self-governing community under a system of inspection and (if need should be) restraint from central authority.' 'The whole adult population were accounted parishioners, and had an equal voice {114} when assembled for consultation under the rector. Seeing that both sexes served the office of warden, there can be no doubt that both had a vote.' The strongly existing spirit of good will and pride in the parish church found all the necessary funds for the maintaining of the church and the services, and for the provision of often a sumptuous and rich treasury of ornaments. The needs of the Church were met generally by the local industry of 'such as were wise-hearted'--builders, carpenters, workers in gold and silver, bell-founders, embroiderers, writers, illuminators, book-binders, and others. Hard by the church the church-house was the centre of the popular recreations of the holy day or holiday. The parish elected and paid its own officers, except the rector, and the affairs and ornaments of the church, even in part the arrangement of the services, were under the government, not of the rector, but of the parish meeting, of which he was president, under the restraining hand of the rural dean and archdeacon. The support of the poor or disabled was a wholly voluntary matter. 'The brotherhood tie was so strongly realized by the community, that {115} the weaker ones were succoured by the stronger as out of a family store.' 'All the tendency of the feudal system, working through the machinery of the manorial court, was to _keep the people down_. All the tendency of the parochial system, working through the parish council, holding its assemblies in the churches, where the people met on equal terms as children and servants of the living God, and members of one body in Christ Jesus, was to _lift the people up_.' In these assemblies there was no distinction between lord and vassal, high and low, rich and poor; in them the people learnt the worth of being free. Here were the schools in which, in the slow course of centuries, they were disciplined to self-help, self-reliance and self-respect[13]. No doubt these descriptions of mediaeval parish life represent an ideal very imperfectly realized. But is it not an ideal we need to recover? Is there not a call for Church reform, both moral and formal, to restore to us the community life of our parishes, and fill St. Paul's language again with its primary and natural meaning? [1] See i. 5, 11-15; xv. 15-17. [2] Jas. i. 17. [3] The word is the same as St. Paul has just used to describe the eager 'pursuit' of opportunities of hospitality by the Christian. He 'pursues' opportunities of doing good, while he is himself 'pursued' by enemies to do him evil. [4] Cf. xi. 25, and Prov. iii. 7.