The question as to the earliest methods of Christian instruction and the precautions taken for the preservation of Apostolic tradition is one of the many particulars in which our knowledge of the primitive Church is so tantalizingly meagre. A small amount of information is given us in the New Testament, for the most part quite incidentally, as here; and then the history runs underground, and does not reappear for a century or more. The first few generations of Christians did not contain a large number of persons who were capable of producing anything very considerable in the way of literature. Of those who had the ability, not many had the leisure or the inclination to write. It was more important to teach by word of mouth than with the pen; and where was the use of leaving records of what was being done, when (as was generally believed) Christ would almost immediately appear to put an end to the existing dispensation? Out of what was written much, as we know, has perished, including even documents of Apostolic origin (Luke i. 1, 2; 1 Cor. v. 9; 3 John 9). Therefore, much as we lament the scantiness of the evidence that has come down to us, there is nothing surprising about it. The marvel is, not that so little contemporary history has reached us, but that so much has done so. And what it behoves us to do is to make a sober use of such testimony as we possess. We shall be doing no more than drawing a reasonable conclusion from the passage before us if we infer, that what St. Paul enjoins Timothy to do at Ephesus was done in many other Churches also, partly in consequence of this Apostolic injunction, and partly because what he enjoins would be suggested in many cases by necessity and common sense. This inference is confirmed by the fact that it is precisely to the continuity of doctrine secured by a regular succession of authorized and official teachers in the different Churches that appeal is continually made by some of the earliest Christian writers whose works have come down to us. Thus Hegesippus (c. A.D. 170) gives as the result of careful personal investigations at Corinth, Rome, and elsewhere, "But in every succession (of bishops) and in every city there prevails just what the Law and the Prophets and the Lord proclaim" (Eus., H.E., IV. xxii. 3). Irenæus, in his great work against heresies, which was completed about A.D. 185, says, "We can enumerate those who were appointed bishops by the Apostles themselves in the different Churches, and their successors down to our own day; and they neither taught nor acknowledged any such stuff as is raved by these men.... But since it would be a long business in a work of this kind to enumerate the successions in all the Churches," he selects as a primary example that of "the very great and ancient Church, well known to all men, founded and established by the two most glorious Apostles Peter and Paul." After giving the succession of Roman bishops