free by a miracle, were called before the
Sanhedrim and scourged, only escaping death by the wise and merciful
interposition of the Pharisee Gamaliel.

Section 6. _Worship and Discipline of the Infant Church._

[Sidenote: A.D. 33.]

Before going farther into the History of the Church, we may pause to
consider the account given us in Holy Scripture of Christian Worship
and Discipline in the time immediately following the Day of Pentecost.
The same chapter which contains the narrative of the Descent of the
Holy Ghost, has also a short epitome of the daily life of the Apostles
and their converts, during that brief interval of undisturbed peace
which preceded the beginning of the bitter conflict between the Church
and the world.

[Sidenote: Holy Baptism. Apostolic Doctrine.]

First we read of Holy Baptism as the source of the Christian Life[26],
and then of steadfast continuance in the one Faith as taught by the
Apostles, who were, so to speak, a kind of living Gospel to their
converts. [Sidenote: Oral teaching.] None of the Books of the New
Testament were as yet written, so that all instruction being oral,
faithful must most fully have sought "the Law" of the Saviour at the
"mouth" of His twelve chosen servants, who had listened to His gracious
words, and had been themselves taught by {13} Him Who is Wisdom.
[Sidenote: Value of tradition.] The Apostles' Creed is a mighty
instance of this _traditional_ teaching, which has come down even to
our own days; and many points of Church government, and discipline, and
ritual, merely hinted at, or not even referred to in the writings of
the New Testament, were preserved to the Church by means of spoken
tradition. St. Paul several times mentions these oral traditions, and
in one instance speaks of them to his converts as equally binding with
the written words contained in his Epistles[27]. The substance of such
important traditions became ingrained into the system and belief of the
Church, and it was thus of comparatively little importance that their
exact words were forgotten.

[Sidenote: Apostolic fellowship. Faith and love towards God]

To oneness of "doctrine" belonged also oneness of "fellowship." There
was as yet "no schism in the Body;" and this inward Faith and Love
found their outward expression both towards God and towards man.
Towards God in "the Breaking of the Bread," the Daily Sacrifice and
Thank-offering of the Holy Eucharist "at home[28]," i.e. in the