s a
pastor of the "new order," and his bearing had perhaps been so offensive
that Polycarp had been commissioned to visit him on an errand of
expostulation. But by prudently paying marked deference to the aged
stranger; and, it may be, by giving a plausible account of some
proceedings which had awakened anxiety; he appears to have succeeded in
quieting his apprehensions. That the presiding minister of the Church of
Smyrna was engaged in some such delicate mission is all but certain, as
the design of the journey would not otherwise have been involved in so
profound secrecy. The very fact of its occurrence is first noticed about
forty years afterwards, when the haughty behaviour of another bishop of
Rome provoked Irenaeus to call up certain unwelcome reminiscences which
it must have suggested.

Though the journey of Polycarp betokens that he must have been deeply
dissatisfied with something which was going forward in the great
metropolis, we can only guess at its design and its results; and it is
now impossible to ascertain whether the alterations introduced there
encountered any very formidable opposition: but it is by no means
improbable that they were effected without much difficulty. The
disorders of the Church imperatively called for some strong remedy; and
it perhaps occurred to not a few that a distracted presbytery, under the
presidency of a feeble old man, was but ill fitted to meet the
emergency. They would accordingly propose to strengthen the executive
government by providing for the appointment of a more efficient
moderator, and by arming him with additional authority. The people would
be gratified by the change, for, though in Rome and some other great
cities, where its effects would be felt most sensibly, they, no doubt,
met before this time in separate congregations, yet they had still much
united intercourse; and as, on such occasions, their edification
depended mainly on the gifts of the chairman of the eldership, they
would gladly join in advancing the best preacher in the presbytery to
the office of president. At this particular crisis the alteration may
not have been unacceptable to the elders themselves. To those of them
who were in the decline of life, there was nothing very inviting in the
prospect of occupying the most prominent position in a Church threatened
by persecution and torn by divisions, so that they may have been not
unwilling to waive any claim to the presidency which their seniority