to unfeigned love of
the brethren, see that ye love one another with a pure heart fervently."
(I Peter i, 22.)

And it is so well known as to require no citations to verify it, that
this love, or charity, or, in other words, regard to the welfare of
others, runs in various forms through all the preceptive parts of the
apostolic writings. It is the theme of all their exhortations, that with
which their morality begins and ends, from which all their details and
enumerations set out, and into which they return.

And that this temper, for some time at least, descended in its purity to
succeeding Christians, is attested by one of the earliest and best of
the remaining writings of the apostolical fathers, the epistle of the
Roman Clement. The meekness of the Christian character reigns throughout
the whole of that excellent piece. The occasion called for it. It was to
compose the dissensions of the church of Corinth. And the venerable hearer
of the apostles does not fall short, in the display of this principle, of
the finest passages of their writings. He calls to the remembrance of the
Corinthian church its former character in which "ye were all of you," he
tells them, "humble-minded, not boasting of anything, desiring rather to
be subject than to govern, to give than to receive, being content with the
portion God had dispensed to you and hearkening diligently to his word;
ye were enlarged in your bowels, having his sufferings always before your
eyes. Ye contended day and night for the whole brotherhood, that with
compassion and a good conscience the number of his elect might be saved.
Ye were sincere, and without offence towards each other. Ye bewailed
every one his neighbour's sins, esteeming their defects your own." His
prayer for them was for the "return of peace, long-suffering, and
patience." (Ep. Clem. Rom. c. 2 & 53; Abp. Wake's Translation.) And his
advice to those who might have been the occasion of difference in the
society is conceived in the true spirit, and with a perfect knowledge of
the Christian character: "Who is there among you that is generous? who
that is compassionate? Who that has any charity? Let him say, If this
sedition, this contention, and these schisms be upon my account, I am
ready to depart, to go away whithersoever ye please, and do whatsoever
ye shall command me; only let the flock of Christ be in peace with the
elders who are set over it. He that shall do this shall get to himself a
very gre