Ministry, and of the doctrine of Holy Orders our Church holds and acts
upon. In the Preface to the Ordinal the Church makes this declaration:
"It is evident unto all men, diligently reading Holy Scripture and
ancient Authors, that from the Apostles' time there have been these
Orders of Ministers in Christ's Church,--Bishops, Priests, and
Deacons.... No man shall be accounted or taken to be a lawful Bishop,
Priest, or Deacon, in this Church, or suffered to execute any of the
said Functions, except he be called, tried, examined, and admitted
thereunto, according to the Form hereafter following, or hath had
Episcopal Consecration or Ordination." What the Church here insists
upon is what is commonly called the "Apostolic Succession." This rule
she rigorously applies. No minister of any of the denominations, no
matter how learned and pious he may be, can {50} serve at her Altars
until he has been ordained by a Bishop and is therefore commissioned by
that Episcopal or Apostolic authority upon which the Church has always
insisted.

The Bishop's Chair may remind us, then, of the Bishop's office and
authority to ordain and to govern, of its essential importance in the
life of the Church, and of how our Church's lineage and the authority
of her Ministry are traced, through the succession of Bishops, directly
back to the Apostles, and through them to Christ Himself, "the Bishop
and Shepherd of our souls."

{51}

Symbolic Ornaments of the Church

The use of symbols for conveying and enforcing truth goes back to
earliest ages. God said to Noah, "I do set My bow in the cloud, and it
shall be for a token of a covenant between Me and the earth."

The ritual and appointments of the Tabernacle and its worship were an
elaborate system of symbolism.

So, also, we find the use of symbolism in Christianity. The need of
appealing to the eye as well as to the ear, by visible signs for sacred
truths, led the early Christians to employ a number of such symbols as
an effective means of imparting instruction. But their use was not
wholly a matter of choice. Anxious to seek and to support one another
{52} under persecution, they were compelled to find some common signs
of recognition which might be known only to themselves, and under which
their new Faith might be safely concealed.

_The Cross._--The Cross comes first in order. It is the especial
emblem of Christianity. "It glitters on the crown of the monarch. It
forms t