the tried and trusted leaders would be specially required to guide the Church amid the many new problems which day by day were cropping up. And yet it was just then, at such a crisis, that the Lord permits the bloody sword of Herod to be stretched forth and removes one of the very chiefest champions of the Christian host just when his presence seemed most necessary. It must have appeared a dark and trying dispensation to the Church of that day; but though attended doubtless with some present drawbacks