Jttinsters. 



By the Rev. A. C. ALMACK, M.A. 



(Read 20th Feb., 1917.) 



TN preparing certain Lectures on Church History 

 the writer of the present paper had 

 occasion to study somewhat closely the 

 early history of Parishes in England. He 

 was fortunate at that time to have the 

 loan from the library of the late Bishop 

 Wordsworth of a very interesting book 

 containing much information which might 

 be called unusual and original. It was 

 an Essay entitled Les Paroisses Eurales by Prof. Imbart de 

 la Tour of Bordeaux. His facts there collected relate to 

 the development of the Christian Church in Gaul during the 

 4th and 5th Centuries, and they are gathered from the 

 Decrees of Councils, Codes of Law, and other first-hand 

 evidence. In reading these pages, in which the gradual 

 instalment of a Priest and place of Christian Worship in 

 townships and villages is carefully traced, our thoughts 

 naturally turn to our country ; and we are arrested by the 



