Il8 MANUAL OF INSTRUCTION 



nations ; and to describe its futile efforts to check 

 advancing light and civilization. 



We behold it, to-day, a corrupt Church, sadly 

 departed from the simplicity of primitive Christian- 

 ity, holding on tenaciously to old superstitions, 

 and yet containing within itself the outline of 

 the faith once delivered to the saints. But the 

 period of its reformation may be near at hand. 

 God hasten it ! 



The Eastern Church. — After the formal sepa- 

 ration into Eastern and Western branches, there was 

 very little intercourse between the two parts, and 

 then the Reformation and its exciting events con- 

 centrated the attention of Western Christians mainly 

 upon their own affairs. The Eastern division con- 

 tinued almost unknown to us as to its internal his- 

 tory, until within comparatively late years, when the 

 movements looking forward to a re-union of the 

 Churches have led to a closer examination of its 

 history. It exists in Russia, Palestine, Greece, 

 Austria, and other places, and numbers over 

 seventy-five millions of members. 



It has retained the ancient form of Church gov- 

 ernment, and has been preserved from some of the 

 gross errors which have marred other branches, re- 

 maining in its faith and practice substantially as it 

 was in the early ages. 



The popular notions concerning the Eastern 



