welfare of the people at heart should welcome gladly. Unlike similar movements in Russia, which are almost confined to dissenters in formal separation from the national Church, these societies do not involve any such severance. We may compare them to the Bible readings of evangelical members of the Church of England, such as those that are fed by the fervour of Keswick. But they are more closely organised, and cannot but be recognised as indicating some return to the primitive idea of the Church.
The movement is spreading rapidly. At Constantinople there are more than ten of these brotherhoods. In Smyrna quite a new religious life is blossoming out among the associations. They have appeared at Ephesus, at Heleopolis, at Arreon. In some places the brotherhood has led to two preachings on the Sunday, one early in the morning actually in the church, the other in the club-house (Vereinhause) later in the day; for this second preaching, however, sometimes there is substituted a catechising of men, women, and children. In Athens there are two brotherhoods. One has been formed at Patros in Cyprus. Meanwhile the need of schools for the clergy is being pressed, and already there is preaching by the parish popes in some places and no longer only by visiting priests and bishops.
As early as the year 1818 a Greek society for the circulation of the Scriptures was formed with the approval of the patriarch Cyril vi., and in conjunction with the British and Foreign Bible Society. Nevertheless, the excitement which arose in the year 1901 on the translation of the Bible into the vernacular would appear to indicate a reactionary movement on the part of the obscurantists. But the case is very complicated. In the first place there is a strong clerical aversion to a translation promoted by laymen without any ecclesiastical sanction. Then the new passion for classicism is irritated by a seeming degradation of Scripture. It is said that no Greek vulgate is needed, as the children are now taught to read classical Greek in the schools. Behind all this there is the inveterate
