Though the journey of Polycarp betokens that he must have been deeply dissatisfied with something which was going forward in the great metropolis, we can only guess at its design and its results; and it is now impossible to ascertain whether the alterations introduced there encountered any very formidable opposition:  but it is by no means improbable that they were effected without much difficulty.  The disorders of the Church imperatively called for some strong remedy; and it perhaps occurred to not a few that a distracted presbytery, under the presidency of a feeble old man, was but ill fitted to meet the emergency.  They would accordingly propose to strengthen the executive government by providing for the appointment of a more efficient moderator, and by arming him with additional authority.  The people would be gratified by the change, for, though in Rome and some other great cities, where its effects would be felt most sensibly, they, no doubt, met before this time in separate congregations, yet they had still much united intercourse; and as, on such occasions, their edification depended mainly on the gifts of the chairman of the eldership, they would gladly join in advancing the best preacher in the presbytery to the office of president.  At this particular crisis the alteration may not have been unacceptable to the elders themselves.  To those of them who were in the decline of life, there was nothing very inviting in the prospect of occupying the most prominent position in a Church threatened by persecution and torn by divisions, so that they may have been not unwilling to waive any claim to the presidency which their seniority implied; whilst the more vigorous, sanguine, and aspiring, would hail an arrangement which promised at no distant day to place one of themselves in a position of greatly increased dignity and influence.  Whilst all were agreed that the times demanded the appointment of the ablest member of presbytery as moderator, none, perhaps, foresaw the danger of adding permanently to the prerogatives of so potent a chairman.  It was never anticipated that the day would come when the new law would be regarded as any other than a human contrivance; and when the bishops and their adherents would contend that the presbyters, under no circumstances whatever, had a right to reassume that power which they now surrendered.  The result, however, has demonstrated the folly of human wisdom.  The prelates, who were originally set up to save the Church from heresy, became themselves at length the abetters of false doctrine; and whilst they thus grievously abused the influence with which they were entrusted, they had the temerity to maintain that they still continued to be exclusively the fountains of spiritual authority.