Whatever the obligations of the state towards the ecclesiastical society may be in pure theory, in practice they become more precise and stable when they assume the nature of a bilateral convention by which the state engages itself with regard to a third party.
In Plato's Parmenides, Socrates, "then very young," meets Parmenides, "an old man some sixty-five years of age," and Zeno, "a man of about forty, tall and personable," and engages them in philosophical discussion.
Thus, he engages in combat with Heracles on two occasions to avenge the death of his son Cycnus; once Zeus separates the combatants by a flash of lightning, but in the second encounter he is severely wounded by his adversary, who has the active support of Athena; maddened by jealousy, he changes himself into the boar which slew Adonis, the favourite of Aphrodite; and stirs up the war between the Lapithae and Centaurs.
The national council engages in mission work on a large scale, and a considerable number of periodicals, hymn-books for special occasions, and works of different kinds explaining the history and ideals of the Evangelical Free Churches have been published.
The pastoral industry dates from colonial times and engages the services of a considerable number of people, but its comparative importance is not great.
