NNALS 
 
 OF THC:
 
 
 iy 

 
 ANNALS 
 
 OF THE 
 
 CHURCH OF CHRIST 
 
 FROM THE BEGINNING TO THE PRESENT TIME 
 
 WITH A GLANCE AT THE 
 
 CHURCHES IN AMERICA 
 
 HV 
 
 MRS. E. B. W. PHELPS 
 I) 
 
 CINCINNATI 
 
 TH E J . F . SHUMATE COMPANY 
 1885 

 
 Copyright by 
 THE J. F. SHUMATE Co. 
 1885.
 
 THIS VOLUME 
 
 OF 
 
 of iirc6 Jjfofor? 
 
 IS AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED 
 TO 
 
 HON. ISAAC M. JORDAN. 
 Clifton, July 5, 1885.
 
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 mar0t sinjife af aff f^v too?."
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 The author of the Annals or Sketches of the Church 
 has through a long life felt a deep and abiding interest 
 in all that concerns the history of the people of God 
 whom we call the Holy Catholic Church. A few mo- 
 ments of leisure taken from each day of a busy life, has 
 for a decade of years been employed in the collection 
 of facts relating to the Church. The period of time 
 that our record embraces, begins when the disciples 
 bade adieu to their Lord on Mount Olivet, and con- 
 tinues to trace the outline of remarkable or interesting 
 epochs to the present hour. It is a popular history 
 for young and old, and is abridged chiefly from the 
 works of Dean Milman. We are also indebted to the 
 histories ot Mosheim and Gibbon and to the later 
 ecclesiastical literature of Southey, Schaff, Froude, 
 Green, etc. We know that many noble church histo- 
 ries are in existence, but they are very elaborate and 
 are but little read except by students of divinity. Our 
 book is succinct and simple, but contains many inter- 
 esting facts that intelligent Christians ought to know. 
 We have tried to state the facts that have been handed 
 down to us from age to age, without garbling. When 
 the Roman soldiers looked upon the coat of our cruci- 
 fied Lord, they said, "Let us not rend it;" so would 
 we present, without the touch of passion or prejudice, 
 the varied events we have contemplated. But alas the 
 6 2
 
 IO PREFACE. 
 
 tissue of Church history, is not a seamless robe, with- 
 out spot or wrinkle: it is full of incongruities. Clouds 
 and shadows intervene, but there is a light shining 
 through the mist, that reveals a "little flock" who 
 have, in every age, served God acceptably. With a 
 heart full of love, we have found it difficult to portray 
 dispassionately all the aspects of this many-sided 
 subject. We have tried to educe the truth by looking 
 at the Past in the light of the Present. Though the 
 manners and sentiments of the human actors, in the 
 last eighteen centuries, have undergone many changes, 
 yet they have contended in every age with like pas- 
 sions and with similar motives as 'ourselves. May the 
 readers of the following pages derive as much inter- 
 est in reading them as the author has experienced in 
 collating them. 
 
 " Dim as the borrowed beams of moon and stars 
 To lonely, weary, wandering travelers, 
 Is reason to the soul. And as on high, 
 Those rolling fires discover but the sky, 
 Not light us here ; so reason's glimmering ray, 
 Was lent not to assure our doubtful way, 
 But guide us upward to a better day." 
 
 MRS. E. W. B. PHELPS. 
 CLIFTON, CINCINNATI, OHIO, February i, 1880.
 
 INTRODUCTION. I I 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 " The gates of Hell shall never prevail against it." 
 
 Nearly nineteen centuries have passed away since 
 Jesus, the Divine Founder of our religion, uttered this 
 saying, with regard to the Church. These words were 
 addressed to Peter and to the rest of the disciples, 
 when He was alone with them. These men were 
 timid and doubting, unlearned in the wisdom of the 
 world. Our Lord lived not in an age of darkness and 
 ignorance, but in the famous Augustan age, renowned 
 for learning and letters. But, he was the carpenter's 
 son from an unimportant city of Galilee, and his disci- 
 ples, men of humble occupation, fishermen and tax- 
 gatherers. How knoweth this man letters ? was the 
 question asked by one, who knew his humble origin, 
 and yet heard Him speak "as never man spake." 
 Humble and apparently helpless as these disciples of 
 Jesus were, they did batter down the strongholds of 
 Pagan superstion ; they did overcome Jewish prejudice, 
 and they subdued spiritual wickedness in high places. 
 Before that generation had passed away, disciples of 
 the crucified one were found among the members of 
 Caesar's household. These things were accomplished 
 not with human weapons, but with the sword of the 
 Spirit, the Word of God. The stone that the prophet 
 saw, centuries before our Lord came into this world, 
 cut out of a mountain, without hands, has filled the 
 earth. 
 
 "It is not assumed that the Church is a perfect 
 institution, represented as it is by fallible, erring men,
 
 12 INTRODUCTION. ' 
 
 but it is "the pillar and ground of Truth," overlaid 
 with many of the devices of man. In the wear and 
 tear of ages " The City of God " has been soiled and 
 defaced by pride and ambition the citizens of the new 
 Jerusalem, like those of the old, have not all been true 
 or obedient to the commands of their founder, but have 
 sometimes aspired to be lords over God's heritage, and 
 have starved and misled the flock they were com- 
 manded to feed and guide. It is granted that in the 
 successive ages of its long life, the light of the Gospel 
 has sometimes shone feebly. It shone as the sun 
 shines through a mist, but it was still the glorious light 
 of God, behind a cloud. "The influx of wealth when 
 the church was about three centuries old ; the barbar- 
 ism of the dark ages ; the intellectualism that preferred 
 debate to brotherhood, and some grievous errors in 
 matters of faith, have infected the Church, and cast 
 shadows upon the Tabernacle of God ; yet the Shechinah 
 is the light of Heaven, and can never be extinguished." 
 ' ' The Church, ' ' says Macaulay, ' ' has often been com- 
 pared by divines to the Ark, but never was the resem- 
 blance more perfect than during that evil time when she 
 rode alone through darkness and tempest on the deluge, 
 beneath which all the great works of power and wisdom 
 lay entombed, bearing within her that (apparently) fee- 
 ble germ from which a second and more glorious civili- 
 zation was to spring." The Church is the Ark of the 
 Covenant, as it has brought down to us unimpaired, 
 not tables of stone, but the Oracles of God as revealed 
 to us in the New Testament. It is painful to read 
 many chapters in the history of the Visible Church, but 
 it must be borne in mind that in the middle ages there 
 was a world within the Church, and all the righteous
 
 INTRODUCTION. 13 
 
 acts committed in Christendom have been charged to it 
 by succeeding generations. The Popes and other 
 prelates, by unjust usurpations and unrighteous perse- 
 cution, believing that orthodoxy and not Christian 
 love was the test of discipleship, have inflicted grievous 
 wounds upon Christ's body the Church. But it must 
 be acknowledged that the power of the Pope in the 
 dark times of war and violence was often exerted as a 
 defense and protection to the people against the tyranny 
 of despots not so powerful as themselves. The history 
 of the invisible church has never been written. How 
 many millions of private Christians have been united to 
 Christ, as the branches abide in the vine, rich clusters 
 of beauty and fragrance, but whose names have never 
 been inscribed on any page in this world's history. In 
 that day when small and great stand before God, their 
 names shall be written in the Lamb's Book of Life. 
 How would the love and devotion to the cause of truth, 
 that burned in so many hearts from the time of John 
 Wycliffe to the Reformation, have been made known 
 to the world, except by the persecutions that then 
 arose ? We should never have heard of the humble Monk, 
 who assisted the great Luther, in the Augustinian Con- 
 vent, in comprehending the great doctrine of justifica- 
 tion by Faith, when reading together the New Testa- 
 ment. These things convince us that amid all the 
 darkness and corruption of the Middle Ages there was 
 still a little flock within the visible Church, who cried 
 day and night "to him who sitteth upon the throne." 
 It is not only within the Church that the moral 
 power of Christianity is felt, but the influence of its 
 spirit has moulded the thoughts and opinions of the 
 whole civilized world "the leaven of Christianity has
 
 14 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 silently worked upon masses of men, breaking down 
 its great social evils." There are many, alas, who 
 " live without God in the world," trusting to their own 
 strength, and refusing to recognize the good that is in 
 them as the result of a Christian education, or the 
 reflected Christian influence of those about them. The 
 author of Ecce Homo has well replied to those who say 
 that "The Church" is a failure. Ecce Homo. "If 
 the object of civil society be the security of life and 
 property, and increase of prosperity through the divi- 
 sion of labor, civil society is not a success. Men are 
 robbed and murdered; whole classes live in pauperism,- 
 insecurity, slavery. A sufficient reason for dissatisfac- 
 tion, a good ground for complaint but not a sufficient 
 reason for dissolving civil society and relapsing into the 
 normal state." In like manner if the Church fails to 
 do her whole duty, let us strive to quicken her ener- 
 gies, to rouse her sense of responsibility, through all 
 her ramifications, for we can ill afford to sever the 
 strongest and most sacred tie that binds men to each 
 other. How would the moral pulse of this great world 
 stand still, if the prayers of unnumbered hearts did not 
 daily ascend like incense to the skies, and if the life- 
 giving truths that issue from all the pulpits in the land 
 did not give strength to the weak, direction to the 
 strong, and comfort and rest to the weary ! To whom 
 should we have recourse in all our mental and spiritual 
 conflicts, but to those whom Christ has appointed to 
 teach all nations ? Who shall strike the rock in the 
 parched wilderness of this world, causing waters of re- 
 freshment to flow, or who shall feed the hungry soul, 
 if the manna of the Word of God, dispensed by the 
 Church, be withdrawn ?
 
 INTRODUCTION. I 5 
 
 When our short life is ebbing, who shall cheerfully 
 point to a better inheritance on high, if the voice of 
 the preacher be hushed ? The promise of Christ is 
 with his people : ' ' Wherever two or three are gath- 
 ered together in my name, there am I in the midst of 
 them.'' The promise of Christ is with his faithful 
 ministers, the successors of those who gazed upon their 
 Lord, as he ascended from the Mount of Olives : " Lo 
 I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world." 
 
 " The church must stand acknowledged, 
 While the world shall stand, 
 The most effectual guard, 
 Support and ornament of virtue's cause."
 
 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 " When Thou hadst overcome the sharpness of death, Thou didst 
 open the kingdom of heaven to all believers." 
 
 The first Church of Christ was assembled in an 
 upper room at Jerusalem ; perhaps it was an upper 
 room in the Temple, but the exact location is not 
 important. The disciples of Jesus were there ; their 
 names were about an hundred and twenty. Peter, and 
 James, and John were there, and Andrew, and Philip ; 
 Thomas, Bartholomew or Nathanael, Matthew, and James 
 the son of Alpheus, and Simon Zelotes, and Judas the 
 brother of James. The women were there, who had 
 ministered to the Lord of their substance ; they who 
 had stood by His cross, and who had visited His 
 sepulchre. These, with Mary the mother of Jesus, had 
 now assembled with "His brethren" with one accord 
 in prayer and supplication. The last words that our 
 Lord had uttered in their hearing were still sounding in 
 their ears, like heavenly music. The words were new, 
 but they were spoken with authority : ' ' Go ye into all 
 
 (17)
 
 1 8 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 the world, and preach the gospel to every creature ; 
 baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the 
 Son, and of the Holy Ghost; teaching them to observe 
 all things whatsoever I have commanded you ; and lo, 
 I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world." 
 He commanded that repentance and remission of sins 
 should be preached in His name among all nations, 
 beginning at Jerusalem. 
 
 How full of solemn grandeur must have been the 
 feelings of this little company of believers, as they 
 remembered the parting words of their Lord and 
 Master ! The command to preach, and baptize, and 
 organize, was doubtless intended specially for the eleven 
 apostles ; but the words that follow were intended for 
 all and every one in that company, and for all believers 
 in every age and nation. "Ye shall be witnesses unto 
 me, both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea, and in Samaria, 
 and in the uttermost parts of the earth." The Master 
 had left them, " a cloud had received Him out of their 
 sight; " yet they were full of courage. Peter, who had 
 been so timid, now stood up in the midst of the disciples 
 and, after comforting them with the fulfillment of 
 prophecy, declared that one must be ordained in the 
 place of Judas, to be a witness with them of the 
 resurrection of their Lord. Matthias was appointed, 
 and numbered with the eleven apostles. 
 
 Ten days after this time, when the day of Pentecost 
 had fully come, they were, with all, with one accord in 
 one place. They were baptized with the Holy Ghost, 
 and began to speak with other tongues as the Spirit 
 gave them utterance. This great miracle was quickly 
 noised abroad, and a vast multitude was gathered 
 "devout men out of every nation under heaven " were
 
 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 19 
 
 then dwelling at Jerusalem. All were amazed at this 
 wonderful gift of tongues, and some doubted as to the 
 source of the inspiration. Some unbelieving mockers 
 cried out: "These men are filled with new wine." 
 Peter lifted up his voice and addressed the assembly, 
 explaining to them that this outpouring of the Spirit 
 was in fulfillment of prophecy. He called upon them 
 to repent of their sins, and to be baptized, every one in 
 the name of Jesus Christ, for the remission of sins, and 
 they should receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. So 
 effective was this sermon of Peter, together with the 
 influence of the miracle, that three thousand on the 
 same day were added to the band of Christian believers. 
 About this time Peter and John, who continued to 
 observe the regular hours of Jewish worship, went up 
 to the Temple to pray. They there, at the gate of the 
 Temple, performed in the name of Jesus a great miracle, 
 which attracted much attention. It excited much jealousy 
 in the high-priest Annas, and in all the hierarchy who 
 were at Jerusalem. This miracle of Peter and John is 
 recorded in the third chapter of the Acts. The apostles 
 were required to stand before a council composed of 
 rulers, elders, and scribes, to give an account of "the 
 good deed done to the impotent man." Peter then 
 proclaimed boldly that the miracle was performed by 
 the power of Jesus Christ, whom they had crucified and 
 slain declaring that : ' ' This is the stone which was set 
 at naught by you builders, which is become the head of 
 the corner ; neither is there salvation in any other ; for 
 there is none other name under heaven given among 
 men whereby we must be saved." The boldness of 
 Peter and John, and their unlearned simplicity, greatly 
 surprised the Jewish council. They, after they had
 
 2O ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 held a conference together, called in the "unlearned, 
 ignorant men," and commanded them not to speak at 
 all, or teach in the name of Jesus. Peter and John 
 replied to the proud rulers as men must reply who 
 knew in their inmost hearts that they had a commission 
 to execute, given them by their Lord and Master. 
 The apostles returned to their company, and reported 
 all that the chief priests and elders had said unto them. 
 They lifted their voices in joyful accord to God, saying: 
 " Why do the heathen rage, and the people imagine a 
 vain thing?" The apostles continued to preach and 
 work many signs and wonders, and the people magnified 
 them, but the high-priest and many of the Sadducees 
 were filled with indignation, "and laid their hands on 
 the apostles and put them in the common prison." But 
 the angel of the Lord opened the prison doors, and 
 " commanded them to stand and speak in the Temple, 
 all the words of this life." 
 
 The high-priest and the senate of the children of 
 Israel were anxious and excited when they heard 
 that the apostles had escaped from prison, and were 
 standing in the Temple, teaching the people. Then 
 went the captain with the officers, to bring the apostles 
 (without violence, for they feared the people) before 
 the council. "Did we not strictly command you," 
 said the high-priest, ' ' not to teach or preach in this 
 name ? Ye have filled Jerusalem with your doctrine, 
 and intend to bring this man's blood upon us." Then 
 Peter and the other apostles replied: "We must obey 
 God rather than man." The violence of this council 
 was restrained by Gamaliel, a wise man among them, 
 held in much reputation. His words were : "Refrain
 
 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 21 
 
 from these men and let th^m alone, for if this work or 
 this counsel be of men, it will come to naught ; but if 
 it be of God, ye can not overthrow it ; lest haply ye be 
 found even to fight against God." And to him they 
 agreed ; and they departed from the presence of the 
 council, rejoicing that they were counted worthy to 
 suffer shame for His name. And daily in the Temple 
 and in every house, they ceased not to teach and 
 preach Jesus Christ. Gamaliel seems to have been 
 one of those wise, good men, of whom in every age 
 there have been a few representatives, who despise a 
 persecuting spirit, and who fearlessly stand up for truth 
 or an inquiry into truth, though surrounded by a greater 
 number of seditious opposers. 
 
 The number of the disciples at this time was greatly 
 multiplied. The apostles, wishing to give their whole 
 time to prayer and the ministry of the Word, determined 
 to appoint seven additional officers in the Church, called 
 deacons. These men seem primarily to have been 
 appointed to superintend the bodily as well as the 
 spiritual wants of the great influx of disciples. They 
 were dedicated to their work in the most solemn 
 manner ; they were set before the apostles, and when 
 they prayed they laid their hands on them. Two of 
 these deacons became very celebrated afterwards, in the 
 history of the Church. Stephen was the first Christian 
 martyr. He was drawn into controversy with the 
 Alexandrian Jews, Cyrenians, Libertines, and others, 
 and as they could not resist the power and energy by 
 which he spoke, they were greatly enraged, and suborned 
 men to bring charges of blasphemy against him, and 
 accused him 'of an intention to change the customs 
 which Moses had delivered. While he was making his
 
 22 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 defense before the "men, brethren, and fathers," and 
 was declaring his faith in all the interesting points of 
 Jewish history, when he quoted the words of Moses to 
 the unbelievers in his days, calling them "stiff-necked 
 and uncircumcised in heart and ears," believing that 
 Stephen made the application of Moses' words to them, 
 they were cut to the heart, and gnashed on him with 
 their teeth. They did not permit him to continue his 
 narration. And when Stephen, lookingly steadfastly 
 upward, said: " I see the heavens opened, and the Son 
 of man standing on the right hand of God," they 
 rushed on him with great violence, cast him out of the 
 city, and stoned him. He calling upon God and saying, 
 "Lord Jesus, receive my spirit," kneeled down and 
 cried with a loud voice, " Lord, lay not this sin to their 
 charge." How cruel and dreadful is fanaticism ! Many 
 of these Jews doubtless thought they were obeying the 
 law, as recorded in the I3th chapter of Deuteronomy. 
 The clothes of the witnesses of this martyrdom were 
 laid down at the feet of a young man named "Saul." 
 The Jewish law required the presence of two or three 
 witnesses, to testify as to the cause of blood-shedding. 
 The most dreadful crimes have sometimes been 
 perpetrated according to the forms of law. Law, it 
 has been said, is the voice of God, but it has not always 
 been so administered as to protect and defend the rights 
 of the innocent from the infuriated passions of bad 
 men. Religion, heaven-born as she is, awakens and 
 rouses the deepest and strongest passions of the heart, 
 and if not kept in subjection to the " Law of Love," as 
 revealed in the New Testament, has produced and will 
 produce the most direful consequences.
 
 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 23 
 
 The deacon Philip went to the city of Samaria, and 
 preached Christ unto them. In this city, Philip had 
 great success, notwithstanding the presence of Simon, 
 a sorcerer. When the apostles, who were at Jerusalem, 
 heard that Samaria had received the Word of God, and 
 that they had been baptized in the name of Jesus 
 Christ, they (the apostles) sent down unto them Peter 
 and John. These now laid their hands on the converts, 
 that they might receive the Holy Ghost. Philip also 
 made another convert of rank and importance, an officer 
 who held a high station with the queen of the Ethiopians. 
 The persecution after the martyrdom of Stephen was 
 very favorable to the progress of Christianity. The 
 disciples were scattered abroad throughout the regions 
 of Judea and Samaria, except the apostles. They seem 
 to have remained at their post in Jerusalem. The 
 death of Stephen seems to be connected with the 
 conversion of St. Paul. Saul, breathing threatenings 
 and slaughter against the disciples of the Lord, went to 
 the high priest for letters to Damascus, that he might 
 seize any Christians, men or women, that he might 
 bring them bound to Jerusalem. And as he journeyed 
 and came near to Damascus, there occurred the remark-, 
 able conversion which changed a fierce persecutor into 
 the most zealous of all the Christian teachers. It was 
 the privilege of this great man to hear the voice of his 
 Lord and Master; to hear the words of reproof in a 
 loving voice, which bade him arise, to go to Damascus, 
 not to persecute, but to receive the initiatory rite of 
 baptism into the fold he had so lately threatened and 
 despised. He is received and greeted as a brother by 
 Ananias at Damascus, who had been instructed by a
 
 24 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 vision not to doubt the new disciple. Saul was probably 
 deeply touched by what he witnessed at the martyrdom 
 of Stephen ; but, as is sometimes the case, his fury was 
 increased and maddened by the doubts that now entered 
 his mind. "To propagate Christianity in the enlight- 
 ened West, where its most permanent conquests were 
 to be made, to emancipate it from the trammels of 
 Judaism, a man was wanting of comprehensive views, of 
 higher education and more liberal accomplishments. 
 Such an instrument was found in Saul of Tarsus. Born 
 in the Grecian city of Tarsus, yet a Roman citizen, his 
 Judaism was in no degree weakened by his Grecian 
 culture. Saul stood on the confines of both religions, 
 qualified beyond all men to develop a system which 
 should unite Jew and Gentile under a more harmonious 
 and comprehensive faith." Above all, his extraor- 
 dinary, unprecedented conversion gave him a zeal which 
 seemed to eclipse the rest of the apostles. 
 
 Part of the three years which elapsed between the 
 conversion of Paul and his first visit to Jerusalem, was 
 passed in Arabia. He had narrowly escaped the fury 
 of his brethren at Damascus, who sought his death. 
 He passed, it is supposed, more than a year in Arabia, 
 in exile, employing himself, probably, in instructing the 
 Jews, who were scattered in great numbers in Arabia. 
 Though he had sacrificed much favor with his country- 
 men in becoming a Christian, he was at first coldly 
 received by the Christians at Jerusalem ; even the 
 apostles stood aloof. Ananias, enlightened by a vision, 
 had convinced the Christians of Damascus of Paul's 
 sincerity, and by their loving zeal he had been delivered 
 from the fury of the Damascene Jews. Barnabas, a
 
 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 25 
 
 convert of Cyprus, introduced Paul to the apostles at 
 Jerusalem, declaring to them his marvelous conversion, 
 while journeying to Damascus as a persecutor, and how 
 he had preached boldly at Damascus in the name of the 
 Lord Jesus. And Paul was with them, coming in and 
 out at Jerusalem, speaking boldly in the name of Jesus 
 and disputing with the Grecians, whose wrath was 
 kindled against him. The brethren then brought Paul 
 down to Caesarea, and from thence to Tarsus. The 
 Christians at this time, just previous to the accession of 
 Herod Agrippa, enjoyed peace about three years. The 
 time was zealously employed in disseminating the 
 gospel in every part of Judea. The peace enjoyed by 
 the Christians at this time is attributed to the fact of 
 the anxiety of the Jews about the independence of their 
 religion. The frantic Caligula, emperor of Rome, 
 insisted that his statue should be placed in the Temple 
 at Jerusalem. The Jews, filled with horror at such a 
 demand, refused to sow, or reap, or attend to their 
 accustomed duties, unless the emperor should desist 
 from so sacrilegious an attempt. It required all the 
 moderation and conciliation of Petronius, the Roman 
 governor, to quiet the Jewish people. By well-timed 
 delays, in postponing, by various expedients, the dese- 
 cration of the holy house, the foolish, profane desire of 
 the emperor was not executed. He died ! * 
 
 During this time the apostle Peter passed throngJi 
 all quarters, preaching and working miracles at Lydda 
 and Joppa. While at Joppa, he was summoned to 
 Caesarea to visit Cornelius, a Roman centurion. It was 
 on this occasion that Peter declared that the partitioii- 
 
 * Caligula. 
 3
 
 26 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 wall between Jew and Gentile was broken down, in 
 these words: "Of a truth I perceive that God is no 
 respecter of persons, but in every nation he that feareth 
 God and worketh righteousness is accepted with Him." 
 Peter's sermon on this occasion was accompanied by the 
 gift of the Holy Ghost, and they of the circumcision 
 who came with Peter were astonished, that upon the 
 Gentiles was poured out the gift of the Holy Ghost.
 
 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 When the apostles and brethren who were in Judea 
 heard that the Gentiles had received the word of God, 
 they contended with Peter, saying, "Thou wentest in 
 unto men uncircumcised and did eat with them." But 
 when Peter rehearsed the matter relating to Cornelius, 
 from the beginning, they glorified God, saying, " Then 
 hath God also to the Gentiles granted repentance unto 
 life." Jewish prejudices were beginning to yield. The 
 first step towards abrogating the differences between 
 Jew and Gentile was taken by Peter. Paul, assisted by 
 Barnabas, was the most active apostle in emancipating 
 the Jewish converts from the inveterate prejudices of 
 their old religion. Samaria had already received the 
 new religion to some extent, but it seems the conflict 
 in that city was with Orientalism rather than Judaism. 
 Christianity, aspiring to the moral conquest of the world 
 had to contend with three antagonists: Judaism, Ori- 
 entalism and Paganism. The conversion of Cornelius, 
 recorded in the loth chapter of the Acts, took place 
 before the persecution of Herod Agrippa. Herod 
 affected the splendor of his grandfather, Herod the 
 Great, but unlike him he made the strictest profession 
 of Judaism. He determined to suppress Christianity 
 by vigorous means. James, the brother of St. John, 
 was the first victim. At this time the power of life 
 and death was restored for a short time to the Jews. 
 
 Peter was imprisoned. Prayer was made without 
 ceasing for him. The same night, as we learn from
 
 28 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 the 1 2th chapter of the Acts, when Herod would have 
 brought Peter forth, he was miraculously delivered 
 from the prison. He at first thought " he saw a vision, 
 and wist not that it was true." When Peter was 
 come to himself, he said, Now I know of a surety that 
 God hath sent his angel and delivered me from Herod 
 and the expectation of the Jews. Then Peter went to 
 the house of Mary, the mother of John, whose surname 
 was Mark, where many were gathered together pray- 
 ing. Christianity had now been preached at Phenice, 
 Cyprus and Antioch. A great number believed and 
 turned to the Lord. When the church at Jerusalem 
 heard of the conversions at Antioch they sent forth 
 Barnabas that he should go thither. Barnabas was 
 glad when he saw the grace of God at Antioch. He 
 went to Tarsus to seek Saul, that he might assist him in 
 the work of teaching at Antioch. For a whole year 
 Barnabas and Saul assembled themselves with the 
 church and "taught much people." The disciples 
 were called Christians first in Antioch. A famine 
 prevailed about this time, A. D. 43, in Judea. The 
 disciples determined to send relief to their brethren in 
 Judea by the hands of Barnabas and Saul. Claudius 
 Caesar was then Emperor of Rome. 
 
 In the terrrfcc and repulsive circumstances of Her- 
 od's death, shortly after the deliverance of Peter, the 
 Jewish historian, Josephus, and the writer of the Acts, 
 agree. Christianity as yet was but an expanded Juda- 
 ism ; it was preached by Jews, it was addressed to Jews. 
 The son of Herod, being a minor, could not succeed 
 his father, therefore a Roman prefect assumed the 
 provincial government of Judea. The Sanhedrim had 
 not now the power to take violent measures against the
 
 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 29 
 
 Christians. After the mission of Paul and Barnabas to 
 Jerusalem, about the time of the Herodian persecution, 
 these two distinguished teachers were invested with the 
 divine sanction in the apostolic office. By fasting and 
 praying and laying on of hands, these men were pre- 
 pared for their work. They went to Selencia and to 
 Cyprus and when they were at Salamis they preached 
 the Word of God in the synagogues of the Jews. They 
 visited Paphos and Perga in Pamphylia, also Antioch 
 in Pisidia. In this city the ruler of the synagogue, after 
 the reading of the Law and the Prophets invited Paul to 
 make an exhortation to the people. After giving them 
 the principal points in the Jewish history, Paul declared 
 to them the birth, death and resurrection of Jesus and 
 explained to them the prophecies of David with regard 
 to Jesus. "Be it known to you therefore, men and 
 brethren, that through this man is preached unto you the 
 forgiveness of sins, and by Him all that believe are justi- 
 fied without the Law of Moses. And when the Jews were 
 gone out from this assembly, the Gentiles besought that 
 these words might be preached to them the next Sab- 
 bath. And the next Sabbath day, came together almost 
 the whole city, to hear the Word of God. But when 
 the Jews saw the multitudes, they were moved with 
 envy, and spake against the things spoken by Paul, con- 
 tradicting and blaspheming. Then Paul and Barnabas 
 waxed bold and said, It was necessary that the Word 
 of God should first be spoken to you ; but seeing ye 
 put it from you and hold yourselves unworthy of ever- 
 lasting life, lo, we turn to the Gentiles." And the 
 word of the Lord was published throughout all that 
 region. But the Jews stirred up the devout and hon- 
 orable women, and the chief men of the city raised a
 
 30 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 persecution against Paul and Barnabas and expelled 
 them from their coasts. Then they went to Iconium, 
 into the synagogue of the Jews, and a great multitude 
 both of Jews and Greeks believed. But this city after- 
 wards became divided in sentiment, and when an 
 assault was about to be made the Apostles fled to 
 Derbe and Lystra, cities of Lycaonia. There they 
 preached the gospel and performed a miracle on a lame 
 man, and when the people saw what Paul had done 
 they lifted up their voices in the barbarous dialect of 
 their country saying, "The gods have come down to 
 us in the likeness of men." And they called Barnabas 
 Jupiter, and Paul Mercurius, because he was the chief 
 speaker. Then the Priest of Jupiter brought oxen and 
 garlands and would have done sacrifice unto them, 
 which when Paul and Barnabas heard, they rent their 
 clothes and ran in among them, crying our, " Sirs, why 
 do ye these things ? We are men of like passions with 
 you, and preach unto you, that ye should turn from 
 these vanities to the living God, which made heaven 
 and earth and all things therein." With these words 
 they scarcely restrained the people from doing sacrifice 
 unto them. Lystra and Derbe were cities in the center 
 of a Pagan population. Christianity came now for 
 the first time in direct collision with Paganism. Jews, 
 however, came thither from Antioch and Iconium and 
 instituted a persecution against the Apostles ; they 
 stoned Paul, and drew him out of the city, believing 
 him to be dead, but as the disciples gathered around 
 him Paul rose up and came into the city. The next 
 day the Apostles went to Derbe, and taught many. 
 They returned also to Lystra, to Iconium and to Anti- 
 och, confirming the souls of the disciples. They
 
 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 3! 
 
 ordained * elders or presbyters in every church, com- 
 mending them to the Lord in whom they believed. 
 After these things they returned to Antioch (in Syria) 
 and rehearsed to the church what God had done, and 
 how God had opened the door of faith to the Gentiles. 
 And there they abode a long time. About this time 
 Paul and Barnabas met certain Judaizing teachers say- 
 ing, " Except ye be circumcised ye can not be saved." 
 It was determined at Antioch that Paul and Barnabas 
 should go up to Jerusalem unto the Apostles and elders 
 about this question of circumcision. The church 
 brought them on their way ; they passed through Phenice 
 and Samaria declaring the conversion of the Gentiles, 
 and they caused great joy to all the brethren. And 
 the apostles and elders came together to consider this 
 question, whether it was needful to keep the Law of 
 Moses as regarded circumcision. And when there was 
 much disputation Peter rose up, arguing against the 
 yoke of circumcision, as regarded the Gentiles. Then 
 the multitude kept silence, listening to Barnabas and 
 Saul, who recounted what God had wrought for the 
 Gentiles by them. Then James after some words of 
 instruction and referring to the words of Simon, de- 
 clared his sentence "My sentence is that we trouble 
 not them, which from among the Gentiles are turned 
 to God. But that we write unto them, that they 
 abstain from pollution of idols, from fornication, from 
 things strangled and from blood." Then pleased it the 
 Apostles and elders with the whole church to send to 
 Antioch chosen men of their own company, with Paul 
 and Barnabas, Judas and Silas, chief men among the 
 
 * Bishops, Elders or Presbyters are names, applied to the same office 
 while the Apostles lived.
 
 32 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 brethren. And they wrote letters by them after this 
 manner: "The Apostles and elders and brethren send 
 greeting unto the brethren of Antioch, of Syria and 
 Cilicia Forasmuch as certain which went out from us 
 have troubled you with words, it has seemed good to us, 
 being assembled with one accord, to send to you our 
 beloved Barnabas and Paul, who have hazarded their 
 lives for the Lord Jesus ; also Judas and Silas, who will 
 tell you the same things. We desire to lay upon you 
 no greater burdens than these necessary things, absti- 
 nence from meats offered to idols, from blood and from 
 fornication. " When they were dismissed they came to 
 Antioch and delivered the epistle to the multitude. 
 Judas and Silas were permitted to return unto the 
 Apostles Paul and Barnabas, but Silas was pleased to 
 abide there still. When Paul and Barnabas revisited 
 the cities where they had made many converts, Barna- 
 bas desired to take John Mark, but Paul chose Silas, 
 so that they separated, Barnabas going to Cyprus with 
 Mark, and Paul with Silas to Syria and Cilicia. When 
 Paul returned to Lystra he found there a disciple, Tim- 
 otheus, or Timothy, afterward so celebrated on account 
 of the two epistles written to him by Paul, when he was 
 bishop (as tradition says) of Ephesus. As they passed 
 through the cities they delivered to the brethren copies 
 of the decrees they had received from the Apostles and 
 Elders at Jerusalem. And the churches were estab- 
 lished in the faith and increased in number daily. 
 After passing through Phrygia and Galatia, Paul passed 
 from Troas over into Macedonia, a vision having ap- 
 peared to him in the night, saying "Come over to 
 Macedonia and help us." He went to Philippi, one
 
 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 33 
 
 of the chief cities of Macedonia. He met by the river 
 side, Lydia, a seller of purple, who became a disciple, 
 (she was of the city of Thyatira), she was baptized with 
 her household, and she persuaded Paul to abide in her 
 house. About this time Paul and Silas were taken by 
 certain men, and brought to the magistrates of Philippi 
 who were incensed against Paul and Silas because they 
 had exorcised from a damsel, a spirit of divination. This 
 girl had brought money to her masters by soothsaying. 
 Paul and Silas were beaten and then thrust into the 
 jail at Philippi, and their feet made fast in the stocks. 
 At midnight Paul and Silas sung praises unto God, and 
 the prisoners heard them. Suddenly an earthquake 
 shook the prison, and all the doors were opened. The 
 keeper awaking, fearing that the prisoners had fled, 
 drew his sword and would have killed himself, but Paul 
 ciied to him, " Do thyself no harm, we are all here." 
 Then the jailer called for a light, and came trembling, 
 falling down before Paul and Silas, saying, "Sirs, what 
 must I do to be saved ? " and they said : " Believe on the 
 Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved and thy 
 house." And they spoke unto him, and unto all that 
 were in his house. And the jailer washed the stripes 
 of Paul and Silas the same hour of the night, and they 
 were baptized, he and all his, straightway and he set 
 meat before them. The magistrates became alarmed 
 when they heard that the men whom they had impris- 
 oned were Romans, and they came to them giv- 
 ing them liberty and beseeching them to leave the 
 city. They left the prison and entered into the house 
 of Lydia, and after comforting the brethren they de- 
 parted from the city of Philippi. They passed through 
 Amphipolis and Apollonia and came to Thessalonica.
 
 34 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 In this city there was a synagogue of the Jews ; and 
 after the manner of Paul, he reasoned with them three 
 Sabbath days, out of the Scriptures, alleging that Jesus 
 was Christ and that he must needs have suffered and 
 risen from the dead. A great multitude of the Greeks 
 believed, and many of the devout women. But the 
 unbelieving Jews stirred up an uproar among the 
 people, saying, " These who have turned the world up- 
 side down have come hither also, doing contrary to the 
 decrees of Caesar saying : There is another king, 
 one Jesus." 
 
 The brethren then sent away Paul and Silas to 
 Berea. The people of Berea were more noble than 
 those of Thessalonica, inasmuch as they daily searched 
 the Scriptures whether these things were so. But a 
 disturbance occurring in Berea, Paul was sent away by 
 the brethren ; but Silas and Timothy abode there still. 
 Paul went to Athens and preached on Mars' Hill. Paul 
 was invited by the philosophers of the Epicureans and 
 Stoics to come to the Areopagus and speak of the new 
 doctrine. Paul made an eloquent speech to them, which 
 is found in the i/th chapter of the Acts, quoting from 
 their own poets to strengthen his argument for the living 
 God, and reproving them for their superstition. When 
 he spoke of ' ' the resurrection of the dead, ' ' some mocked 
 but some converts were made. From Athens, Paul 
 proceeded to Corinth. This city had now recovered all its 
 wealth and splendor. It had been destroyed by Mum- 
 mius a Roman consul, 146 B. c. Julius Caesar planted 
 a colony there. It then arose like a phoenix from its 
 ashes. It formed a connecting link between Italy, 
 Northern Greece and Asia. It was a rich central com- 
 mercial mart. An unusual number of Jews had at this
 
 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 35 
 
 time congregated in Corinth, in consequence of an 
 edict of Claudius expelling the Jews from Rome. Sue- 
 tonius the historian attributes this edict to the mutual 
 hostility of the Christians and Jews. Christianity must, 
 therefore, have made considerable progress in Rome. 
 With two of the exiles Paul now made his abode and 
 pursued with them the same occupation. The Jews, 
 even the most learned, usually applied themselves to 
 some art or trade. Paul was a tent-maker. At Corinth, 
 for the first time, the Christians seemed to have a sep- 
 arate school of instruction. They seceded from the 
 synagogue, and Crispus, one of the chief rulers, joined 
 with them. Silas and Timothy came over to help Paul. 
 At length Paul declared to those Jews who opposed him 
 and blasphemed, his determination to devote himself to 
 the Gentiles. Many of the Corinthians, hearing the argu- 
 ments of Paul, believed and were baptized. Paul had 
 while in Corinth an encouraging vision. " For I am 
 with thee ; I have much people in this city." 'Strength- 
 ened by impressions \\ViQ these, Paul remained a year and 
 six months in Corinth. But Gallic, the Roman deputy 
 "cared for none of these things," and gave no heed to 
 the complaints of the Jews against the Christians. 
 From Corinth Paul went to Ephesus, previously visit- 
 ing the churches at Caesarea and Antioch. Paul seems 
 to have remained in Ephesus and in the neighbor- 
 ing country for the space of two years, so that all they 
 which dwelt in Asia, heard the word of the Lord Jesus, 
 both Jews and Greeks. Paul met in Ephesus some of 
 the disciples of John the Baptist. These he fully 
 instructed in the doctrines of Christianity. The most 
 eminent of these disciples was Apollos, who being an 
 eloquent man became very conspicuous as a teacher
 
 36 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 the other disciples formed the nucleus of a Christian com- 
 munity at Ephesus. Many of the Jewish exorcists 
 dwelling at Ephesus came anu confessed and showed 
 their deeds, and burned their books which had been of 
 great pecuniary value to them. But there was a com- 
 mon article of trade at Ephesus, that was not so easily 
 surrendered ; this was a shrine of silver made for the 
 temple of Diana. The sale of these shrines and other 
 works of art had gradually diminished, and at the insti- 
 gation of Demetrius, one of the chief artisans of these 
 shrines, a great popular tumult was excited. This 
 man addressed the multitude, saying, " Ye see and 
 hear that not alone at Ephesus, but through all Asia, 
 this Paul hath turned away much people, saying that 
 they be no gods which are made with hands. So that not 
 only our craft is in danger to be set at naught ; but also 
 that the great goddess Diana should be despised and 
 her magnificence destroyed, whom all Asia (a part of 
 Asia Minor) and all the world worshipeth." When 
 the people heard these things they cried out, " Great is 
 Diana of the Ephesians. " The city was filled with 
 confusion. Some of the chief men who were friends of 
 Paul would not suffer him to adventure himself among 
 them.
 
 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 37 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 PAUL'S TRAVELS. 
 
 The town clerk of Ephesus finally appeased them by 
 consenting to their belief, that the image of Diana had 
 fallen down from Jupiter; "seeing that this thing can not be 
 disputed, ye ought to be quiet." He then reminded them 
 that they were in danger (as Roman citizens) (Acts xix. 35) 
 of being called to account for this day's uproar. He told 
 them as we would tell the rebellious to-day that the 
 law was open ; all their evils would be redressed in a 
 lawful assembly, "seeing that these men are not robbers 
 of your temples or blasphemers of your goddess." 
 The temple of Ephesus was one of the wonders of the 
 world. Paul soon afterward withdrew from the excited 
 city and pursued his former line of travel through 
 Macedonia and Greece. The exiles from Rome had 
 quietly passed back to their usual residences in the me- 
 tropolis. In writing his epistle to the Romans, Paul 
 evidently addresses those, with whom he is personally 
 acquainted. As he had not yet been to Italy, he had 
 doubtless formed these acquaintances at Corinth. He 
 abode three months in Greece, after leaving Macedonia. 
 He then returned to Philippi, in Macedonia, where he 
 took shipping and sailed over the ygean to Troas. 
 While Paul was preaching at Troas, the night being far 
 spent, one of his hearers, Eutychus, fell down while 
 asleep, from the third loft. Paul soon restored him. 
 From Troas to Assos Paul went afoot, but the ship took
 
 38 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 him in and came to Mitylene. While at Mitylene, Paul 
 sent to Ephesus for the elders of the Church. After 
 giving the Elders many exhortations, how they should 
 behave to the flock of God over which the Holy Ghost 
 had made them overseers, he took a solemn leave of 
 them, telling them to remember the words of the Lord 
 Jesus: "It is more blessed to give than to receive." 
 And he kneeled down and prayed with them all, and 
 they fell on Paul's neck, and wept sore, sorrowing for 
 the words which he spoke, that they would see his face 
 no more." And they accompanied him to the ship. 
 Paul continued his travels to Coos and to Rhodes and 
 to Patara, then taking another ship, sailed to Tyre, 
 where they remained seven days. They found disciples 
 at Tyre ; when they parted from these friends, they 
 with their wives and children kneeled upon the shore 
 with Paul and prayed. Then they came to Ptolemais 
 and then to Caesarea. In this city they abode at the 
 house of Philip the Evangelist. Here the disciples 
 besought Paul not to go to Jerusalem. But Paul was 
 determined to go, "and after these days we took up our 
 carriages and went up to Jerusalem. " Some of the disci- 
 ples from Caesarea went also, together with an old disci- 
 ple from Cyprus, with whom we should lodge. We 
 were received gladly at Jerusalem, and the day after 
 Paul went in with us unto James, and the Elders all 
 were present. Paul declared to them what God had 
 wrought for the Gentiles by his ministry. And they 
 glorified the Lord. And when we had saluted them 
 they said to Paul, "Thou seest, brother, how many thous- 
 ands of the Jews there are which believe, and they are 
 all zealous of the law : but they are informed of thee, 
 that thou teachest all the Jews, that are among the
 
 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 39 
 
 Gentiles, to forsake Moses, saying that they ought not 
 to circumcise their children. What is it therefore?" 
 Paul had gone to Jerusalem to keep the feast of Pente- 
 cost, the birthday of the Law. Understanding the 
 violence of his enemies at Jerusalem, he determined to 
 comply with the laws of prudence, and on the advice of 
 his friends he went with four persons into the Temple 
 who had taken upon them a vow, that he might evince 
 a personal reverence for the religion of his ancestors. 
 He was recognked, however, by his enemies, who made 
 a sudden outcry and charged him with having intro- 
 duced into the temple Trophimus, a convert, who had 
 come with him from Ephesus. He was charged with 
 having conversed with this uncircumcised stranger 
 within the three pillars or palisades, which in the three 
 languages of that time, Hebrew, Greek and Latin, 
 forbade the entrance of any who were not of pure Jew- 
 ish descent. They drew Paul violently out of the tem- 
 ple into the court of the Gentiles ; they were about to 
 kill him, when the chief captain heard of it ; he ran 
 with the soldiers and centurions and commanded him to 
 be bound with two chains, and carried into the castle. 
 He was borne by the soldiers, to rescue him from the 
 violence of the people. The captain, Lysias, supposed 
 him to be an insurgent chieftain who might create a 
 dangerous riot. He demanded of Paul who he was, 
 and what he intended to do. Then Paul said, " May I 
 speak unto thee ? " Lysias said, "Canst thou speak 
 Greek ?" Paul said, " I am a Jew of Tarsus, a city of 
 Cilicia, a citizen of no mean city, and beseech thee to suf- 
 fer me to speak unto the people." Paul stood on the 
 stairs and beckoned with the hand unto the people. A 
 great silence now ensued and Paul spake to the people
 
 4O ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 in the Hebrew tongue. He addresses them as " Men, 
 brethren, and fathers," telling them that he had been 
 brought up in Jerusalem at the feet of Gamaliel, their 
 celebrated teacher. He then tells them of his remark- 
 able conversion to Christianity while journeying from 
 Jerusalem to Damascus as recorded in the 22d chap- 
 ter of the Acts. In order to prove his sincerity, that he 
 had been a zealous Jew, he tells them that he was pres- 
 ent at the martyrdom of Stephen and held the clothes 
 of those who stoned him. He tells them of his baptism, 
 and of a trance in the temple at Jerusalem when the 
 voice of the Lord, who had appeared to him in the way 
 said to him : ' ' Depart ; I will send thee far hence unto 
 the Gentiles." They heard him until the word " Gen- 
 tiles " was uttered. They then lifted up their voices 
 and cried, "Away with such a fellow from the earth." 
 The chief captain had him brought into the castle, that 
 he should be examined he probably understanding 
 nothing of the address that Paul had uttered and wish- 
 ing to discover the cause of the violent agitation of the 
 people. And as they were about to bind him with 
 thongs, Paul said, "Is it lawful for you to scourge a 
 man that is a Roman and uncondemned ? " When the 
 centurion heard that, he said to the chief captain, 
 "Take heed, what thou doest, this man is a Roman." 
 Then the captain said, "Tell me, art thou a Roman?" 
 He said, ' ' Yea. ' ' The captain said, / ' With a great sum 
 obtained I this freedom." And Paul said, "But I was 
 free-born." Paul was loosed from his bonds, and on the 
 morrow he was set before the chief priests and the 
 council. As Paul was speaking, Ananias the High 
 Priest, commanded him to be smitten on the mouth. 
 Then Paul said, "God shall smite thce, thou whited wall ;
 
 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 4! 
 
 for sittest thou to judge me after the law, and com- 
 mandest me to be smitten contrary to law ?" And some 
 said, " Revilest thou God's High Priest?" " I wist not, 
 brethren, that he was the High Priest; for it is written, 
 ' Thou shalt not revile the ruler of thy people. ' ' 
 When Paul perceived that there was a mixed council of 
 Pharisees and Sadducees, he cried out that he was a 
 Pharisee and the son of a Pharisee, "and for the hope 
 and resurrection of the dead I am called in question." 
 The chief captain seeing the tumult, brought him by 
 force out of their hands to the castle. A conspiracy 
 was formed against the life of Paul, the plot was dis- 
 covered, and Paul was conveyed to Caesarea under a 
 strong guard. The captain wrote a letter to the gov-' 
 ernor of Caesarea: "Claudius Lysias, unto the most 
 excellent governor Felix, This man was taken of the 
 Jews and would have been killed, but I came with an 
 army and rescued him, having learned that he was a 
 Roman. When I inquired into the cause, I perceived 
 it to be questions of their law, but to have nothing 
 laid to his -charge, worthy of death or of bonds." 
 When they came to Caesarea and delivered the epistle 
 of Lysias to Felix, he asked of what province he was. 
 When he heard that he was of Cilicia, " I will hear 
 thee," he said, "when thy accusers have come." And 
 he was placed in Herod's judgment hall. After a few 
 days, Ananias with elders and a certain orator came 
 down to set forth their charges against Paul. Tertullus, 
 the orator, called him a pestilent fellow and a mover of 
 sedition. Then Paul was invited by the governor to 
 make his defense. Paul spoke of the resurrection and 
 explained to Felix why he had gone up to Jerusalem. 
 Felix having married a Jewess, had some knowledge of 
 4
 
 42 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHFIST. 
 
 the questions that Paul discussed ; he had, too, been a 
 judge of the Jewish nation for many years. Felix post- 
 poned a decision until Lysias came down ; he com- 
 manded a centurion to keep Paul and give him liberty. 
 Felix with his wife Drusilla afterwards sent for Paul, 
 and heard him concerning his faith in Christ. And as 
 Paul reasoned of righteousness, temperance, and judg- 
 ment to come, Felix trembled, and said, " Go thy way 
 this time ; when I have a convenient season I will call 
 for thee. " After two years, Porcius Festus came in 
 Felix's room, and Felix, willing to show the Jews a 
 pleasure, left Paul bound. While Festus was at Jerusa- 
 lem, the High Priest and the chief of the Jews, besought 
 'Festus that he should send Paul to Jerusalem to be 
 judged, but Festus answered that Paul should be kept at 
 Caesarea, and that he would shortly depart thither. 
 " Let them therefore, said he, which among you are 
 able, go down with me and accuse this man if there 
 be any wickedness in him." Paul was a few days 
 after summoned to the judgment-seat of Festus at 
 Caesarea. The Jews which came down from Jerusa- 
 lem laid many grievous complaints against him 
 which they could not prove. Then Festus said, 
 " Wilt thou go up to Jerusalem and there be judged of 
 these things before me? " Then said Paul, 4< I stand at 
 Caesar's judgment-seat. To the Jews I have done noth- 
 ing wrong, as thou very well knowest. If I be an 
 offender or have done anything worthy of death, I re- 
 fuse not to die ; but if there be none of these things 
 whereof these accuse me, no man may deliver me unto 
 them. I appeal unto,,Caesar. " Festus, unlike Felix, 
 seems to have been ignorant of the Jewish religion ; the 
 questions discussed between Paul and the Jews were 
 incomprehensible to him. Festus tells Agrippa that
 
 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 43 
 
 the Jews had certain questions against Paul of their 
 own superstition and of one Jesus, which was dead, 
 whom Paul affirmed to be alive. Agrippa's curiosity 
 is awakened, and he desires to hear Paul. On the mor- 
 row, Agrippa came, and Bernice, with great pomp to 
 the place of hearing. Agrippa had just come from 
 Rome to Caesarea with his sister ; he had succeeded to a 
 part of his father's dominions. He was in possession 
 of the Asmonean palace at Jerusalem, and had the 
 right of appointing the High Priest. The Roman gov- 
 ernor seems to have consulted Agrippa, as a man of 
 moderation and knowledge of the Roman law. "I have 
 brought this man before thee, O King Agrippa, that 
 after examination had, I might have somewhat to 
 write. For it seemeth to me unreasonable to send 
 a prisoner (to Rome), and not withal to signify the 
 crimes laid against him." 
 
 The 26th chapter of the Acts contains the elo- 
 quent speech and defense of Paul before Agrippa. 
 As Paul proceeded with passionate eloquence, Festus 
 cried out, ' ' Paul, thou art beside thyself ; much learning 
 doth make thee mad." But Paul said, "I am" not 
 mad, but speak forth the words of truth and soberness. 
 The king knoweth of these things, before whom I 
 speak -freely. For I am persuaded that none of these 
 things were hidden from him, for this thing was not 
 done in "a. corner." Then Agrippa said unto Paul, 
 "Almost thou persuadest me to be a Christian." Then 
 said Agrippa unto Festus, " This man might have been 
 set at liberty had he not appealed to Cesar. " In the 2/th 
 chapter is related Paul's journey to Rome. He and 
 other prisoners were put under the care of a centurion. 
 After a shipwreck and many dangers, they arrive at
 
 44 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 Rome. During Paul's journey he had a vision at night, 
 which assured him that notwithstanding the wreck of 
 the ship, all that sailed with him should arrive in safety. 
 Christian brethren from Rome met him before he 
 reached the city. The centurion delivered the other 
 prisoners to the captain of the guard, but Paul was 
 suffered to dwell by himself with a soldier that kept 
 him, and after three days Paul called the chief of the 
 Jews together, and explained to them his cause and 
 why he had appealed to Caesar. They replied to him, 
 " We desire to hear what thou thinkest : for as concern- 
 ing this sect we know that everywhere it is spoken 
 against." And he appointed a day ; there came many 
 to him, unto his lodging, to whom he explained the 
 kingdom of God, persuading them concerning Jesus 
 both out of the Law of Moses and out of the Prophets, 
 from morning until evening. And some believed the 
 things which were spoken and some believed not. 
 And Paul dwelt two whole years in his own hired 
 house, and received all that came unto him, preaching 
 the kingdom of God, and teaching those things which 
 concern the Lord Jesus Christ, with all confidence, no 
 man forbidding him. 
 
 END OF THE SCRIPTURE NARRATIVE.
 
 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 4$ 
 
 CHAPTER- IV. 
 PAUL'S WRITINGS. 
 
 St. Paul wrote thirteen Epistles.* The Epistle to 
 the Romansf is the first in order, as published in our 
 Bibles. This Epistle was written from Corinth, during 
 his second residence in that city. Paul had never been 
 at Rome, when he wrote the Epistle to the Romans. 
 During his first visit to Corinth, Paul had formed an 
 intimate connection with Roman Christians, resident at 
 Corinth and at Cenchrea, its port ; these had been ban- 
 ished by Claudius from Rome, together with many 
 Jews. The greater part of the Christian exiles seem 
 to have taken refuge with Aquila and Priscilla. Paul 
 was in Corinth "a year and six months," testifying in 
 the synagogue every Sabbath, that Jesus was Christ. 
 When Claudius was dead, the Jews and Christians 
 naturally crept back to their old homes. The Chris- 
 tians from Corinth would convey to their brethren at 
 Rome the more perfect knowledge of Christianity 
 taught them by Paul, during their banishment at Cor- 
 inth. In writing to these Roman Christians afterwards, 
 
 *We have said Paul wrote thirteen Epistles. Some learned men 
 now think that the Epistle to the Hebrews was not written by Paul. 
 Some attribute the Epistle to the Hebrews to Apollos. 
 
 t Paul's Epistle to the Romans, says Luther, is the masterpiece of 
 the New Testament. Coleridge says, the Epistle to the Romans is the 
 most profound work in existence. Justification by Faith is the subject 
 of this Epistle.
 
 46 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. ' 
 
 he says to them, " Your faith is spoken of throughout 
 the world." The history of the Roman community, 
 says Milman, is remarkable. It grew up in silence, 
 founded by some unknown teachers, probably by those 
 "strangers from Rome;" who were in Jerusalem on 
 the day of Pentecost, at the first publication of Christi- 
 anity by the Apostles. During the reign of Claudius 
 Christianity had made such progress as to excite tu- 
 mults and dissensions among the Jewish population of 
 Rome ; the attention of the government was attracted 
 and both parties expelled from the city. The founda- 
 tion of the Christian Church at Rome by either Peter 
 or Paul is utterly irreconcilable with history. The 
 first chapter of the Epistle to the Romans proves con- 
 clusively that the foundation of this church was long 
 previous to his (Paul's) visit to the Western metropolis. 
 Paul's Epistle to the Galatians was written, it is sup- 
 posed, during his first visit to Ephesus. Galatia had 
 derived its name from the settlement of the Gauls in 
 this country. There were, probably, great numbers of 
 Jews in this district. It is very evident from what we 
 have seen of the question agitated at the first council 
 of Jerusalem, that there was a conflict among the early 
 Christians with regard to Judaism, or the ceremonial 
 rites prescribed by the Law of Moses. Was the cum- 
 brous framework of Mosaic observances still to be 
 observed by the Christian Church ? Many of the 
 Gentile converts were ready to submit to the faith 
 of Christ, with its exquisite morality ; but could they 
 submit to the unmeaning regulations of diet, dress and 
 manners required by the Jewish ritual ? Chris- 
 tianity had now advanced beyond the Jewish pop-
 
 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 47 
 
 ulation, and these questions were strongly agitated. 
 To meet these difficulties, St. Paul seems to have 
 written the celebrated Epistle to the Roman's,, also his 
 Epistle to the Galatians. St. Paul teaches in these 
 Epistles that the ceremonial \JKW of Moses was annulled, 
 that it was a temporary institution, designed during a 
 barbarous age to keep alive the principles of true re- 
 ligion. It is certain that the first generation of Chris- 
 tians had passed 'away before many Jewish converts to 
 Christianity had emancipated themselves from the yoke 
 of Jewish observances. For a time it is believed that 
 tivo Sabbaths were kept. As Christianity advanced, 
 taking in a larger proportion of the Gentiles than of 
 those of Jewish descent, the synagogue and church 
 became more distinct. Judaism gradually died away 
 within the Christian pale. A latent Judaism has at 
 certain periods lurked within the Church and mani- 
 fested itself. At Corinth St. Paul wrote the Epistles 
 to the Thessalonians. St. Paul is said to have writ- 
 ten, when he lived at Rome in his own hired house, 
 the Epistle to the Ephesians, one to the Colossians, 
 and to the Philippians. He also wrote two letters to 
 Timothy, who is regarded as the first Bishop of Ephe- 
 sus The first of these letters to Timothy was written 
 from Laodicea, the second from Rome, when Paul was 
 brought before Nero a second time. The Epistle to 
 Titus was written from Nicopolis. The two Epistles 
 to the Corinthians were written from Philippi in Mace- 
 donia. At the end of the two years' sojourn of Paul in 
 Rome, he is supposed to have left the city for a time. 
 The year after his departure is noted as the beginning 
 of the Neronian persecution in the Annals of Rome. 
 The Christians were accused of burning the city, and
 
 48 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 were subjected to terrible tortures. New punishments 
 were invented. Some of the Christians, of whom the 
 world was not worthy, were sewed up in skins of beasts 
 and covered with melted pitch and burned by a slow 
 fire. These horrible details of the Neronian persecu- 
 tion are mentioned by the historians of that day. Taci- 
 tus says, Nero, in order to divert a suspicion from him- 
 self, resolved to substitute in his place some fictttioiis 
 criminals. With this view he inflicted horrible tortures 
 on those men who, under the appellation of Christians, 
 were already branded with infamy. "These derived 
 their name from Christ, who in the reign of Tiberius, 
 suffered death under Pilate the Procurator," A. D. 66. 
 Tradition assigns to the last year of Nero the martyr- 
 dom of St. Peter and St. Paul.* The martyrdom of 
 Peter rests altogether upon unauthoritative testimony, 
 that of St. Paul upon the authentic record of the second 
 Epistle to Timothy, when St. Paul says, "I am ready 
 to be offered and the time of my departure is at hand." 
 When Paul wrote this, it is said that the government 
 of Rome had been entrusted to Helias, a freedman of 
 Nero. The tradition is that Paul, as a Roman citizen, 
 was beheaded, not by the order of Nero, but by the 
 sentence of the Governor. When Rome was burned, 
 all the monuments of Grecian art and of Roman brayery 
 were involved in one common destruction the trophies 
 of the Punic and Gallic wars, the most holy temples, 
 the most splendid palaces. The gardens and circus of 
 Nero, on the Vatican, were polluted, says Gibbon, with 
 the blood of the first Christians. Near the same spot 
 a Christian Temple now stands, which far surpasses 
 
 Tradition says that the soldiers and executioners who carried him 
 to his execution, were converted by him ; but this may be romance.
 
 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 49 
 
 the ancient glories of the capitol. The fame of St. 
 Peter has eclipsed that of St. Paul in the Eternal City. 
 The most splendid temple erected by Christian zeal 
 bears the name of St. Peter. It is most remarkable 
 that in no part of the Scripture record, is there any 
 personal history of St. Peter as connected with the 
 Western Churches. Until the conversion of St. Paul, 
 St. Peter was the most eminent and prominent of the 
 teachers of the Gospel of Christ. He was the chief 
 speaker on the day of Pentecost ; he first opened the 
 door of admission to Cornelius, and proclaimed that 
 the partition wall was broken down between Jew and 
 Gentile. Peter wrote two Epistles they are written 
 apparently from Babylonia. " The church which is at 
 Babylon saluteth you." Lightfoot, learned in Jewish 
 antiquities, maintains that Peter lived and died in Baby- 
 lonia. It is certain that large numbers of Jews lived in 
 Babylonia, and it is believed that, as the Apostle of 
 the circumcision, he went thither to preach the Gospel 
 to the Jews in that region. There is no record or con- 
 temporary evidence that Peter ever was at Rome. 
 But it is confidently believed that there were two par- 
 ties, both at Rome and Corinth. The Petrine party 
 was a Judaizing church, and the Pauline a Hellenistic 
 church. Irenseus, Dionysius and Epiphanius maintain 
 the tradition that Peter had a residence at Rome and 
 that he suffered martyrdom there by crucifixion. 
 
 Palestine seems to have been assigned to James the 
 Just, he who gave his sentence at the council of Jerusa- 
 lem to abolish circumcision. Paul escaped the ven- 
 geance of the Sanhedrim, but they wreaked their ven- 
 geance on one far less obnoxious to the Jews generally. 
 The head of the Christian community at Jerusalem was
 
 5O ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 James. On the death of Festus, the Roman governor, 
 and before the arrival of Albinus as governor, Annas, 
 a fierce Sadducaic, High Priest, seized the opportunity 
 of the suspension of the Roman Power, to reassert the 
 power of the Sanhedrim over life and death. Many 
 were executed by Annas, by stoning, and James, the 
 head of the community, commonly called the Bishop 
 of Jerusalem (the mother church), suffered martyrdom. 
 Tradition says James was thrown from the walls of the 
 temple. This persecution of Annas rests on the author- 
 ity of Josephus, who says Annas put them to death on 
 account of their religion. Who but Christians could have 
 been -obnoxious to capital punishment ? The power 
 to persecute by the Jewish hierarchy was now drawing 
 to a close. The time was come when all the righteous 
 blood that had been shed by the rebellious and fanatical 
 Jewish leaders should be avenged on that generation. 
 
 Titus, the son of Vespasian, was making ready, in 
 marshalling his hosts, to attack the sacred city, over 
 whose calamities the Saviour of the world had wept. 
 In the year 70, dating from the birth of Jesus, Jeru- 
 salem was trodden under foot by the Roman armies, 
 under the command of Titus, the eldest son of Ves- 
 pasian, then the reigning Emperor of Rome and of 
 the civilized world. The beautiful temple, built by the - 
 returning captives from Babylon in 530 B. c., and 
 afterwards richly embellished by Herod the Great, was 
 leveled with the ground. A burning taper in the hands 
 of a reckless Roman soldier, accomplished the predic- 
 tion of our Lord. The Christians at Jerusalem re- 
 moved to Pella, a neighboring city, so soon as the fated 
 city became "encompassed with armies." They were 
 therefore not involved in the miseries of the siege.
 
 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 51 
 
 Many Jews, it is said, of wealth and distinction, also 
 fled to the same locality. Domitian succeeded to his 
 brother Titus after a short reign. A proconsul of Asia, 
 during the reign of this tyrant, banished St. John, the 
 beloved disciple, to the Isle of Patrnos. In this island 
 tradition places his writing the Apocalypse, as well as 
 his own word : "I John, who also am your brother 
 and companion in tribulation and in the kingdom and 
 patience of Jesus Christ, was in the Isle that is called 
 Patmos, for the Word of God, and for the testimony of 
 Jesus Christ." John returned to Ephesus, and probably 
 ended his days in that populous and commercial city. 
 Ephesus was the scene of the first collision between 
 Orientalism and Christianity. Ephesus was the third 
 capital of Christianity. In this city the Gospel of St. 
 John was written. This Gospel was not written, says 
 Milman, against any peculiar sect or individual, but to 
 arrest the spirit of Orientalism. "Ephesus," says Farrar, 
 "witnessed the full development and the final amalgam- 
 ation of its elements in the work of John, the Apostle of 
 Love." Christianity was born at Jerusalem in the cradle 
 of Judaism; it was the mother Church. Antioch was 
 the beginning of the Christian Church of the Gentiles. 
 When John wrote his Gospel a spirit of Orientalism 
 seemed to threaten the beautiful simplicity of Christi- 
 anity. While St. John appropriates the term Logos or 
 Word of God to the divine authority of Christianity, 
 and even adopts some of the imagery from the hypothe- 
 sis of conflicting light and darkness, he entirely rejects 
 thespeculati on of the Gnostics on the formation of 
 the world. Though in the writings of John (Milman, 
 our author, continues), there is something of a mystic 
 tone when he speaks of the union of the soul with the
 
 52 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 Deity ; it is a union made by the aspiration of the pious 
 heart and by the union of pure and holy love with the 
 Deity. It requires not, as the Gnostics do, abstraction 
 from matter, but from sin, from hatred and from all 
 fierce and corrupting passions. 
 
 The Church that Paul founded at Ephesus (of which 
 Timothy is reputed to be the successor of St. Paul as 
 Bishop) became a Christian metropolis of a line of 
 Bishops, and there, four centuries afterward, was held a 
 great Ecumenical Council, which deposed Nestorius, 
 the Patriarch of Constantinople. But now for centu- 
 ries its candlestick has been removed. 
 
 It has been asserted that St. John wrote his Gospel 
 to refute the heresies of Cerinthus, a famous Gnostic 
 of Ephesus. It is very certain from the contents of 
 the Gospel itself, that it was written to supply several 
 interesting incidents in the life of Christ omitted by 
 the other three Evangelists, and to give to his disciples 
 in every age, those last words of comfort and instruction 
 of the Master, as contained in the Hth, I5th and i6th 
 chapters of St. John's Gospel. The conflict with Gnos- 
 ticism seems to have commenced before the death of 
 St. John. Simon Magus, mentioned in the Acts in a 
 conflict with St. Peter, was an Orientalist or Gnostic, 
 calling himself "the Power of God." It is not within 
 the scope of our ability or purpose, in this abridged his- 
 tory of the Church, to enter into the depths of the shad- 
 owy and fanciful doctrines of the Gnostics. They called 
 themselves Christians, yet they did not limit their creed 
 to the teachings of our Lord as contained in the four 
 Gospels, and in the Epistles of his Apostles : but they 
 multiplied books, in which they sought to adapt their 
 respective tenets to the teaching of Christ not regard-
 
 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 53 
 
 ing or fearing the denunciation of the Apocalypse : 
 "If any man, shall add unto these things, God shall 
 add unto him the plagues that are written in this book : 
 "and if any man shall take away from the words of 
 the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his 
 part out of the Book of Life." They, the Gnostics, were 
 divided by their differing opinions into many sects. 
 They nourished for the most part in the second century, 
 but were partially suppressed in the third century. 
 The most formidable sect of the Gnostics in the latter 
 part of their history, were the Manicheans. They were 
 found chiefly in Egypt and in Asia, and sometimes dis- 
 tributed in the Western Provinces. They blended with 
 the faith of Christ some tenets of oriental philosophy, 
 together with the religion of Zoroaster. They rejected 
 the Old Testament. They dwelt on the malignity of 
 matter, the existence of two principles, and a mysteri- 
 ous hierarchy in the invisible world. They regarded 
 Christ as an emanation from God, but relieved Christ 
 from the degradation of a human birth, by supposing 
 that the Christ descended on the Man Jesus at his 
 baptism ; and from the ignominy of a mortal death, by 
 making him reascend before that crisis. It was in the 
 view of the Gnostic, pollution and degradation to the 
 pure and elementary spirit, to mingle with or exercise 
 the remotest influence over the material world.. The 
 creation therefore of this visible world was not made 
 by the great God, who dwelt in distance unapproach- 
 able, but by a secondary and hostile deity. God saw 
 every thing that he had made, and behold it was very 
 good. Almost all the creeds of the early churches 
 begin with a confession of Faith in God, the Father 
 Almighty, Maker of Heaven and Earth. With the
 
 54 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 defense of thisjundamental doctrine, Irenaeus opens his 
 refutation of the Gnostic heresies, saying in the language 
 of Justin Martyr, that he could not have believed Christ 
 himself, if he had announced any other God than the 
 Creator whose work is declared in the first chapter of 
 the Bible. The Church inherited from Judaism the 
 doctrine of the unity of God, the just and holy Creator 
 and upholder of all things, and vindicated it against the 
 polytheism of the pagans, but more especially against 
 the dualism of the Gnostics, who supposed matter co- 
 eternal with God and ascribed the creation of our 
 world to an inferior deity or an intermediate Demiurge. 
 The hymns of the Gnostics are said to have exercised 
 much power over the churches of Syria. Their poetry 
 was sung in the churches of Syria, until it was expelled 
 by more orthodox psalmody. We have already spoken 
 of the martyrdoms of Peter and Paul at Rome, of the 
 death of James the Just at Jerusalem by violence in 
 the persecution of Annas, and of the death of St. John 
 at Ephesus ; of the fate of the other evangelists and 
 Apostles, little is known with certainty. Legend has 
 been busy in assigning their fields of labor, also the 
 manner of their deaths. It is certain that the disciples 
 of our Lord were scattered abroad, busy with the Mas- 
 ter's work, but to what particular country their labors 
 were .directed, and where they met their last enemy, 
 death, is not certain. Their good works followed 
 them. Before the reign of Diocletian, A. D. 280, the 
 faith of Christ had been preached in every province 
 and large city of the Roman Empire. The highways, 
 which had been constructed for the use of the legions, 
 opened an easy passage for the Christian mission- 
 aries from Damascus to Corinth, and from Italy to the
 
 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 55 
 
 extremity of Spain and Britain. St. Peter, in writing 
 from Chaldea, mentions the presence of Mark ; Paul 
 indicates in his letters to Timothy and Titus, their par- 
 ticular charge. Luke we know was the companion of 
 St. Paul in his journeyings, and was busy in writing 
 the Gospel that bears his name, and the Acts of the 
 Apostles. But of Matthew and Bartholomew, and 
 Andrew and the rest, we know nothing of their latter 
 days except from uncertain traditionary legends. It is 
 quite certain that St. Matthew wrote the Gospel that 
 bears his name, first in Hebrew. Papias, the contempo- 
 rary of the Apostle St. John, says positively that 
 Matthew had written the discourses of Jesus Christ in 
 Hebrew, and that each interpreted them as he could. 
 This Hebrew was the Syro-Chaldaic dialect, as is proved 
 by many words which he used, and which the Evangel- 
 ists have translated. St. Paul, addressing the Jews, 
 used the same language, in Acts xxi. 40, and in other 
 places. The Greek version of Matthew appears to have 
 been made in the time of the Apostles, as St. Jerome 
 and St. Augustine both affirm. This subject has been 
 elaborately discussed, and some modern critics have 
 asserted its Greek original, but the general opinion is 
 against them.
 
 56 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 EXTENT OF THE CHURCH IN THE SECOND CENTURY. 
 
 There is no certain evidence, says Paley, where some 
 of the apostles and teachers of the.gospel passed their 
 later years, and where and how they closed their mor- 
 tal career ; but from the work they accomplished, it is 
 very certain that the original witnesses of the miracles 
 of our Lord passed their lives in labors, dangers and 
 sufferings voluntarily undergone in attestation of the 
 accounts they delivered and solely in consequence of 
 their belief of these accounts ; and that they submitted 
 also from the same motives to new rules of conduct. A 
 more patient investigator, or one more learned than 
 Paley in the lore of early primitive Christianity, can not 
 be found. As a proof of the earnest work of the 
 apostles and Christian teachers, it is asserted that in A. 
 D. 150, about the middle of the ^second century, 
 the number of professed Christians amounted to one- 
 tenth of the subjects of the Roman Empire. Asia was 
 the cradle of Christianity, as it was of civilization. Yet 
 Christianity was a Greek religion for three centuries. 
 Justin Martyr, who lived in the second century, says 
 there is no people, Greek or barbarian, however ig- 
 norant of arts and agriculture whether, they live in 
 tents or wander about in covered wagons among whom 
 prayers and thanksgivings are not said and offered to 
 the Father and Creator of all things, in the name of the 
 crucified Jesus.
 
 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 57 
 
 The apostles themselves had spread the gospel of 
 Christ over Palestine, Syria and Asia Minor. Chris- 
 tianity reached Egypt as early as the apostolic age. 
 Mark the Evangelist laid the foundation of the Church 
 in Alexandria, the metropolis of commerce and of ori- 
 ental culture. Clement and Origen taught in the 
 schools of Egypt. The Christian religion had its origin 
 among a Syrian people. Jesus spoke an Aramaic dia- 
 lect ; it was the popular language of Jerusalem and 
 Galilee, yet nearly all the primal records were written 
 in Greek. CJiristianity from the beginning was a Greek 
 religion. The Jews, the first converts to Christ, 
 used the Greek language in their commerce with other 
 countries, and in their intercourse with foreign nations. 
 The most flourishing churches were in Greek cities. 
 The Syriac, or Aramaic, was doubtless spoken by vast 
 numbers of disciples, in Syrian provinces. It spread 
 eastward, beyond the Euphrates, where Greek ceased 
 to be the common tongue. But the Greek language 
 was the language of the Church for more than three 
 centuries. The Grecian Churches of the East, such 
 as Antioch, Alexandria, Ephesus, were held together 
 by common creeds, common usages, common sympa- 
 thies. The hierarchy were everywhere on the same 
 level. The Bishop of each city in theory had the 
 same power. The metropolitan and patriarchate were of 
 much later date. Greek Christianity was inquisitive 
 and speculative. Great questions, as the origin of evil, 
 the nature of the deity, the formation of worlds, were 
 agitated among them. The Greeks had many great 
 writers, such as Athanasius, Basil, the Gregories, but 
 they had few worthy successors. Splendid eloquence 
 seemed to expire on the lips of Chrysostom. Tertul- 
 5
 
 58 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 lian was the first Latin writer that commanded the pub- 
 lic ear. Africa, not Rome, gave birth to what is called 
 Latin Christianity. Eusebius mentions as a strange 
 fact, that Cyprian, Bishop of Carthage, wrote to the 
 Asiatic Bishops in Latin. None of the Roman 
 i3ishops, down to the time of Gregory the Great, were 
 master minds. The Church of the capital could not 
 but assume somewhat of the dignity of the capital, 
 but Rome had no Origen, no Athanasius, no Cyprian, 
 no Ambrose, no Augustine, no Jerome, no Chrysostom. 
 When our Saviour issued the command, "Go ye into 
 all the world," etc., he spoke to his eleven apostles ; 
 one of the first acts of these apostles was to elect and 
 consecrate another apostle in the place of Judas, giv- 
 ing to him like authority with themselves. Shortly 
 after they appoint other officers, called deacons, with 
 limited powers. Two of these are distinguished for 
 their zeal in preaching Stephen and Philip. Stephen is 
 regarded as the first Christian martyr. Philip baptized 
 many converts in Samaria, but Peter and John came 
 down -(Acts viii.) to that city to lay their hands on the 
 converts taught and baptized by Philip. Paul was 
 made an Apostle by the Saviour himself (I. Tim. i. 12) ; 
 he was baptized by Ananias. Paul was afterwards 
 brought to the apostles by Barnabas, and his miracu- 
 lous conversion and ordination declared unto them. 
 Paul ordained Timothy with his own hands, and with 
 the laying on of the hands of the Presbytery. Paul 
 charges Timothy "to lay hands suddenly on no man," 
 giving him also directions as to the necessary qualifi- 
 cations for Bishops or Elders, and for Deacons. He 
 gives similar advice to Titus. " He hands the torch 
 of truth to Timothy and Titus, which in his own
 
 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 59 
 
 grasp had never been dimmed or quenched, nor any 
 faltering amid storms of persecution. " Tradition af- 
 firms that Timothy was Bishop of Ephesus, and Titus 
 of Crete, according to our modern acceptation of the 
 Word. St. John also writes to the angels of the seven 
 Churches of Asia these angels are supposed to mean 
 the chief ministers of those Churches. Few points in 
 Christian history have been more contested than the 
 primitive constitution of the Christian Churches ; the 
 evidence is chiefly inferential. Milman says the whole 
 of Christianity, when it emerges from the obscurity of 
 the first century, appears uniformly governed by su- 
 periors in each community called Bishops. But the 
 origin and extent of this superiority and the manner in 
 which the Bishop assumed a distinct authority above 
 the Presbyters, is among the difficult questions of 
 Church history. " No society, " says Guizot, "can exist 
 without a government. But the essence of government 
 resides not in compulsion. The right of compulsion as- 
 sumed by the Church in the fifth century was contrary 
 to the spirit of the religious society, and to the primi- 
 tive maxims of the Church. The spirit of compulsion 
 was opposed by Hilary, by Ambrose and by St. Mar- 
 tin. These good men maintained the legitimate liberty 
 of human thought." The Christian Church in its ori- 
 gin was formed round an individual. The apostle or 
 teacher becomes at once the chief religious functionary. 
 Oral instruction was anterior to the existence of any 
 book, or any inspired record. The teacher, while he 
 remained, would be recognized as the legitimate head 
 of the Christian society. When Paul left Miletus for 
 the last time, he sent for "the Elders of the Church 
 from Ephesus," where he had abode three years. Paul
 
 6O ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 gives to the Elders, or overseers, of the Church of God 
 the most solemn admonitions. There seems to have been 
 already at Ephesus an organized government. Paul 
 represented the Apostle or Bishop, as \\\Q first order was 
 called after the days of the apostles. The second order 
 in the New Testament are called alternately, Elders, 
 Bishops and Presbyters. The third order are called 
 Deacons. Timothy, as Paul's successor, was Bishop of 
 Ephesus. Two questions have arisen in regard to 
 the Episcopate. Was the Episcopate directly of apos- 
 tolic origin, as the Roman Catholics and Anglicans, the 
 Moravians, the Swedish Lutherans, and the Greek Church 
 maintain; or did it arise, as Presbyterians attest, from 
 the Presidency of the congregational Presbytery ? 
 Dean Stanley, the present head of the Westminster, 
 says : " No existing Church can find an exact pattern of 
 the form of Church government in the earliest times." 
 He says that "it is as sure that nothing like modern 
 Episcopacy existed before the close of the first century, 
 as it is certain that no Presbyterianism existed after the 
 beginning of the second century." Timothy, Titus, 
 Silas, Epaphroditus, Mark, and Luke were at first 
 itinerant evangelists and legates of the apostles. After- 
 wards, tradition assigns distinct bishoprics to them. 
 St. John writes to the angels of the seven churches of 
 Asia. We understand these to mean the superior min- 
 ister or bishop of each of those cities, and it indicates 
 the shaping of the church government in the days of 
 St. John. Four of the distinguished fathers say that 
 St. John ordained Polycarp bishop of Smyrna, to 
 whom Irenseus was personally known. The uncon- 
 tested spread of the episcopate in the second century 
 can not be explained without the sanction of apostolic
 
 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 6 1 
 
 authority. An uninterrupted line of bishops is traced 
 by ecclesiastical historians to the apostles, without a 
 murmur of remonstrance. No schism, no breach of 
 Christian unity, followed. St. Jerome, quoted by 
 Hooker, assigns the origin of episcopacy to the dis- 
 sensions of the Church, which required strong exercise 
 of authority, especially in Corinth. 
 
 In St. Paul's time three parties seem to have ex- 
 isted : the Pauline, Petrine, and Apolline. Corinth, 
 says Milman, was probably the last Christian com- 
 munity that settled down under the episcopal constitu- 
 tion. In primitive episcopacy there was no sacerdotal 
 idea connected with the word presbyter or priest. 
 They (the early Christians) adopted the word priest both 
 from Judaism and Paganism, without connecting with it 
 any idea of sacrifice, but simply denoting him who was 
 appointed to minister in holy things, to preach the 
 Word, and to dispense the sacraments. They recog- 
 nized but one priest or mediator between earth and 
 heaven, the man Christ Jesus. As Christianity was a 
 new religion, the Church was obliged to give to old 
 words a new meaning. They adopted the word 
 sacrament, meaning oath, which connects itself with 
 our most holy mysteries. The primitive Episcopal 
 system must by no means be confounded with the 
 later hierarchy. Though the bishops were equal in 
 their dignity and powers as successors of the apostles, 
 they gradually fell into different ranks, according to 
 the political and ecclesiastical importance of the dis- 
 tricts in which they resided. Jerusalem, Antioch, 
 Ephesus, Corinth and Rome, were regarded as the 
 mother Churches. In the time of Irenaeus and Tertul- 
 lian they were regarded as the chief bearers of the pure
 
 62 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 Church tradition. To the bishop of Antioch fell all 
 Syria as his metropolitan district ; to the bishop of 
 Alexandria all Egypt. In these metropolitan divisions 
 we have the germs of the patriarchate of the Greek 
 church. To the bishop of Rome central and lower 
 Italy. 
 
 Whence came the precedence of the Church of 
 Rome? The great political preeminence of Rome as 
 the capital and mistress of the world doubtless gave 
 potential influence to the See of Rome. St. Paul 
 honored the Romans with his longest and most impor- 
 tant epistle. The executive wisdom of the Church of 
 Rome in its management of three questions, that 
 greatly agitated the early Church, redounded much 
 to its credit. These questions were : the proper time 
 for the observance of Easter, heretical baptism, and 
 penitential discipline. 
 
 In A. D. 102, Clement was bishop of Rome ; he 
 writes a letter to the bishop of Corinth at this time, full 
 of exhortations to love, unity and humility. This 
 epistle was not sent in the name of the bishop, but in 
 the name of the congregation ; not in authority, but in 
 love. The authority of the bishop of Rome was that 
 of influence, not power, in the second century. The 
 person most eminent for piety and 'wisdom was elected 
 to the bishopric by acclamation, which was one of dan- 
 ger as well as distinction. Episcopal government, so 
 long as it remained unleavened by worldly passions and 
 interests, was essentially popular. 
 
 The office of a bishop in times of persecution be- 
 came a post of great danger. Jesus had predicted to 
 his disciples persecution and sorrow. "The time will 
 come when he who killeth you, will think that he
 
 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 63 
 
 doeth God service." It might have been expected, that 
 the Jews would persecute the Christians, as they were 
 in the beginning a secession from their synagogues but 
 that the pagans should become persecutors on account 
 of religion could not be anticipated, when the indifferent- 
 ism of polytheism is considered. A thousand different 
 forms of religion existed, without molestation, in the 
 great cities of Syria and Egypt, and especially in Rome. 
 The Jews at different times suffered dreadfully from the 
 Romans, on account of their impatience of a foreign 
 government ; from rebellions and insurrections, but not 
 on account of their religion. They were taught by the 
 law of Moses to treat the stranger with courtesy, and 
 to treat him hospitably. They had been persecutors of 
 their own people, when they had opposed their wicked 
 practices ; their kings had persecuted the prophets and 
 other good men, and their hierarchy had now filled up 
 the measure of their iniquity, by crucifying their King 
 and Saviour. Yet they lived in various parts of the 
 world, they had their synagogues in almost every city, 
 but they were undisturbed by the ruling powers. Then 
 why should so innocent a people as the primitive 
 Christians be persecuted so unspotted in their 
 morals, so gentle in their behaviour ? Jesus knew what 
 was in man, and he foresaw the circumstances that 
 would arise. He foretold also a feeling of "shame," 
 that to the present hour, has turned away many a 
 worldly, timid heart from a confession of the "Crucified 
 One." Our Lord knew the jealousy that would arise 
 from the invasive and uncompromising spirit of Christ- 
 ianity. The Jews cared little for proselytes, but the 
 Christian was filled with love for the souls of men, and 
 believed there was no other name given among men by
 
 64 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 which he could be saved, but the name of Christ. 
 He constantly remembered the command of the great 
 Captain, " Go ye into all the world, and preach the 
 Gospel to every creature," and "Therefore I come not 
 to send peace upon earth, but a sword." 
 
 We have already spoken of the persecutions of Nero 
 and Domitian. Of the latter it is said that he dis- 
 covered the new religion had entered his own family in 
 the persons of two cousins. Suddenly these harmless 
 kinsmen were arraigned on the charge of atheism and 
 Jewish manners they were banished and afterwards put 
 to death. 
 
 The third persecution was in the reign of Trajan. 
 With the second century came another race of emper- 
 ors, those that are known in history as the five good 
 emperors. Nerva was the first of these. Adrian, 
 Trajan, and the Antonines were men of larger minds 
 than their predecessors. They reigned not now, as the 
 Caesars, as monarchs of Rome, but as sovereigns of the 
 western world, which had gradually coalesced into one 
 majestic and harmonious system or empire. The rapid 
 progress of the new religion did not escape their notice. 
 These emperors were occupied with the internal as well 
 the external affairs of their empire. The younger Pliny 
 was at this time governor of Bithynia, in Asia Minor, 
 under Trajan. Christianity had advanced with great 
 rapidity in the northern provinces of Asia Minor. !<- 
 was in Bithynia that paganism was first aroused to the 
 fact that Christianity was undermining her authority. 
 Complaints were brought to the governor that "the 
 temples were deserted and the sacrifices neglected." 
 Then ensued the memorable correspondence between 
 Pliny and Trajan ; it is the most valuable record of
 
 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. '6$ 
 
 Christianity during this period. It presents Paganism, 
 claiming the alliance of power, to maintain its decaying 
 influence ; Christianity is most imperfectly understood 
 by a wise and polite Pagan, yet still with nothing to 
 offend his moral judgment, "except their contumacy 
 and their repugnance to some of the common usages of 
 society." But this contumacy the Pagans thought 
 must be punished.
 
 66 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 PLINY'S LETTERS TO TRAJAN. 
 
 A. D. 98. Ignatius, Irenaeus, Tertullian, Polycarp. 
 Pliny, Roman governor of Bithynia, appeals to Tra- 
 jan for advice. The answer of Trajan is characterized 
 by moderation. He directs him not to seek for 
 offenders, but when they are brought before his bar, 
 and continue to be contumacious, refusing to sacrifice : 
 the emperor intimates that there was an existing law 
 by which the Christians were amenable to the severest 
 penalties, torture and even capital punishment. Pliny 
 had already inflicted torture on two females who had 
 been brought before him ; these females were probably 
 deaconesses. Pliny writes that after torture he could 
 detect nothing ' ' but a culpable and extravagant super- 
 stition. They had a custom," he said, "of meeting 
 together before daylight, and singing a hymn to Christ 
 as God. They were bound together by no unlawful 
 sacrament, but only under mutual obligation not to 
 commit theft, robbery, adultery or fraud. They met 
 again and partook together of food, but that of a per- 
 fectly innocent kind." The test of guilt to which the 
 Christians were submitted was adoration before the 
 statues of the gods and the emperor, and the maledic- 
 tion of Christ. Those who refused were led out to 
 execution. Trajan approves of Pliny's conduct. His 
 rescript established three points : The Christians were 
 not to be sought after ; they were not to be proceeded
 
 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 67 
 
 against without a regular accuser and complaint ; if ac- 
 cused and found guilty of being Christians, they were 
 to be put to death, unless they retracted and offered 
 sacrifice to the gods. In the public exhibitions, say 
 the historians of those times, the followers of all other 
 religions met as on a common ground. In the theatre 
 or the hippodrome, the worshiper of Mithra or of 
 Isis, mingled with the mass who adhered to the worship 
 of Bacchus or Jupiter. Even the Jews, in some 
 instances, betrayed no aversion to the popular games. 
 But the Christians stood aloof. " The sanguinary diver- 
 sions of the arena," says Milman, " and the licentious 
 voluptuousness of some of the exhibitions were no less 
 offensive, to their humanity and modesty, than those 
 more strictly religious to their piety." They were a 
 peculiar people ; they could not be hid. In little more 
 than seventy years after the death of Christ, the Christ- 
 ians in the province of Pliny were no longer an obscure 
 sect. It is supposed by some that the acts of perse- 
 cution ascribed to Trajan were connected with his 
 military movements. A charge of disaffection could 
 easily be brought against the Christians by their enem- 
 ies. While a persecution against the Christians is 
 raging in the East, the Roman community is in peace 
 and not without influence. Among the most distin- 
 guished Christians, who suffered martyrdom in the reign 
 of Trajan, were Simeon, bishop of Jerusalem, and 
 Ignatius, the bishop of Antioch. In the beginning of 
 the second century, the trial of Ignatius is said to have 
 taken place, before Trajan himself, when he was pre- 
 paring for his eastern campaign. The emperor is 
 represented as kindling with anger at the disparage- 
 ment of those gods on whose protection he depended in
 
 68 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 the impending war. " Is our religion," he exclaimed, 
 " to be treated as senseless ?" The most trustworthy 
 chronology places the accession of Trajan, A. D. 98, 
 and the martyrdom of Ignatius in A. D. 112. At this 
 time, the emperor is preparing for his Persian war. 
 Ignatius is brought to Rome. While journeying to 
 Rome, to meet his cruel fate, it is said he wrote 
 Epistles to the Churches in Asia. Ignatius was a 
 hearer and convert of St. John, and some say he was 
 made a bishop by St. Peter. The Acts of Ignatius are 
 considered as authentic, also seven of his letters. He 
 was carried in chains to Rome as a public spectacle 
 his death was terrible he was thrown to the lions in 
 the amphitheatre. Gibbon says, the martyrs selected 
 for execution by the Roman magistrates were from the 
 two extremes of society ; they were either bishops, 
 whose example might strike terror, or from the meanest 
 of the people, who were regarded with careless indiffer- 
 ence. Adrian succeeded Trajan. 
 
 This emperor, Adrian, withdrew from foreign con- 
 tests. He wished to bring the empire within nar- 
 rower and uncontested limits. He traveled over all 
 the countries under Roman dominion ; he adorned the 
 cities with public [buildings, bridges and acqueducts ; 
 inquired into the customs and manners, and into the 
 religion of the distant parts of the world. His personal 
 character showed incessant activity and versatility. His 
 curious and busy temper inquired into every form of 
 religion. At Athens he was in turn the simple philoso- 
 pher, the restorer of the temple of Jupiter Olympus, 
 and the awe-struck worshiper of the Eleusinian myster- 
 ies. It was at Athens that he heard the apologies of 
 Quadratus and of Aristides pleading for the truth and
 
 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 69 
 
 the moral superiority of Christianity. He did not repel 
 their respectful homage. Perhaps these apologies may 
 have influenced his mind in issuing mitigating laws on 
 slavery. It is impossible that the rapid growth of Chris- 
 tianity could have escaped so inquiring a mind as the 
 mind of Adrian. The rescript which he addressed in the 
 early part of his reign to the proconsul of Asia, was dic- 
 tated by the same policy as Trajan's. Adrian tells the pro- 
 consul of Asia Minor, as did Trajan, that he must not 
 listen to the popular cry, that would sometimes break 
 out, " The Christians to the lions," but that the form- 
 alities of law must be strictly complied with. The lines 
 that Adrian addressed to his soul when dying* prove 
 that he had some idea of the immortality of the spirit, 
 though a doubtful questioner. The successor of 
 Adrian, Antoninus Pius, maintained the mild policy of 
 his predeccsscr, cither from policy or indifference. 
 Sixty years of almost uninterrupted peace since the be- 
 ginning of the second century had opened a wide field for 
 the development of Christianity. When Marcus Au- 
 relius, the second Antonine, succeeds to the throne of 
 the empire, A. D. 166, the religion of Christ had 
 spread into every quarter of the Roman dominion. 
 The western provinces, Gaul and Africa, rivalled the 
 East in the number if not in the opulence of their 
 Christian congregations. A separate community, se- 
 ceding from the usages of Pagan life, at least from the 
 public religious ceremonial, had arisen in nearly every 
 city. An intimate correspondence connected this new 
 
 * Animula, vagula, blandula, Hospes, comes que corporis, opuae 
 nunc a bibis in loca. 
 
 The address of Adrian to, his soul probably suggested to Pope, our 
 great poet, the address of the dying Christian to his soul : " Vital spark 
 of heavenly flame."
 
 /O ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 moral republic. Irenasus, the bishop of Lyons, in Gaul, 
 enters into a controversy with the speculative teachers 
 of Antioch, Edessa or Alexandria, while Tertullian, of 
 Carthage, in his rude African Latin, denounces or advo- 
 cates opinions which spring up in Pontus or Phrygia. 
 Irenaeus was the great opponent of the Gnostics, and the 
 mediator between the eastern and western Churches. 
 Irenaeus of Lyons was the disciple of Polycarp, and has 
 handed down valuable reminiscences of his Apostolic 
 teacher. Irenaeus gives the names of the twelve 
 bishops, in succession, who in his day governed the 
 Church at Rome. Irenaeus m&t his death under an 
 edict of Severus in A. D. 202. Marcus Aurelius was a 
 rigid stoic ; he sometimes condescended, in pure and 
 elegant Greek, to explain the lofty tenets of the Porch, 
 and commend its noble morality to his subjects, while 
 a large portion of the world were preoccupied with 
 writings, the writings of the New Testament, which 
 enforced still higher morals. The language of these 
 sacred books were often impregnated with Syrian and 
 foreign barbarisms, yet they commanded the homage 
 and required the diligent study of all the disciples of 
 the new faith. Christians were to be found in the 
 court, in the camp, in the market. They did not de- 
 cline any of the offices of society, not shunning entirely 
 the forum or yielding interest in the civil administra- 
 tion ; they had their mercantile transactions, in com- 
 mon with the rest of that class. "We are no Indian 
 Brahmins or devotees," says Tertullian, "living naked 
 in the woods, or self-banished from civilized life." The 
 Christians admitted slaves to an equality of religious 
 privileges, yet there was no attempt to disorganize the 
 existing relations 'of society. There is no proposed
 
 ANXALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. /I 
 
 interference with the social institution of slavery, in 
 the New Testament. Christianity gives law to a mas- 
 ter, how a slave should be treated, but leaves the eman- 
 cipation of the slave to times which would be ripe for 
 so admirable and important a change. 
 
 Marcus Aurelius assumed the reins of empire A. D. 
 161. He associated with him the adopted son of An- 
 toninus Pius, Lucius Verus. Marcus claimed as a 
 philosopher to view with calmness and impartiality the 
 actions of his subjects, yet he seemed wholly to misun- 
 derstand the character of the Christians. New edicts 
 were promulgated against the Christians, so far depart- 
 ing from the humane regulations of the former em- 
 perors, that it was difficult to believe how they could 
 have emanated from an emperor so humane and just to 
 all others. The first year of his association with Verus 
 was one of comparative peace, but calamities began to 
 lower. The public mind was now agitated with gloomy 
 rumors from the frontierj; foreign and civil wars, inun- 
 dations, earthquakes and pestilence shook the whole 
 Roman people with apprehension. The philosophy of 
 Aurelius could not or did not avail him in a time like 
 this, either to quiet the fears of his subjects, or to quiet 
 superstitious fears that crept into his own heart ; he 
 called upon priests from all quarters to celebrate propi- 
 tiatory rites. An unusual number of sacrifices were 
 offered up for seven days, to purify the infected and 
 horror-stricken city. An extraordinary inundation of 
 the Tiber destroyed many of the granaries of corn on 
 the banks of the river a famine followed, which pressed 
 heavily on the poor. A German tribe ravaged Bel- 
 gium ; the Parthian \yar, which commenced disastrous- 
 ly in Syria, now demanded the presence of Verus.
 
 /2 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 After four years Verus returned bearing the trophies of 
 victory, but bringing with him in his army a pestilence, 
 that spread desolation and death. These numerous 
 troubles were ascribed by the superstitious heathen to 
 the new religion. Precisely at this time, the Christian 
 martyrologies date the commencement of the persecu- 
 tion under Aurelius. In Rome itself, Justin, the apolo- 
 gist of Christianity, ratified with his blood the sincerity 
 of his faith. His death is attributed to the jealousy of 
 Crescens, a cynic, whose audience had been drawn off 
 by the more attractive tenets of the Christian Platonist. 
 Justin was summoned before the prefect, one of the 
 philosophic teachers of Aurelius, and commanded to do 
 sacrifice. On his refusal, he was scourged and execu- 
 ted. The emperor was probably absent during this 
 crisis of religious terror ; mandates, it is probable, says 
 our historian, were issued to the provinces to imitate 
 the devotion of the capital, and everywhere to appease 
 the offended gods by sacrifice. However this may be, 
 the fact is certain that the persecution raged with vio- 
 lence in the provinces, especially in Asia Minor. The 
 pestilence was not entirely abated when news came of 
 the Marcomanic war. This Marcomanic war, as it was 
 called, was waged by an assemblage of German tribes 
 extending from Gaul to Illyricum. The presence of 
 both emperors was needed in this war. It was at this 
 time that Marcus lingered in Rome to offer the sacri- 
 fices of which we have spoken. The martyrdom of 
 Polycarp, bishop of Smyrna, occurred about this time, 
 with many others, but the fame of Polycarp * has ob- 
 scured that of other victims. He was the most distin- 
 guished Christian of the East ; he had heard the 
 
 * A. D. 167.
 
 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 73 
 
 Apostle John ; he had long presided over the See of 
 Smyrna. This bishop did not ostentatiously expose 
 himself, nor neglect to take measures of security. He 
 retreated from one village to another to elude his pur- 
 suers, but was at length betrayed by two slaves, whose 
 confession had been extorted by torture. " The will 
 of God be done," he said. He ordered food to be 
 given to the officers of justice. He requested two hours 
 for prayer. He was placed upon an ass, and on a day 
 of public concourse was conducted to the city. He was 
 met by Herod, the prefect of the city, and his father, 
 Nicetas, who took him with much deference into their 
 own carriage. They vainly endeavored to persuade 
 him to submit to the two tests required the salutation 
 of the emperor by the title of Lord, and to offer sacri- 
 fice. On his refusal, he was thrust from the chariot, 
 and taken to the crowded stadium.
 
 74 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 MARTYRDOM OF POLYCARP. 
 
 The merciful proconsul besought him, in respect to 
 his old age, to conceal his name. The Christian spec- 
 tators imagined that they heard a voice from Heaven, 
 saying, " Polycarp, be firm." He proclaimed aloud that 
 he was Polycarp. The trial proceeded: " Swear, " they 
 said, ' ' by the genius of Cesar ; retract, and say, 'Away 
 with the godless. ' ' The old man, says the narrator, 
 gazed in sorrow at the frantic and raging benches of 
 the spectators, rising above each other, and with his 
 eyes uplifted to heaven said, "Away with the godless." 
 The proconsul, urged him further, " Swear, and I 
 release thee ; blaspheme Christ." "Eighty and six 
 years have I served Christ ; how can I blaspheme my 
 King and my Saviour?" The proconsul again begged 
 him to swear by the genius of Caesar. He replied, by 
 requesting a day to be appointed on which he might 
 explain the blameless tenets, of Christianity. ' ' Per- 
 suade the people to consent," said the compassionate but 
 overawed ruler. ' ' We owe respect to authority ; to thee 
 I will explain my conduct, but to the populace I will 
 make no explanation." He knew too well the furious 
 passions raging in their minds and how vain it would be 
 to seek to allay them by the rational arguments of 
 Christianity. The proconsul threatened to expose him 
 to the wild beasts, and then he threatened to burn him. 
 ' ' T is well for me speedily to be released from a life of
 
 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. /O 
 
 misery. I fear not the fire that burns for a moment ; 
 thou knowest not that which burns forever and ever." 
 His countenance was full of peace and joy, even when 
 the herald proclaimed in the midst of the assembly, 
 " Polycarp has professed himself to be a Christian." 
 Then with a shout the people cried, ' ' This is the 
 teacher of all Asia, the overthrower of our gods, he 
 who has turned away so many from sacrifice." The 
 Jews, of whom there were great numbers, joined with 
 the heathen in this assault. They demanded of the 
 president of the games that a lion should be let loose ; 
 he excused himself by saying, " The games are over." 
 They declared he should be burned, and immediately 
 both Jews and heathen collected speedily the materials 
 for a funeral pile. He requested not to be nailed ; they 
 bound him to the stake. He was unrobed. We will 
 write the prayer he uttered, as it expressed the senti- 
 ments of the Christians of that period. " O Lord God 
 Almighty, the Father of the well beloved and ever 
 blessed Son Jesus Christ, by whom we have received 
 the knowledge of Thee ; the God of angels, powers 
 and of every creature, and of the whole race of the 
 righteous who live before Thee. I thank Thee that 
 Thou hast thought me worthy of this hour and this day, 
 that I may receive a portion in the number of Thy 
 martyrs, and drink of Christ's cup for the resurrection 
 of eternal life, both of body and soul, in the incorrupt- 
 ibleness of the Holy Spirit ; among whom may I be 
 admitted this day as a, rich and acceptable sacrifice, as 
 Thou, O true and faithful God, hast prepared and fore- 
 shown and accomplished. Wherefore I praise Thee for 
 all Thy mercies ; I bless Thee, I glorify Thee, with the 
 eternal and heavenly Jesus Christ, Thy beloved Son, to
 
 76 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 Whom with Thee and the Holy Spirit, be glory now 
 and forever." 
 
 Polycarp was at least a hundred years old.* His 
 death closed the nameless train of Asiatic martyrs. 
 
 Some few years after the martyrdom of this aged 
 bishop, the city of Smryna was visited by an earth- 
 quake ; a generous sympathy was displayed by the 
 neighboring cities ; provisions were poured in from all 
 quarters ; homes were offered to the houseless, car- 
 riages were furnished to convey the infirm and the 
 children from the scene of ruin. In such humane con- 
 duct, may not the progress of Christian benevolence be 
 traced ? Many of the sufferers were those whose 
 amphitheatre had been stained with the blood of the 
 aged martyr. They hastened to alleviate the common 
 miseries of both Pagan and Christian, not allowing the 
 thought of divine retribution to interfere with their 
 humane, their Christian work. In circumstances like 
 these, can we not trace an extraordinary revolution in 
 the sentiments of mankind ? 
 
 In the war with the Marcomanni (of which we have 
 already spoken), in the campaign of the year 174, the 
 army advanced incautiously into a region entirely with- 
 out water, and in a faint and enfeebled state was 
 exposed, to a formidable attack of the whole barbarian 
 force. Suddenly at an hour of extreme distress, a 
 copious and refreshing rain came down, which supplied 
 their wants, while lightning, and hailstones of an enor- 
 mous size, drove full upon the adversary, and rendered 
 his army an easy conquest to the Romans. Heathen 
 historians, medals still extant, and the column which 
 bears the name of Antoninus at Rome, concur with 
 
 * The Christian Legion.
 
 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 77 
 
 Christian tradition in commemorating the wonderful 
 deliverance of the Roman army, during the war with 
 the German nations. This celebrated event was long 
 current in Christian history as the legend of the thun- 
 dering legion. The Christians attributed the refreshing 
 shower to the prayers they had addressed to the 
 Father, through Christ. The heathen ascribed the vic- 
 tory to Jupiter. Gibbon says, we are assured by 
 monuments of marble and brass, by the imperial 
 medals, and by the Antonine column, that the 
 heathen unanimously attribute their success to the 
 providence of Jupiter and the interposition of Mer- 
 cury." The skeptical historian concludes his account 
 of this matter with this remark : "Marcus Aurelius 
 despised the Christians as a philosopher, and pun- 
 ished them as a sovereign." That there were many 
 Christians in the army of Marcus in the Marcomanic 
 war seems very probable, from the fact that the con- 
 scription was very strict; even gladiators were forced 
 into his army. Whether military service was consistent 
 with Christian principles, was a question that divided 
 the early Christians : some considering it too closely 
 connected with the idolatrous practices of an oath, to 
 the fortunes of Caesar, and the worship of the standards ; 
 but others considered it their duty to give allegiance to 
 their sovereign, and their patriotism and love of country 
 overcame their scruples. This was a time of so great peril 
 to the country, that there were doubtless many Christians 
 in the army it may be an exaggerated tradition which 
 declares that the Christians formed a whole separate 
 legion, in that army. Tradition also says that the 
 Christians believed that the shower was sent in answer 
 to their prayers. God was certainly merciful to the
 
 78 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 whole army. " He maketh the sun to rise upon the evil 
 and upon the good ; and sendeth his rain upon the just 
 and upon the unjust." 
 
 The latter part of the reign of Marcus Aurelius was 
 distinguished by another series of martyrdoms. In the 
 year A. D. 177, Ponthius, bishop of Lyons, in his 
 ninetieth year, died in prison from the ill usage he had 
 received. The Christians of Lyons and Vienna appear 
 to have been a colony from Phrygia ; they had main- 
 tained a close correspondence with their Christian 
 brethren, in the distant communities of Asia Minor. 
 To this district, many years previous, had been ban- 
 ished Archelaus and Herod Antipas ; and Pontius 
 Pilate was also banished to this place. It is sup- 
 posed that a Jewish settlement had been formed 
 around these banished scions of royalty.* It is quite 
 certain that there were many devoted Christians living 
 in the region, round about Lyons and Vienna, and from 
 this point it is probable that Christianity penetrated into 
 Gaul and Britain. The severe persecution that now 
 occurred in this region may have scattered the disciples 
 abroad, as similar calamities had done in the early 
 Christian times. Sanctus, a deacon of Vienna, and 
 Attalus of Pergamus, and Maturus, a new convert, 
 were tortured in the most horrible manner. The 
 amphitheatre was the great public scene of popular 
 barbarity and Christian endurance. Here they were 
 exposed to wild beasts, yet before the ferocity of beasts 
 could dispatch them they were made to sit on heated 
 iron chairs, till their flesh reeked with an offensive odor. 
 One of the most remarkable sufferers, in this memorable 
 martyrdom, was Blandina, a slave. She shared without 
 
 + Milman.
 
 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 79 
 
 flinching in the most excruciating tortures with the 
 most distinguished victims. The mistress of Blandina, 
 herself a martyr, trembled lest her humble associate 
 might betray their loved and righteous cause. She was 
 led forth first together with several distinguished men. 
 The only reply that could be extorted from this heroic 
 woman was, " I am a Christian, and no wickedness is 
 practiced among us." The remains of these martyrs 
 were cast into the Rhone, in order to mock and render 
 more improbable their hopes of a resurrection. 
 
 With the reign of Marcus Aurelius closed what 
 has been termed the golden days of the Roman empire. 
 But in the weakness and insecurity of the throne lay 
 the strength and safety of Christianity ; for little more 
 than a century from the reign of Commodus, the 
 brutal son of Aurelius, to the reign of Diocletian, no 
 systematic policy could be pursued, with regard to the 
 religion or to any of the leading internal interests of the 
 empire. Many of the emperors were involved in for- 
 eign wars and had no time for the social changes within 
 the pale of the empire. The persecutions of the 
 Christians which took place during this period seem to 
 have been the result of the personal hostility of the 
 provincial rulers.
 
 8O ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 STORY OF ORIGEN. 
 
 During the reign of Commodus the Christians had 
 a friend in Martia, the favorite wife of the Emperor. 
 The Christians had a long, unbroken peace, during the 
 reign of this degraded monarch. Septimius Severus 
 commenced his reign A. D. 194. This emperor 
 wielded the sceptre with great energy, but his early 
 reign was occupied with Eastern wars, and his later 
 years with the affairs of the remote province of Britain. 
 Severus was at one time the protector and at another 
 time the persecutor of Christianity. His son Caracalla 
 had, it is said, a Christian nurse and a Christian pre- 
 ceptor. During his childhood the gentleness of his 
 manners and the sweetness of his temper gave promise 
 of a humane ruler, but, alas, the natural ferocity of his 
 temper ripened" under the fatal influence of jealous 
 ambition, which could not endure the rivalry of his 
 brother. Many Christians of distinction enjoyed the 
 avowed favor of the emperor. The persecutions in 
 the reign of Severus in the eastern provinces seem to 
 have resulted from the acts of hostile governors. 
 Alexandria was the chief scene of suffering in this reign. 
 Leonidas, the father of Origen, perished in this persecu- 
 tion. Origen, then a youth of seventeen years, was 
 kept from imprisonment witli his father by the prudent 
 care and strategem of his mother, who concealed all 
 his clothes. The boy wrote to his father, Leonidas,
 
 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 8 1 
 
 imploring him to be steadfast and not to allow his affec- 
 tion for him and his family to stand in his way of 
 obtaining a martyr's crown. Three hostile parties 
 divided Alexandria at this time : Jews, Christians, and 
 Pagans, the worshipers of Serapis. Severus when in 
 Egypt seemed to be impressed with the mysterious 
 rites of Serapis. The Egyptian priests took advantage 
 of this hour of imperial favor to wreak their vengeance 
 upon the Christians who were making great pro- 
 gress throughout this province of Africa. It is not 
 certainly known whether the Emperor Severus author- 
 ized the persecution that was now waged by the Prefect 
 of Alexandria, but he used the most violent measures. 
 The elementary schools of learning by which the Chris- 
 tians trained their pupils were almost deserted in conse- 
 quence of the persecutions waged against the Christian 
 teachers. Clement and Origen were two of the great 
 teachers of the Alexandrian school. The young Origen 
 labored with unceasing activity in these schools. Ori- 
 gen had some peculiar opinions, but he was very learned 
 and devout. In no part of the Roman Empire had 
 Christianity taken deeper hold than 'in the rich and 
 populous cities of Africa. This country, together with 
 Egypt, was then the granary of the Western World. 
 It is now a thinly peopled desert, made so by Chris- 
 tian feuds, Vandal invasions and Mohammedan barbar- 
 ism. This was the land of Origen, of Tertullian, of 
 Augustine, of Cyprian. From the ascension of Corn- 
 modus (son of Marcus Aurelius), to that of Diocletian, 
 A. D. 284, more than twenty emperors flitted like 
 shadows across the tragic theatre of the imperial palace. 
 During the persecution to which we have referred in 
 Africa, Tertullian stood forth as the apologist of
 
 82 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 Christianity. African Christianity was not dreamy and 
 speculative, like the religion of the East. It rejected 
 the wild fancies of the Gnostics. It was anti-material 
 and simple and practical in its creed. The address of 
 Tertullian to the Prefect of Africa is no longer the lan- 
 guage of mild remonstrance or expostulation, but every 
 sentence breathes defiance and scorn. It hurls con- 
 tempt upon the gods of paganism. He avows the 
 determination of Christians to expel the idols or 
 demons from the respect and adoration of mankind. 
 The language of Tertullian shows the altered position 
 of Christianity. Of all the histories of martyrdom 
 none is so unexaggerated in its tone and language and 
 so abounds in touches of nature, and breathes such 
 truth and reality, says our historian, as those of Perpetua 
 and Felicita, two African females. Their deaths are 
 said to have taken place in the first year of Geta the 
 son of Severus and brother of the wicked Caracalla. 
 Perpetua and Felicita were young and delicate 
 women. The father of the former vainly tried to make 
 her recant, in order to save the life of his beloved 
 daughter. The most tender appeals were made by 
 the family of Perpetua, to pervert her from the faith. 
 She belonged to a good family and had a liberal educa- 
 tion, and was honorably married. The history of her 
 martyrdom is said to have been written by her own 
 hands. She was cast into prison with an infant in her 
 arms. Perpetua left her child with her family. Felici- 
 ta, who had been a slave, gave her child to a Christian 
 woman to bring up. The lady and the slave went out 
 hand in hand, to the ampitheatre, to be torn by beasts. 
 A wild cow was let loose upon them. Their heroism 
 and endurance were wonderful. Perpetua seemed to
 
 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 83 
 
 be in a dream, and almost unconscious of her bodily 
 pain. Her last words tenderly admonished her brother 
 to be steadfast in the faith. Five martyrs suffered at 
 this time, three women and two men. After being torn 
 by beasts, they were speedily released from their suf- 
 ferings, by the merciful sword of the gladiator. Per- 
 petua guiding with her own hand the sword to her 
 throat. This African persecution lasted until the 
 second year of Caracalla, 211-217 A. D. 
 
 From the close of the reign of the sons of Severus, 
 except during the reign of Maximin, Christianity 
 enjoyed peace until the reign of Decius. The weak 
 and crumbling edifice of paganism was now shaken to 
 its base, A. D. 218, by the accession of the Syrian 
 Elagabulus. He was the priest of an effeminate super- 
 stition. He introduced with much pomp into Rome 
 the worship of the sun, as though he meant to super- 
 sede the ancestral deities of the great city. The con- 
 ical black stone, the idol of Emesa in Syria, was 
 brought to Rome; a magnificent temple was built upon 
 the Palatine hill ; hecatombs of oxen and sheep were 
 offered upon numerous altars. The highest dignitaries 
 of the empire, commanders of legions, grave senators, 
 the equestrian order, were required to appear as hum- 
 ble ministers, clad in loose and flowing robes and in 
 linen sandals, among the lascivious dancers and wanton 
 music of oriental drums and cymbals. Nothing was sa- 
 cred to the voluptuous Syrian. The palladium of the city, 
 that image of Minerva cherished above all the hallowed 
 treasures of the city, was brought forth to be wedded 
 to a Syrian deity worshiped in the East under the 
 name of Astarte. Such insults to the ancient religion, 
 must have disgusted the people, and also deprived
 
 84 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 them of the veneration they had formerly felt for the 
 majesty of their religion. The pollutions and sensual- 
 ity of the religion of Elagabulus, together with the rude 
 shocks sustained by the ancient paganism, probably 
 tended to turn the minds of the thinking and moral to 
 embrace a purer faith. The successor of Elagabulus 
 was Alexander Severus, who, though a Syrian, had 
 been educated with some knowledge of Christianity. 
 His mother had held intercourse with the Christians 
 of Syria ; she had listened to the lectures of Origen 
 with respect, if not with conviction. Alexander seems 
 to have affected a kind of universalism. In his own 
 palace he enshrined, as it were, the representatives of 
 the different religions which prevailed in the Roman 
 Empire Orpheus, Abraham, Christ, and Apollonius 
 of Tyana. In Apollonius was centered the modern 
 Theurgy, the magic which commanded the intermedi- 
 ate spirits, between the higher world and the world of 
 man. Abraham rather than Moses was placed at the 
 head of Judaism. Christianity in the person of its 
 founder, even where it did not command authority as a 
 religion, had lost the unjust opprobrium under which 
 it so long labored, of animosity to mankind. The 
 followers of Jesus had now lived down the bitter hos- 
 tility which had prevailed against them. Christian 
 churches began to rise in different parts of the Empire, 
 Christian bishops were admitted at the Court in a 
 recognized official character. To this time at least in 
 Rome, A. D. 2.22, the religious assemblies of the 
 Christians were held in private ; to the wonder of the 
 heathen, their religion appeared without temple or altar. 
 The cemeteries of the dead, the sequestered grove, the 
 private chamber, continued their peaceful assemblies.
 
 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 85 
 
 Their religious usages now became better known. It is 
 said that the Christians at this time published the 
 names of those who had been proposed for ordination, 
 and that Alexander established a similar proceeding 
 with regard to all candidates for civil offices. A piece 
 of ground was also awarded to the Christians by Alex- 
 ander, upon the principle that it was better to devote it 
 to the worship of God than to any profane use. These 
 circumstances have created a suspicion that Alexander 
 was a believer in Christianity, though he made no 
 public confession. The earliest Christian churches in 
 Rome are assigned by Tillemont to the reign of Alex- 
 ander Severus. Rooms of small architectural dimen- 
 sions were doubtless used for worship long before this 
 time, but without observation. The heathen religion 
 had greatly changed at this period from the old beliefs 
 of the Greeks and Romans. They worshiped in the same 
 temples and performed many of the same rites, but 
 over all this had risen a kind of speculative Theism, 
 to which the popular worship was subordinate. Cel- 
 sus, the famous controversialist with Origen, tells him 
 that a philosophical notion of the Deity was perfectly 
 reconcilable with the Deity. This was the commence- 
 ment of a new Platonism which from this time exer- 
 cised a supreme authority, to the extinction of the 
 older forms of Grecian philosophy, and grew up into a 
 dangerous antagonist of Christianity. Several of the 
 Fathers of the Church had been students of this new 
 Platonism, before they imbibed the divine Philosophy 
 which cometh from above. This philosophy, however, 
 could exercise no extensive influence ; it was merely a 
 refuge for the intellectual few. The successor of Alex- 
 ander was a Thracian savage. The Christian Bishops,
 
 86 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 like all the other polite and virtuous men, in the court 
 of his predecessor, were exposed to the suspicions and 
 hatred of the brutal and warlike Maximin. The reign 
 of Gordian was short. Philip the Arabian, his succes- 
 sor, has been claimed by some as a Christian, but the 
 splendor with which he celebrated the great religious 
 rites of Rome refutes this idea. It was the thousandth 
 year of Rome from its foundation, and the Roman 
 people demanded extraordinary magnificence. The 
 persecution under Decius for extent and violence was 
 terrible. The Christians were now a recognized body 
 in the State. They were necesarily of the party of the 
 Emperor, whose favor they had enjoyed. Decius hated 
 the adherents of the murdered Philip. The protection 
 of a foreign religion by a foreign Emperor (now that 
 Christianity had begun to erect temple against temple, 
 and the Christian bishop met the pagan pontiff on equal 
 terms around the imperial throne) would be considered 
 among the flagrant departures from the wisdom of 
 Ancient Rome. Decius claimed to be a descendant of 
 the Decii of Republican Rome, though of obscure 
 Pannonian birth. He thought himself called upon to 
 restore the religion as well as the manners of Ancient 
 Rome. He determined to make an effort to purify 
 Rome from the rivalry of Asiatic and modern supersti- 
 tion. The Bishop Fabianus was one of the first victims 
 of his resentment ; no successor was elected to the ob- 
 noxious office during the brief reign of Decius. Many 
 of the great cities of the Empire followed the example 
 of the capital. In Alexandria, the zeal of the populace 
 outran the fury of the Emperor. Antioch bewailed 
 the loss of her bishop. Carthage was disgraced by the 
 falling away of some even of her clergy the great test
 
 AXXALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 87 
 
 to which the persecuted were liable, was the require- 
 ment to sacrifice to their idols. Should any of the Chris- 
 tians be overcome by terror and perform the sacrifice, 
 long years of penitence and humility were required, 
 before they could again be admitted to Christian priv- 
 ileges. Valerian ascended the throne three years after 
 Decius. He revived in his own person the ancient 
 office of censor of public morals. The commencement 
 of the censor's reign, who scrutinized with care the 
 influence of Christianity upon public morals, was favor- 
 able to their cause. For a short time, therefore, perse- 
 cution ceased. The change in Valerian's conduct is 
 attributed to the influence of a man deeply versed in 
 magic. Macrianus is reported to have obtained such 
 mastery over Valerian as to induce him to engage in 
 the most guilty mysteries of magic in tracing the fate 
 of the empire in the entrails of human victims. The 
 edict against the Christians in this persecution of Vale- 
 rian subjected all the bishops who refused to conform 
 to their requirements to the penalty of death, and seized 
 the endowment of their churches. Cyprian, bishop of 
 Carthage, was advanced in life when he embraced the 
 doctrines of Christianity ; He passed rapidly through 
 the steps of Christian initiation. On the vacancy of 
 the bishopric of Carthage he was overpowered by the 
 acclamations of the city, which compelled him to assume 
 the distinguished but dangerous office. Cyprian had 
 high notions of Episcopal authority. The inviolable 
 unity of the outward and visible Church appeared to 
 him an integral part of Christianity, and the discipline 
 of the Episcopal order the only means of preserving 
 that unity. The first rumor of persecution designated 
 Cyprian as a victim. Cyprian withdrw from the storm. 
 Inventive cruelty suggested new means of torture.
 
 88 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 Cyprian, in his retreat (A. D. 254), wrote consolatory 
 letters to those not so fortunate as himself. His letters 
 describe the relentless barbarity of their persecutors. 
 During the reign of Decius, Cyprian remained in re- 
 tirement. He returned to Carthage in the early part of 
 the reign of Valerian. A plague at this time ravaged 
 the Roman world. Its destructive violence thinned the 
 streets of the populous Carthage. Cyprian devoted his 
 energies to the alleviation of human suffering. He ex- 
 horted the Christians not to limit their attentions to 
 their own brotherhood, but to extend kindness indis- 
 criminately to their heathen enemies. He determined 
 to remain at Carthage. After a time he was summoned 
 before the proconsul, who told him that the emperor 
 required all those who professed foreign religions to 
 offer sacrifice. Cyprian refused. "Art thou Thasian 
 Cyprian, the bishop of so many impious men?" said 
 the proconsul. "I will not sacrifice," replied Cyprian. 
 He was banished. On the accession of Galerius, he 
 was recalled from exile, but placed in a prison in the 
 city. He was treated with respect and delicacy. A 
 crowd of Christians and heathen assembled at his 
 prison door, to catch glances and hear words from one 
 they loved so well. The proconsul received orders 
 from the sacred emperor that the man who had deluded 
 so many must die. Cyprian was taken to a field and 
 beheaded (A. D. 254).
 
 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 89 
 
 DECIUS. 
 
 The proconsul died a few days afterwards (A. D. 
 249-251). The death of Decius, according to the 
 Pagan account, was worthy of the days of old. He was 
 wounded by the Goths ; his son was killed by an arrow. 
 He cried aloud that the life of a single soldier was 
 nothing to the glory of the empire, and soon fell, val- 
 iantly fighting. Christian writers say he was betrayed 
 by treachery into a marsh, where he could neither 
 fight nor fly. He perished miserably, leaving his un- 
 buried body to the carrion birds and beasts. The 
 captivity of Valerian (A. D. 254) by the Persians took 
 place in 258. It is said that the Persian king used the 
 body of his unhappy captive as a footstool for many 
 years, in order to mount his elephant. He never re- 
 turned to Rome. Much mystery hung over his death. 
 
 Gallienus restored peace to the Church. The edict 
 of Valerian was rescinded. The last transient collision 
 of Christianity with the Government, before its final 
 dreadful conflict with Diocletian, was under Aurelian. 
 The reign of Aurelian (A. D. 271) was much occupied 
 with warlike campaigns. His mother was a priestess 
 of the sun, and the emperor built a temple to his tute- 
 lary god at Rome. The sacred ceremony of consulting 
 the sibylline books was directed by him. In their 
 mystic leaves the Roman people had believed their des- 
 tinies were written. The severe emperor now reproaches 
 the Senate for their want of faith in these volumes. 
 He attributes their skepticism to the influence of the 
 Christians. No hostile measures were taken against the 
 Christians in the early part of his reign. Aurelian was 
 summoned as an arbitrator in a Christian controversy.
 
 gO ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 Paul of Samosata was bishop of Antioch. He brought 
 disgrace on this important See by blending together the 
 elements of Paganism, Judaism and Christianity. His 
 pride and ostentation put to shame the modesty and 
 humble pretensions of former prelates. The zealous 
 vigilance of neighboring bishops soon discovered that 
 his opinions were moie nearly allied to Judaism than to 
 the Christian creed. He lived under the protection of 
 Zenobia, queen of Palmyra, who had given him a civil 
 magistracy. He introduced many effeminate cere- 
 monies into his cathedral, which reminded the worship- 
 ers of the voluptuous rites of Paganism. He set at 
 defiance the solemn censures and excommunication 
 pronounced by a synod of bishops against him. But 
 when his warlike patroness, Zenobia, was conquered by 
 the armies of Aurelian, the bishops appealed to Aure- 
 lian to expel the rebel against their authority, and the 
 partisan of the Palmyrenes. The emperor did not re- 
 fuse to interfere in this case so strange to him but 
 transferred judgment from the bishops of Syria to 
 those of Rome and Italy. By their sentence Paul was 
 degraded from the Episcopate. The sentiments of 
 Aurelian changed towards the Christians near the close 
 of his reign. Sanguinary edicts were issued, but death 
 prevented their general promulgation. Tradition says 
 that a young deacon, St. Lawrence, was put to death 
 in the reign of Valerian. He was roasted on bars of 
 iron. When he was asked to produce the treasures of 
 the church, he assembled together the cripples and 
 aged widows of the church, who were maintained by 
 the alms of the charitable. "These are the treasures 
 of the church," said Lawrence. This so enraged his 
 persecutors that they burned him upon a gridiron.
 
 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 9! 
 
 Diocletian ascended the throne of the Caesars A. D. 
 284. The necessities of the times now seemed to re- 
 quire more than one person to be invested with 
 sovereign authority. Diocletian, Galerius, Maximian, 
 and Constantius in Britain and Gaul no>v divided the 
 cares and honors of the Roman world. Among the 
 innovations of Diocletian, none was more closely con- 
 nected with the interests of Christianity than the 
 virtual degradation of Rome by its ceasing to be the 
 capital of the empire, by the residence of the chief 
 emperor in other cities. Nicomedia, while Diocle- 
 tian held the reins of power, was the favorite resi- 
 dence. The removal of the seat of government from 
 Rome to Nicomedia made more manifest the magni- 
 tude of the danger to existing institutions from the 
 progress of Christianity. Diocletian, A. D. 284: "In 
 Rome, the ancient majesty of the national religion 
 must still have kept down Christianity in comparative 
 obscurity. The Praetor still made way for the pontifical 
 order, and submitted his fasces to the vestal virgin, 
 while the Christian bishop pursued his more humble 
 way." The churches of the Christians could not com- 
 pare at this time with the stately temples of the 
 heathen, on which the sovereigns of mankind had lav- 
 ished the treasures of ages. In a letter of Cornelius, 
 bishop of Rome, written during the reign of Decius 
 (A. D. 250), he says: "We have one bishop, forty- 
 six presbyters, fourteen deacons ; also readers, acolytes, 
 fifteen hundred widows and poor." The East was more 
 fully peopled with Christians than any part of the 
 Western world, except Africa. The bishops of Antioch 
 and Nicomedia, of Carthage and Alexandria, were far 
 more conspicuous and imposing persons than the prede-
 
 92 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 cessors of the popes, among the consuls and the 
 Senate, and the ministers of the ruling emperor. In 
 Nicomedia, the Christian church stood on an eminence 
 commanding the town, and conspicuous above the pal- 
 ace of the sovereign ; whereas, the churches in Rome 
 were in sequestered places, and seemed to avoid the 
 gaze of the heathen inquirer. During the winter of 
 3023, the great question of the policy to be adopted 
 towards the Christians was debated, first in a private 
 conference between Diocletian and Galerius. Diocle- 
 tian, though urged by his vehement partner in the 
 empire, was averse to sanguinary proceedings. He 
 agreed to dismiss the Christians from posts of rank and 
 authority, and expel them from the palace and army. 
 The Christians now formed a considerable part of the 
 army. They were permitted to abstain from idolatrous 
 conformity, but they were sometimes charged with 
 contempt for the auspices. The soothsayer, when 
 disappointed in the appearance of the entrails of the 
 victims, denounced the presence of the profane strangers. 
 Such incidents to a superstitious soldiery* were full of 
 danger and death to the Christians. The palace of 
 Diocletian was divided by conflicting factions. Some 
 of the chief officers of the Emperor's household openly 
 professed Christianity; his wife and daughter were 
 favorably disposed to the same cause. The mother of 
 Galerius was a fanatical Pagan. The oracle of Apollo 
 at Miletus was consulted, and persecution soon began. 
 Diocletian, overcome by the importunity of friends, 
 consented that the church at Nicomedia should be 
 
 * " Nowhere did the old Roman religion retain so much hold 
 upon the mind as among the sacred eagles."
 
 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 93 
 
 destroyed, but with no loss of life. Galerius wished 
 all who refused to sacrifice to be burnt alive. At the 
 dawn of day the Prefect of the city appeared at the 
 door of the church. The doors were instantly thrown 
 down ; the Pagans beheld with surprise the vacant 
 space, looking in vain for the statue of the Deity. 
 The sacred books were burned and the furniture of the 
 building plundered by the soldiers. The leaders of the 
 Praetorian guard advanced with their tools, and in a few 
 hours the building consecrated by the prayers and 
 penitent tears of the Christians was razed to the 
 ground. The Christians awaited in consternation the 
 promulgation of the fatal edict. It was soon issued. 
 It was a rigorous proscription, short of the punishment 
 of death. It comprehended all orders. The sacred 
 books were to be delivered up by the bishops and 
 proselytes to the imperial officers and publicly burned. 
 The property of the churches was confiscated, whether 
 lands or furniture. Christians of distinction were 
 deprived of their offices. All assemblies for public 
 worship were prohibited those of the plebeian order 
 were deprived of the right of Roman citizenship. This 
 secured to them the sanctity of their persons from 
 corporal punishment or torture. This dreadful edict 
 was no sooner affixed in the usual place than it was 
 torn down by the hands of a rash, indignant Christian. 
 His life was soon forfeited. He was roasted alive ! 
 Suddenly a fire broke out in the palace at Nicomedia, 
 which spread almost to the chamber of the Emperor. 
 No one knew the origin of this conflagration. It was 
 ascribed to the Christians. They retorted by saying 
 that Galerius was the guilty author in order to 
 criminate the Christians and alarm Diocletian into
 
 94 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 still more violent measures. The consequences were 
 most disastrous to the Christians. The officers of the 
 household and the inmates of the palace were subjected 
 to cruel tortures. Anthimus, the Bishop of Nicomedia, 
 was beheaded. In every part of the world Christianity 
 was assailed by the full force of the civil power. 
 Many were executed, many burned alive, many were 
 bound in prison ; some, with stones round their necks, 
 were rowed in boats to the middle of the lake and thrown 
 into the water. From Nicomedia the center of the 
 persecution went forth edicts and letters east and 
 west to restore the ancient religion and suppress the 
 hostile faith. The fierce temper of Maximian readily 
 acceded to carry into effect the barbarous edicts. Vague 
 rumors of insurrection in regions densely peopled with 
 Christians gave some countenance to the charge of 
 political ambition brought against the Christians. About 
 this time Diocletian celebrated a triumph at Rome ; but 
 weary of the cares of State, soon after his return to 
 Nicomedia he laid aside the robes of P^mpire. He was 
 seized with a depressing malady, which secluded him 
 for a long time in his palace. It is not known how he 
 was affected, as the secrets of the palace did not reach 
 the popular ear. He retired to Illyria, on the Adriatic. 
 It is said he devoted his attention to horticulture. His 
 colleague, Maximian, followed reluctantly the example 
 of his patron and coadjutor. The abdication of Dio- 
 cletian left the most implacable enemy of the Christians, 
 Galerius, master of the East. Maxentius, son of 
 Maximian, assumed the purple in the West. He was 
 more remarkable for his licentiousness than for his 
 persecuting spirit. During the persecutions, Con- 
 stantius alone, of all the Emperors, by a dextrous
 
 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 95 
 
 appearance of submission, had screened the Christians 
 of Gaul and Britain. The persecution had now lasted 
 six or seven years (A. D. 309), but in no part of the 
 world did Christianity betray any signs of vital decay. 
 Constantine, son of Constantius (the first Christian 
 Emperor), had been placed as a hostage in the power 
 of Galerius. Feeling his condition insecure, he deter- 
 mined to escape from his honorable captivity. His 
 father, Constantius, bequeathed him a wise example of 
 humanity and toleration. His mother, Helena, was an 
 active and devout Christian. It is probable that at this 
 time the Christians looked upon Constantine as their 
 protector and the head of the Christian interest. 
 
 The most signal and unexpected triumph was over 
 the author of the persecution. Galerius, in the 
 eighteenth year of his reign, was seized with a loath- 
 some malady. An ulcer attacked the lower part of 
 his body that soon proved fatal. "It is singular," 
 says Dean Milman, "that the disease vulgarly called 
 ' eaten of worms ' should have been the destiny of 
 Herod Agrippa, of Galerius, and of Philip II. of 
 Spain." From the dying bed of Galerius was issued an 
 edict, which, while it apologized for severities against 
 the Christians, admitted the failure of the measures he 
 had adopted for its suppression. The edict permitted 
 the free .exercise of the Christian religion and made 
 an earnest request to Christians to intercede for him in 
 their prayers. The whole Roman world witnessed the 
 confession of the dying Emperor. The edict was 
 issued from Sardica in the name of Galerius, Licinias 
 and Constantine (Edict of Galerius, 311 A. D.) The 
 last persecution of the Christians under Diocletian is 
 regarded as the tenth persecution. The prison doors
 
 96 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 were now thrown open ; the mines rendered up their 
 laborers ; long trains of Christian people were seen 
 visiting their ruined churches and former places of 
 devotion. But Maximian, the Caesar of the East, 
 still continued his harassing oppressions. He restored 
 the Polytheistic ceremonial in all its former magnifi- 
 cence. Armenia, the first Christian kingdom, was 
 subjected by him to severe persecution.
 
 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 97 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 The vices of Maximin rendered him hateful to all. 
 In A. D. 312 he insulted Valeria, the widow of Galerius 
 and daughter of Diocletian, with an offer of marriage 
 while his wife was still living. Famine and pestilence 
 ensued through all the dominions of Maximin. The 
 ecclesiastical historians of that period claim no exemp- 
 tion from the general calamity, but declare with strong 
 approval that the Christians displayed everywhere the 
 offices of humanity and brotherhood. The sufferers 
 who survived the widespread evils of the time declared 
 that Christianity was stronger than the love of kindred. 
 The Diocletian persecution reached Britain, but did not 
 long continue there, as Constantius was humane in his 
 temper and favorably affected toward the Christians on 
 account of his Christian wife Helena, a British lady. 
 
 There is a story told of a British martyr named 
 Aldan, who was a Roman soldier. A presbyter, flying 
 from his persecutors, took refuge in his house. Alban 
 threw on the dress of the ecclesiastic, and was taken in 
 his stead. When carried to the tribunal, he proclaimed 
 himself a Christian, and was beheaded. A church was 
 built upon the spot where he suffered, and was called 
 St. Alban's. 
 
 Those who suffered the loss of all except their lives 
 were called confessors. 
 
 The victory of Constantine over Maxentius left 
 Constantine master of Rome. He and Licinius reigned 
 over all the European provinces. At the death of
 
 98 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 Maximin (A. D. 312) the last hope of Paganism, to main- 
 tain itself by the civil government, perished. Eusebius 
 gives a gorgeous description of the reconstruction of a 
 church at Tyre. It was built on the old site of the 
 church where they had at first worshiped Jesus the Son 
 of Mary. The splendor of this second building proves 
 that, even before the accession of Constantine, the 
 Christians possessed sufficient wealth to erect stately 
 temples. We have already alluded to the fact that 
 the biography of the bishops of Rome, their influence 
 and peculiar character, are involved in dimness and 
 obscurity. Gleams of light bring out occasionally the 
 names of Victor, Zephyrinus, Callistus, Stephen, Clem- 
 ent, Cornelius; "but the same providential obscurity 
 that veiled the growing Church threw its modest con- 
 cealment over the person of the bishop." * But when 
 the emperor of the civilized world adopts Christianity 
 as his religion, the bishop who presides over the Chris- 
 tian clergy becomes at once a prominent functionary. 
 An appeal to the emperor, so long as Rome is at] impe- 
 rial residence, is an appeal to the bishop of Rome. 
 
 Melchiades held the See of Rome at the time of 
 Constantiue's conversion, but Sylvester soon succeeded 
 him (A. D. 312-314). Not one of the bishops of Rome 
 down to Leo and Gregory the Great appear among the 
 distinguished writers of Christendom. 
 
 The fate of Rome and of Paganism was decided in 
 the battle of Milrian Bridge. Magnentius, the opposing 
 general to Constantine, was utterly routed and slain. 
 It was commonly reported that Constantine, on march- 
 ing to Rome, had a vision of a cross in the sky, with 
 
 * Milman.
 
 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 99 
 
 this inscription : In hoc signo vince by this sign con- 
 quer. This vision was followed by a dream, which 
 directed him to cause a standard to be made, to be 
 carried at the head of the army, with the sacred sign 
 and inscription. The shaft of the celebrated standard, 
 called the Labarum, was cased with gold. Above the 
 transverse beam was wrought, in a golden crown, the 
 monogram, or the device of two letters which signified 
 the name of Christ. This Labarnm was certainly borne 
 aloft by the officers of Constantine, but this is the only 
 undisputed point connected with this interesting matter. 
 Some, in Constantine's day, really believed that our 
 Lord had condescended to place a token in the firma- 
 ment, to convince this man of the truth of his religion. 
 Others suppose that his excited mind imagined that he 
 saw a cross in the heavens above him. Another theory 
 is that it was an ambitious invention of Constantine, to 
 impress the Christian legions of his army, who would, 
 with such a standard, be animated to greater enthu- 
 siasm. The object to be obtained, the triumph of 
 Christianity over Paganism, seems not unworthy of a 
 miracle, and nothing is impossible with God ; yet the 
 subsequent life of this great man has induced the belief 
 in many minds that the third theory was the true one. 
 Many learned and dispassionate writers, however, ac- 
 cept the second theory. A natural phenomenon, they 
 suppose, was interpreted by the excited vision of the 
 general to be a miraculous sign. ' ' Of all the emperors 
 who had been invested with the purple, either as 
 Augustus or Caesar, during the persecution of the 
 Christians, his father only , the Protector of Christianity, 
 had gone to an honored and peaceful grave ! " His 
 mother, Helena, too, was an earnest Christian, though
 
 IOO ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 her history has come down to us more in connection 
 with her reverence for sacred places, than any enlighten- 
 ment of Christian doctrine and duty. This, however, 
 is not to be attributed to any defect in her Christian 
 morals, but to the superstitious views of her biographers. 
 
 The first public edict of Constantine in favor of 
 Christianity is lost. That issued at Milan, in the joint 
 names of Licinius and Constantine, is the great charter 
 of the liberties of Christianity ; but it is an edict of 
 full, unlimited toleration, and no more. The churches 
 that had been destroyed, or property alienated, were to 
 be restored and secured, but the same freedom of 
 worship was allowed to Pagans. 
 
 This edict * has the tone of imperial clemency, 
 rather than conviction that Christianity was the one true 
 religion. 
 
 We have said that his mother was a Christian ; 
 some writers suppose that she became a convert after 
 her sonf proclaimed himself a Christian. Indeed, on the 
 authority of Eusebius, it is stated that she derived her 
 knowledge of Christianity from her son. 
 
 Constantine, though a great general and most con- 
 summate statesman, seemed never to comprehend fully 
 the doctrines of Christiaeity, as is proved by hia post- 
 ponement of baptism to the last hour of his life. But 
 his obscure views of Christian truth did not restrain his 
 liberality to the Church. Many of the churches of 
 Rome claim the first Christian emperor as their founder. 
 The most distinguished of these, says Milman, stood on 
 
 Edict of Milan. 
 
 tThis is not probable. The husband of Helena was the Protector 
 of Christianity. Christianity had long existed in Britain, where her son 
 Constantine was born.
 
 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. IOI 
 
 the sites now occupied by the Lateran and St. Peter's. 
 If it could be known at what period in the life oPCon- 
 stantine these churches were built, some light might be 
 thrown on the history of his personal religion. As the 
 Lateran was an imperial palace, the grant of a basilica 
 (as the early churches were called) u'tt/im the walls, was 
 a kind of direct recognition, if not 'of his own personal 
 attendance, at least of his admission of Christianity 
 within the domestic circle. This palace (the Lateran) 
 was afterwards granted to the Christians, the first patri- 
 mony of the popes. 
 
 Constantine's life and actions have been examined 
 by Pagans and Christians with the most severe scrutiny. 
 Two crimes of the deepest dye are imputed to him 
 the execution of his eldest son Crispus* and his wife 
 Fausta. Historians are not determined whether the 
 cause of the death of his son was political or domestic 
 jealousy. Some have said that Fausta, the stepmother, 
 stimulated by ambition for her own sons, induced her 
 husband to believe that Crispus, who was popular and 
 beloved for many heroic deeds, was a conspirator 
 against his father and a political rival. It is reported 
 that Constantine discovered too late that his suspicions 
 were groundless, and, filled with rage and remorse, 
 directed that his guilty partner should be sacrificed. 
 Gibbon donbts the execution of Fausta ; he says if she 
 was put to death, that the private apartments of the 
 palace must have been the scene of her execution. An 
 imperfect and obscure narrative of the Pagan historian 
 Zosimus is the authority upon which the crimes and 
 death of Fausta are stated. According to this author, 
 "the ancient tragedy of Hippolitus and Phedra was 
 
 * Crispus' death, A. D. 326.
 
 IO2 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 renewed in the palace of Constantine." Jerome says 
 that several years elapsed between the deaths of Crispus 
 and Fausta. 
 
 Both detraction and praise were directed upon every 
 act of this emperor from the beginning of his reign to 
 its close. But so great a change did his statesmanlike 
 acts produce in the Roman empire, that his reign forms 
 an epoch in the history of the world. Christianity 
 with him ascended the throne of the Caesars, but it was 
 not now the self-denying, pure, spotless religion of 
 earlier times. Wealth flowed in, producing many cor- 
 ruptions.* It was said by one of the pious Fratricelli 
 in the thirteenth century: "After a retrospect of a 
 thousand years, we believe that the gift of a Roman 
 Christian emperor was a fatal boon to the Church." 
 
 The Christians of apostolic days, and those imme- 
 diately succeeding them, had received the simple, life- 
 giving doctrines of the New Testament without cavil, 
 or without analytical questionings. They knew how to 
 live and how to die for Christ and His truth. But with 
 the spread of Christianity among Pagan nations, and 
 especially among the Greeks, momentous and deep 
 questions began to stir the depths of the heart and 
 intellect by the silent working of the new faith. The 
 nature of the Deity ; the state of the soul after death ; 
 the origin of evil ; the connection of the physical with 
 the moral world these subjects became topics with the 
 many, and were no longer confined, "as they had been, 
 to the intellectual few. The passions of men became 
 warmly enlisted in questions of this character. Man- 
 
 * It is consoling to reflect that the inner life of Christianity is not 
 known to history ; much that was pure, self-sacrificing, and lovely, 
 found no record in the annals of the busy world."
 
 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. IO3 
 
 kind within the Christian sphere seemed to retrograde 
 to the stern Jewish spirit, and the Old Testament began 
 ta dominate over the gospel of Christ. 
 
 The first civil wars which divided Christianity were 
 those of Donatism and the Trinitarian controversy. The 
 Gnostic and Manichean sects were rather rival religions 
 than Christian factions. Donatism was a fierce schism 
 in an established community. It began in a disputed 
 appointment to the episcopal dignity at Carthage. The 
 bishop of Carthage was at this time probably more 
 influential than any dignitary in the West. The African 
 churches had suffered greatly during the persecution of 
 Diocletian and the invasion of Magnentius. External 
 troubles, however, did not, as in other places, compress 
 the body of Christians into compact unity, but left 
 behind them a fatal principle of disorganization. 
 
 The commanding character of Cyprian and his wri- 
 tings had elevated the episcopal power to a great height.
 
 IO4 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 THE DONATIST CONTROVERSY. 
 
 The origin of the unhappy schism that divided the 
 Church in Africa, though somewhat obscure, has been 
 traced to the following circumstances. It seems to 
 have been more a question of courtesy than of prin- 
 ciple. Mensurius, the Bishop of Carthage, dying in 
 311, the majority of the people and clergy elected 
 Cecilian to the vacant chair. Cecilian was consecrated 
 by the Bishops of Africa proper, the province of which 
 Carthage was the capital. The Bishops in Numidia 
 who had formerly been present at the consecration of 
 the Bishop of Carthage, were greatly offended that they 
 had not been invited and waited for. They called upon 
 Cecilian to appear before them. Cecilian refused. 
 This contumacy so enraged the Numidian Church, that 
 seventy of their Bishops, together with some of the 
 clergy of Carthage, declared Cecilian unworthy, and 
 appointed Majorinus, his Deacon, Bishop of Carthage. 
 The Church was rent into two factions headed by two 
 Bishops. The Donatists brought this controversy 
 before Constantine in 313. The Emperor referred the 
 matter to Melchiades, Bishop of Rome, with whom 
 were associated nineteen Bishops from Gaul and other 
 countries. They decided against the Donatists. They 
 then tried to get a personal decision from Constantine 
 himself. He also gave his voice against them. The 
 Donatists accused the Emperor of an unrighteous
 
 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. IO5 
 
 decision. The wrath of Constantine was aroused. He 
 ordered the seditious Bishops to be banished. As the 
 Donatist party were numerous and powerful, violent 
 commotions and seditions were aroused in Africa. This 
 controversy lasted with more or less bitterness for a 
 century. The name, it is said, was derived from one 
 of the most distinguished of their number who suc- 
 ceeded Majorinus as one of the Bishops of Carthage. 
 Cecilian and the chief minister, Felix, who had taken 
 part in his consecration, were acquitted of the charges 
 brought against them. The great Augustine, first as 
 Presbyter, and afterwards as Bishop of Hippo, in Africa, 
 assailed the Donatists vigorously in his writings and 
 speeches ; he did much to impair their influence. He 
 roused all Christendom against them. The Donatists 
 were admitted by their enemies to be sound in doctrine 
 and not censurable in their lives. But a party of 
 furious fanatics, composed of the peasantry and rustic 
 populace, espousing the cause of the Donatists, defended 
 them by force of arms, filling the province of Africa 
 with rapine and slaughter. This schism and its effects 
 were happily confined to Africa. Some writers say /'/ 
 was not finally extirpated until Mahometanism entered 
 these regions. Constantine the Great did much for 
 his subjects. His wise and vigorous administration had 
 given comparative peace to the Empire. He had 
 relieved the Christians from persecution and all his 
 people trom grievous oppression. He had made two 
 munificent donations to maintain the ceremonial of 
 religion. He had caused the famous Labarum to be 
 made and carried at the head of the army to increase 
 the enthusiasm of the Christian soldier; he had admit- 
 ted their representatives to his court ; he had sought by
 
 IO6 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 prudence and wisdom to allay the fierce feuds in Africa. 
 He was present at the great Council of Nice he called 
 himself -A. Christian, but it is very probable that he was 
 still ignorant of the real character and the profound 
 truths of the religion of Christ. 
 
 We have alluded to a trinitarian controversy that dis- 
 turbed the peace of the church, after the accession of Con- 
 stantine the Great to the Empire. The first Christians had 
 been content to worship the Deity as revealed in the Gos- 
 pels and Epistles. They repeated with devout worship 
 the names of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost ; they rec- 
 ognized the attributes of God as claimed by our Lord 
 Jesus Christ, and the personality and divinity ascribed 
 by him to the Holy Spirit, but they did not with 
 analytical accuracy define or appropriate peculiar terms 
 to each manifestation of the Godhead. The birth, 
 death and resurrection of Christ, as the Son of God, 
 and the effusion of the Holy Spirit, were truths plainly 
 revealed and received by the faitlijul in all countries 
 where the seed of the Gospel had been sown. Alex- 
 andria became about this time the fruitful soil of specu- 
 lative controversy. Noctus, of Smyrna, dwelt with 
 such exclusive zeal on the unity of the Godhead as to 
 absorb the whole Trinity into one Being. His adver- 
 saries called him and his followers Patripassians, as 
 according to the Noctian theory they said, the Father 
 must have suffered on the cross. Sabellianism, how- 
 ever, became more extensively known. Sabellius was 
 an African of Cyrenaica, a Greek province. According 
 to his theory, it was the same Deity who existed under 
 different forms in the Father, the Son and the Holy 
 Ghost. The Sabellians charged those who differed 
 irom them with a Tritheistic worship, and the Trinita-
 
 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. IO/ 
 
 rians accused the Sabellians of annihilating the separate 
 existence of the Son and the Holy Ghost. But Sabel- 
 lianism did not divide Christianity into two irrecon- 
 cilable parties. Alexander, Bishop oi Alexandria, 
 surrounded by his Presbyters, expressed his opinions 
 freely with regard to the Trinity. This produced a 
 discussion, when Arius, one of the Presbyters present, 
 declared that he agreed with his bishop in all points 
 except in the self-existence of the Son. He admitted 
 the ante-mundane being of the Son and Spirit before 
 all worlds existed, but there was a time, Arius sup- 
 posed, when the parent Deity dwelt alone. The 
 divine unity, according to this distinguished heresiarch, 
 was broken by an act of God's sovereign will, in cre- 
 ating the Son, the image of the Father the vicegerent 
 of the Divine power, and the intermediate agent in 
 all the work of creation. These opinions, as it is well 
 known, produced a grievous schism in the church. 
 The indignant Alexander expelled Arius from Alexan- 
 dria; he retired to Syria, but his opinions had already 
 spread through Egypt and Libya. Two distinguished 
 prelates, both named Eusebius, adopted the opinions 
 of Arius ; One of these was the ecclesiastical historian, 
 the other was the Bishop of the important city of 
 Nicomedia. Throughout the East this Arian contro- 
 versy was propagated with earnest rapidity. The inter- 
 ference of the emperor was again demanded (as in the 
 question of the Donatists), to allay the strife which 
 distracted the Christendom of the East. The behavior 
 of Constantine was probably counseled or guided by 
 
 * It is said, on the authority of Eusebius, that Constantine at the 
 battle of Hadrianople, in A. D. 323, ordered the. lives of his enemies 
 to be spared and offered rewards for all captives brought in alive.
 
 IO8 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 some ecclesiastic of a humane and conciliatory spirit. 
 The letter sent by Constantine was a model for letters 
 of this character. His letter condemned Alexander for 
 the unnecessary agitation of such deep mysteries, yet 
 unpractical questions, and also censured Arius for not 
 suppressing in respectful silence his objections to the 
 doctrines of his Patriarch. It is believed by those who 
 have examined this letter and are intimately cognizant 
 with these times, that the hand of Hosius, Bishop of 
 Cordova, in Spain, is to be traced in this royal and 
 Christian letter. It is by no means, says Milman, an 
 improbable conjecture that Hosius was the Spaniard 
 that administered to Constantine in the hour of mental 
 agony and remorse the balm of Christian penitence. 
 Hosius was sent to Egypt to assuage the fierce disputes 
 that agitated that country from the mouths of the Nile 
 to the Cataracts, on the subject of the unity of God. 
 A general council of the heads of the various Christian 
 communities throughout the Roman Empire was sum- 
 moned by the imperial mandate to establish on the 
 consenting authority of assembled Christendom, the 
 true doctrine on these disputed points, f In the month 
 of May or June 2Oth, in the year 325, met the great 
 council of Nice. Not half a century before, the Chris- 
 tian Bishops had been marked as the objects of the 
 most cruel insult and persecution. They had been 
 chosen on account of their eminence in their own com- 
 munities, as the victims of the stern policy of the 
 government. They had been exiled, set to work in 
 the mines, exposed to every species of humiliation and 
 suffering. Now, they were assembled under the im- 
 perial sanction, a religious senate from all parts of the 
 
 Nicene Creed. Council of Nice.
 
 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 Empire, at least from the Eastern world : for Italy 
 was represented by only two Presbyters from Rome. 
 Hosius, the good bishop to whom we have already 
 alluded, was the representative for Spain, Gaul and 
 Britain. The public establishment of post-horses was 
 commanded to afford every facility, gratuitously, for the 
 journey of the assembling clergy. About three hun- 
 dred bishops were present at this famous council, 
 Presbyters, Deacons, acolytes without number, and a 
 considerable body of the laity. The presence of the 
 Emperor himself gave great weight and dignity to the 
 assembly. There was one Bishop from Persia and one 
 from Scythia. Hosius, it is believed, presided at this 
 Council. The Bishop of Rome, Julius I., was absent 
 from Nicea ; he was also absent from Sardica. The 
 Bishop of Rome, by his absence, happily escaped the 
 dangerous precedent which might hav; been raised, by 
 his appearance in any rank inferior to the Presidency. 
 The .council sat for rather more than two months. 
 Constantine seems to have been present during the 
 greater part of the time, exhorting the members of the 
 council to unity and harmony. He was splendidly 
 attired, the gold and precious stones upon his raiment 
 \\ere dazzling to behold. He spoke in the Latin lan- 
 guage, and his speech was interpreted to the Greek 
 bishops. He conversed familiarly with the Prelates in 
 the best Greek he could command. The Nicene Creed 
 was the result of the deliberations of this grave assem- 
 bly. Hosius of Spain was the first who signed it. 
 Five, of the three hundred and eighteen bishops pres- 
 ent, contested a single expression, Homoousios, of one 
 substance with the Father. Two only of the five per- 
 severed in opposition. Arius was the leader of the
 
 I IO ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 opposition. Eusebius of Caesarea and Eusebius of 
 Nicomedia were known afterwards as Arians. They 
 consented to subscribe, but sent the creed to their 
 people with a comment of their own. The Christian 
 community soon regretted their error in requesting the 
 interference of the emperor in their religious questions. 
 The power which exiled the heretic, could restore him 
 to his place and station. Two years of tranquillity 
 passed after the Council, but it was discovered that 
 Arianism had been condemned, not extirpated. In the 
 same year that the Council of Nice sat, occurred the 
 death of Crispus, the eldest son of Constantine, to 
 whom we have already alluded. It is said the tears 
 and prayers of Constantia, his sister, and the earnest 
 protestations of his grandmother were interposed in 
 vain to save his life. Whether his son was sacrificed 
 to political or domestic jealousy, can never be known. 
 The former is the most probable. Fausta, the step- 
 mother, had three sons to occupy the throne of their 
 father when Crispus was removed. The great popu- 
 larity and ability of the son, perhaps strengthened the 
 plausibility of the alleged conspiracy against his father. 
 When Constantine visited Rome after the death or 
 murder of his son (which took place in a remote dis- 
 trict), he received many insults ; pasquinades, charging 
 him with cruelty and murder, were affixed to the gates 
 of his palace. This treatment determined him to leave 
 Rome and never revisit it more. On the foundation of 
 Constantinople, "the master of the Roman world," says 
 Gibbon, "aspired to erect an eternal monument of the 
 glories of his reign ; he employed in this great work 
 the wealth, the labor and all that remained of the 
 genius of obedient millions. This city was destined to
 
 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. I I I 
 
 reign in future times the mistress of the East, and to 
 survive the Empire of Constantine. It is now, in the 
 nineteenth century, though still in the possession of 
 the Mohammedans, the object of mighty contention 
 between the most powerful Christian nations of Europe.* 
 The rise of Constantinople was favorable to the pro- 
 gress of Christianity. It removed the seat of govern- 
 ment from the presence of those awful temples to 
 which ages of glory in the Roman mind had attached 
 much sanctity. It broke the last link which combined 
 the pontifical with the imperial character. Constanti- 
 nople was not a pagan city. The new capital had no 
 ancient deities whose worship was connected with 
 majestic buildings. The temples of old Byzantium 
 had fallen when Severus in vengeance razed the city to 
 the ground. No expense was spared to raise a city 
 worthy of the seat of empire. 
 
 By the command of Constantine, the cities of 
 Greece and Asia were despoiled of their most valuable 
 ornaments. The productions of Phidias and Lysippus 
 and other masters of art were brought to the city of 
 Constantine. These sculptures had now lost all reli- 
 gious significance. How often has history repeated 
 itself in this way, let modern history declare! In many 
 of the cities both in the East and West there were 
 large buildings called Basilicas, or Halls of Justice. 
 These buildings, says Milman, were singularly adapted 
 for the Christian worship. Two of these, the Sessorian 
 and the Lateran in Rome, had been given to the Chris- 
 tians by Constantine as churches for public worship, 
 and many others were afterwards appropriated for the 
 same purpose. By the consecration of the Basilicas to 
 
 * Written during the late war of the Russians and Turks.
 
 112 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 Christian worship, and the gradual erecting of splendid 
 churches in many of the cities of the East, Christianity 
 began to assume an outward dignity commensurate 
 with its secret moral influence. The pious activity of 
 Helena, the mother of Con'stantine, was chiefly em- 
 ployed in Palestine. Splendid churches arose over the 
 place of our Lord's birth at Bethlehem, and over the 
 place of his burial, near the supposed Calvary, and over 
 the place of ascension, on the Mount of Olives. The 
 church called at first the Church of the Resurrection, 
 afterwards that of the Holy Sepulchre, was very mag- 
 nificent. The erection of these churches was praise- 
 worthy, grateful to Christian hearts in all ages; but 
 alas, superstitious ignorance began to search for the 
 wood of the true cross, and for the nails that were used 
 in the crucifixion.* Jerusalem had been trodden down 
 by the Gentiles several times between the death of 
 Christ and the accession of Constantine, yet names 
 cling to remarkable places with great tenacity. It is 
 possible, therefore, that the churches in Jerusalem do 
 cover really the sacred spots so much venerated by 
 Christians. 
 
 Eusebius, bishop of Nicomedia, seems to have 
 succeeded to Hosius in the influence exercised by that 
 great prelate over the mind of Constantine. f He ac- 
 companied the emperor in his visits to Jerusalem. 
 Eusebius was an Arian. The Arian party gradually 
 grew into favor. Constantia, the sister of Constantine, 
 implored her brother to reconsider the sentence of ban- 
 ishment pronounced against Arius. An imperial man- 
 date was issued to receive Arius and his followers 
 within the pale of the Christian communion. Mean- 
 
 * Jerusalem, 24th chapter. tNot in excellence and wisdom.
 
 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 113 
 
 while Athanasius, who had borne a distinguished part 
 at the Council of Nice, and who had been, at thirty 
 years of age, placed over the see of Alexandria, deter- 
 mined to resist the command of the emperor in relation 
 to Arius. Athanasius was the head of the Trinitarian 
 party, and refused to yield to the wishes of the em- 
 peror. Many frivolous charges were brought against 
 Athanasius by his enemies, but they were easily dis- 
 proved. At length he was charged with stopping the 
 supplies of corn from the port of Alexandria, upon 
 which Constantinople depended. Constantine listened 
 with apparent credulity, and thinking it dangerous to 
 leave the power of starving the capital in the hands of 
 one who might become hostile to the government, the 
 guiltless and firm Athanasius was banished to the 
 remote city of Treves, A. D. 336. Arius was recalled 
 to Constantinople. Alexander was the bishop of this 
 city ; he refused to admit Arius to the orthodox com- 
 munion. The Arians threatened to force their way 
 into the church. As he, Arius, was being carried into 
 a church he was suddenly seized with the pains of 
 death. Alexander at the moment was prostraie at the 
 foot of the altar, determined to resist the approach "of 
 Arius. The Catholics, as the Trinitarians were now 
 called, considered the death of Arius as a judgment of 
 God. We know not the effect of this event upon the 
 mind of Constantine, but it did not change his mind 
 with regard to Athanasius. He continued to regard 
 him "as proud, intractable and turbulent." It was not 
 till his death-bed that he consented to reinstate the 
 bishop of Alexandria. Baptism was administered to 
 Constantine in his last illness. 
 
 The general legislation of Constantine bears evi-
 
 114 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 dence to an undercurrent of religious opinion and feel- 
 ing, independent of the edicts which concerned the 
 Christian community. The rescript for the religious 
 observance of the Sunday, which enjoined the suspen- 
 sion of all public business and private labor, seems to 
 have been enjoined upon the whole Roman people. In 
 one instance there is direct authority that a certain 
 humane measure was adopted by the advice of an in- 
 fluential Christian. It is this: During the period of 
 anarchy and misery that preceded the reign of Con- 
 stantine, the sale of infants as slaves, and their expos- 
 ure, infanticide, too, had become fearfully common. 
 Funds were now assigned for the food and clothing of 
 children whose parents were unable to support them, 
 and as this measure could not prevent the sale of chil- 
 dren, parents were declared incapable of reclaiming 
 them unless they paid the price of their own enfran- 
 chisement. These humane edicts were issued by the 
 advice of Lactantius, a Christian philosopher, to whom 
 had been entrusted the education of the eldest son of 
 Constantine. 
 
 Gladiatorial exhibitions were never permitted in the 
 new capital. The master of a slave was now deprived 
 of the arbitrary power of life and death. In the dis- 
 tribution of the royal domains care was taken not to 
 separate husbands and wives, parents and children, 
 brothers and sisters. It can not be doubted that the 
 stricter moral tone of Constantine's legislation emanated 
 from Christianity. All the laws passed by Constantine 
 with the purpose of purifying the social state, in regard 
 to divorce and unlawful marriages, were afterwards em- 
 bodied in the Theodosian Code, together with the ten 
 commandments (the moral law), and the Apostles'
 
 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 115 
 
 Creed. During the reign of Constantine Christianity 
 was extended to Ethiopia, now called Nubia and Abys- 
 sinia. The Ethiopians attained a degree of civilization, 
 and Arabian commerce was kept up with the other side 
 of the Red Sea. Inscriptions recently discovered in 
 Nubia prove that Greek letters made considerable 
 progress among this barbarous people. These con- 
 versions somewhat indemnified Christianity for the 
 losses sustained in Persia by the restoration of the 
 ancient faith in that country, A. D. 250. 
 
 In the reading of church history it must be borne in 
 mind that when the Christian Episcopate passes calmly 
 down through a succession of beneficent and pious pre- 
 lates, little is said of them by the annalist, either of 
 church or State. The quiet but earnest Christian who 
 lessens the mass of human misery by his daily 
 charities, and who encourages the faint and weary by 
 his strong faith and love, is beloved and honored by his 
 generation ; but he may furnish no materials to the chron- 
 icler to hand down to posterity. But in times of ex- 
 citement, in a contested election like that of Liberius in 
 352, successor to Julius I, and still worse in the case of 
 Damasus and Ursicius, when the partisans of each of 
 these men sought to elect their favorite; unschooled 
 in experience, they little thought how much they 
 would sully the purity of their priestly robes by their 
 vain contentions. The records of these matters, made by 
 heathen pens, often exaggerated the fierceness of the 
 contestants. The great Jerome, however, was at Rome 
 when the contest about Damasus occurred. He be- 
 comes the historian, and bitterly laments the circum- 
 cumstances. Self-seeking is a destructive foe to the
 
 Il6 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 love and peace so constantly enjoined by the Master 
 they professed to serve.* 
 
 Athanasius was an exile in Belgium at the death of 
 Constantine. Constantius, though an Arian, consented 
 to his return. ' He entered Alexandria at the head of a 
 triumphal procession, A. D. 340. The bishops of his 
 party resumed their sees. The Arian party in Syria 
 continued to wage a war against him. 
 
 * The cross is the beautiful symbol of self-denial, but alas, self-seek- 
 ing is often suspected in the nineteenth century, as well as it was in 
 the fourth century. It is more covert now.
 
 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. I I/ 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 Athanasius stands out as the prominent character 
 of this period in the history, not merely of Christianity, 
 but of the world. Athanasius was born at Alexandria, 
 about A. D. 298. He succeeded to the see of Alexan- 
 dria when he was 28 years of age. For half a century 
 he was the head of the orthodox party in the Arian 
 controversy. When Gregory, of Cappadocia, took for- 
 cible possession of his see, Athanasius fled to Rome 
 for protection : a provincial council held at Rome, and 
 a large council soon afterwards assembled at Sardica, 
 acquitted him fully of all charges brought against him. 
 Constantius continued to persecute him after the death 
 of Constans. He concealed himself at Alexandria for 
 two years and then retired to Egypt and lived among 
 hermits until the death of Constantius. In this retire- 
 ment he wrote some of his best works. The creed 
 ascribed to him is spurious, as is proved from the best 
 authorities. On the accession of Julian he returned to 
 his see, but the Pagans and Arians again uniting, in- 
 duced Julian to banish him again. He died, however, 
 at last in the possession of the patriarchate of Alexan- 
 dria, in 373. 
 
 Basil, bishop of Caesarea in Cappadocia, was famous 
 for his skill in debate and eloquence. 
 
 Gregory of Nazianzen and Gregory of Nyssa ob- 
 tained much renown. Their works show that they were 
 worthy to be esteemed. 
 
 Among the Syrians, Ephriam made his name im-
 
 Il8 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 mortal by the sanctity of his life, and by numerous 
 writings. 
 
 Cyril, bishop of Jerusalem, was born about 315. 
 He succeeded Maximus as bishop about 340. The 
 Arian controversy, together with his dispute with Aca- 
 cius, bishop of Caesarea, respecting the priority of their 
 episcopal sees, caused him to be twice deposed. Of his 
 works there are twenty-three lectures extant ; they are 
 considered as an invaluable treasure, as they contain a 
 complete system of theology, and a circumstantial ac- 
 count of the rites of the Church at so early a time. 
 These lectures were written when he was a Presbyter; 
 he wrote on the Apostles' creed, baptism, confirmation, 
 and the Lord's supper. 
 
 Tiberius was bishop of Rome in 352. It appears 
 from the letters of Tiberius, also from the testimony of 
 Jerome, and of Hilary of Poictiers, that this bishop 
 boldly resisted the Arians, and was banished in conse- 
 quence to Berea, in Thrace ; but at the end of two 
 years, he became so eager to return to his bishopric, 
 that he consented to subscribe to the Arian creed set 
 forth by the third council of Sirmium. 
 
 When Rome, after the death of Constans, was under 
 the dominion of Constantius, Arianism triumphed for a 
 time. The history of the Church, under Constantius, 
 presents a most stormy period, and of a war among 
 brethren which was carried on without religion or hu- 
 manity. On the death of Constantius, in 362, the 
 prosperous days of Arianism were ended. 
 
 Julian, called the Apostate, succeeded to the empire 
 of the sons of Constantine. Amid much intestine strife 
 within the pale of Christianity, Julian ascended the 
 throne of the Roman empire, A. D. 362. Julian was the
 
 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. I IQ 
 
 nephew of Constantine the Great ; at the death of Con- 
 stantius he was the only surviving descendant of the 
 once numerous family of Constantius Chlorus. Julian 
 seems to have hated his cousin, the emperor, with bit- 
 terness, and Constantius, it is said, was jealous of the 
 popularity and rising talents of Julian. Nothwithstand- 
 ing the alleged alienation that existed between the two 
 cousins, Julian married Helena, the sister of Constan- 
 tius, and was associated with him in the empire. 
 
 Julian was at Athens when he was called to share in 
 the toils and glories of the empire. He appeals to the 
 people of Athens to witness his tears of sorrow in sepa- 
 rating himself from the schools of the new Platonic 
 philosophy. He had spent six months in the groves of 
 the academy, with the philosophers of the age, who 
 sought to inflame the devotion of their royal pupil. 
 He approached with horror, his historians say, the 
 palace at Milan ; though he constantly suspects his 
 cousin of treachery, he gratefully acknowledges the 
 steady friendship of the empress Eusebia. She met him 
 at her husband's court with the tenderness of a sister. 
 "After an obstinate, though secret struggle," says Gib- 
 bon, "the opposition of the eunuchs yielded to the 
 ascendency of the empress, and Julian was appointed, 
 with the title of Caesar, to reign over the countries 
 beyond the Alps." 
 
 The provinces of Gaul were overwhelmed with a 
 deluge of barbarians ; the Sarmatians (the modern 
 Poles and Russians), no longer respected the barrier of 
 the Danube ; the Persian monarch, who was still to be 
 feared, threatened the peace of Asia, both in the east 
 and in the west. The presence of an emperor was re- 
 quired. Constantius now acknowledged his inability to
 
 I2O ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 control so great an extent of dominion. Constantius 
 did not consult the senate in the choice of a colleague, 
 but he was anxious to have the approval of the army. 
 Surrounded by the troops whose stations were near 
 Milan, he ascended on this solemn occasion to his lofty 
 tribunal, holding by the hand his cousin Julian, who 
 entered on that day the twenty-fifth year of his age. 
 
 Immediately after his investiture, Julian proceeded 
 to Paris, assuming the government of Gaul, and with 
 the command of the forces, intended to drive the Ger- 
 man invaders beyond the Rhine. With much skill and 
 energy, he effected this undertaking, and also checked 
 the rapacity of the local governors. His military 
 energy and administrative ability, together with his 
 gracious manners, made him a great favorite with his 
 troops. Reports of Julian's popularity soon reaching 
 Constantius, it excited a jealous hostility. 
 
 In 360, Constantius sent a mandate to Julian, to send 
 three of his best legions to the east, to assist in conduct- 
 ing the war in Persia. Disgusted with this requirement, 
 and feeling that it proceeded from the suspicious hos- 
 tility of Constantius, he determined to accede to the 
 earnest wishes of his attached soldiery. He assumed 
 the purple. The troops, with great unanimity and 
 enthusiasm, proclaimed him emperor. 
 
 The domestic connection which might have recon- 
 ciled the brother and husband, was recently dissolved 
 by the death of the princess Helena. 
 
 Julian now prepared to decide the question of his 
 title to Augushis, by a civil war. He was marching to 
 attack Constantinople, when he heard of the death of 
 Constantius in Cilicia; this death left him undisputed 
 lord of the empire. His short reign of two years, would
 
 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 121 
 
 find no place in this abridged history, except for his 
 strenuous but fruitless efforts to restore Paganism, and 
 the interesting history of his abortive effort to rebuild 
 the temple of Jerusalem. 
 
 A few weeks before Julian determined upon civil 
 war, he had celebrated the Christian feast of Epiphany ; 
 up to this time, he had concealed from his most intimate 
 friends his hatred of Christianity and his unbelief of the 
 Christian system. He now publicly renounced the re- 
 ligion in which he had been instructed. He had once 
 been a reader in the Church of Nicomedia, but it is very 
 evident to one who reads his life, that he never sincerely 
 embraced the New Testament. His life was full of 
 dissimulation. He is called an apostate from a faith of 
 which he was never a true disciple. Historians say, 
 "the unchristian Christianity of Constantius must bear 
 some part of the guilt of Julian's apostasy." Constan- 
 tius had sentenced to death Gallus, the brother of 
 Julian, and is also accused of the murder of the father 
 of Julian. Constantius was an Arian,*and a fierce per- 
 secutor. On his death-bed he made a bequest of the 
 empire to Julian. It is said that Julian's youth was 
 committed to the instruction and direction of supersti- 
 tious ecclesiastics, who required of him a course of strict 
 ceremonial observances : the midnight vigil, the fast, 
 the long and weary prayer, and visits to the tombs of 
 martyrs, ratfier than an initiation into the principles of 
 the Gospel. He remained a stranger to the originality, 
 the beauty, and the depth of Christian morals, and true 
 Christian sentiment. His teachers seem to have been 
 "blind leaders of the blind." Julian himself gives this 
 
 * We do not believe, or mean to insinuate, that the j:ersecuting 
 spirit of Constantius was the result of his Arian opinions.
 
 122 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 account, perhaps exaggerated and prejudiced, of his 
 instructors: For six years, he says, when he lived 
 with his brother Gallus in a fortress of Asia Minor, he 
 was deprived of every kind of useful instruction. 
 
 The first care of Julian, on his accession to the 
 throne of the Roman empire, was to restore Paganism 
 and extirpate Christianity. The temples were every- 
 where to be restored to their former magnificence ; 
 where they had been destroyed by the zeal of the 
 Christians, large fines were levied on the communities, 
 and became a pretext for the most grinding exactions 
 and in some instances cruel persecutions. It is said 
 that Julian meditated a complete course of religious in- 
 struction, in the Platonic philosophy. But he was not 
 content merely with the moral regeneration of Pagan- 
 ism, but attempted to bring back the public mind to the 
 sanguinary ritual of sacrifice. "Julian himself washed 
 off his Christian baptism by the oriental rite of asper- 
 sion by blood." His credulity and superstition in 
 Paganism, seem to have been quite equal to any super- 
 stition that his earlier teachers, as he alleges, required 
 of him. Julian was a more perspicuous writer than 
 any of the philosophers that surrounded him. They 
 seem to to have been degenerate disciples of Plato. 
 
 To the Christians, Julian assumed the language of 
 liberal toleration. He abridged many of the privileges 
 of the Christians, and closed their schools. He imita- 
 ted the benevolence of the Christians so obviously, in 
 connecting hospitals with his Pagan institutions, that 
 he was called the "ape of Christianity." 
 
 " While Julian labored with very partial success in 
 attempting to restore the religion of his ancestors, he 
 embraced," says Gibbon, "the extraordinary design of
 
 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 123 
 
 rebuilding the temple of Jerusalem." The vain and 
 ambitious mind of Julian (these are the words of Gib- 
 bon), aspired to restore the ancient glory of the temple 
 of Jerusalem. As the Christians were persuaded that 
 a sentence of everlasting destruction had been pro- 
 nounced against this temple, the imperial sophist would 
 have converted the success of his enterprise, into an 
 argument against the faith of prophecy, and the truth 
 of Revelation. Julian therefore resolved to erect on 
 the eminence of Mount Moriah, a stately temple which 
 should eclipse the splendor of the Church of the Resur- 
 rection, on the adjacent Hill of Calvary, built by 
 Constantine under the superintendence of Helena, his 
 mother. 
 
 Among the friends of Julian, the first place was 
 assigned to Alypius. This able minister of the emperor 
 obtained the support of the governor of Palestine. The 
 Jews assembled in great numbers to assist in the work 
 of rebuilding on the holy mountain of their fathers, 
 their beautiful house. But the united efforts of Jews 
 and Pagans were unsuccessful. Ammianus, a Pagan, 
 has recorded in the history of his own times the won- 
 derful obstacles which prevented the restoration of the 
 Jewish temple. We quote from Gibbon, who quotes 
 Ammianus: "Whilst Alypius, assisted by the gov- 
 ernor, urged the work with great vigor, the execution 
 was suddenly stopped by horrible balls of fire, breaking 
 out near the foundations, which rendered the place 
 inaccessible to the scorched and blasted workmen the 
 victorious element continuing in this manner, ultimately 
 drove them away the undertaking was abandoned."
 
 124 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 How charming is divine Philosophy ! 
 Not harsh and crabbed, as dull fools suppose, 
 But musical, as is Apollo's lute. 
 
 ' ' Michaelis, "says Guizot, ' ' has given us an ingenious 
 and probable explanation of this remarkable incident,* 
 which the positive testimony of Ammianus Marcellinus, 
 a contemporary and a pagan, will not permit us to ques- 
 tion. The temple of Jerusalem was a kind of citadel, 
 which had its own walls. The porticos themselves were 
 an excellent fortification. There was a fountain of con- 
 stantly running water ; subterranean excavations under 
 the mountains ; reservoirs and cisterns to collect the 
 rainwater.' 1 
 
 These excavations and reservoirs must have been 
 large, as they furnished water during the whole siege of 
 Jerusalem to 1,100,000 inhabitants, for whom the foun- 
 tain of Siloam could not have sufficed. As the siege 
 took place from the month of April to the month of 
 August, they could have had no rainwater. Josephus 
 relates several incidents which show the extent of these 
 excavations. It is probable that the greater part of 
 these excavations were the remains of the time of Solo- 
 mon, as the people were too poor when they returned 
 from the Captivity, 530 B. c., to undertake such works. 
 Herod the Great, in renovating the temple, made some 
 excavations, but the haste with which the improvements 
 were made " in the days of Herod " preclude the idea 
 
 *Related in the last chapter.
 
 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 12$ 
 
 that they belonged to his period. The temple was de- 
 stroyed A. D. 70, by Titus ; the attempt to rebuild it 
 made by Julian, and the fact related by Ammianus, co- 
 incide with the year 363. Between these two epochs 
 an interval had elapsed of nearly 300 years, during 
 which time the excavations, having choked up with 
 ruins, had become full of inflammable air. The work- 
 men employed by Julian, as they were digging, would 
 take torches to explore the excavations ; sudden flames 
 repelled those who approached ; explosions were heard, 
 and these phenomena were renewed every time that 
 the subterranean passages were penetrated. "It is a 
 fact now popularly known, that when mines long closed 
 are opened, one of two things takes place. The 
 torches are either extinguished, and the men swoon or 
 die ; but if the air is inflammable, a little flame is seen 
 to flicker around the lamp, then extends till the confla- 
 gration becomes general an explosion occurs, and all 
 who are in the way are killed." 
 
 Whether the designs of God were carried out by 
 the operation of natural causes, or by miracle, it makes 
 no difference in the result. It is certainly beautiful to 
 trace in this incident of the operation of nature, the ful- 
 fillment of prophecy. In the words of the Psalmist, 
 we here see, "fire and hail; snow, and vapor; stormy 
 wind fulfilling His word." The temple was not rebuilt; 
 the enemy of the Christians, the apostate Julian, was 
 not allowed to carry out his profane designs. But on 
 the same hill, but not on the site, where once stood the 
 glorious temple of the Lord of Hosts, stands a Maho- 
 metan mosque, called the Mosque of Omar, built by 
 Omar, the second khalif, in 644. 
 
 Julian assumed that he was not a persecutor, but in
 
 126 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 various ways he caused the Christians much suffering, 
 by taunts, by contempt, by severe oppression. The 
 monogram of Christ disappeared from the labarum, or 
 standard. Heathen symbols everywhere replaced those 
 of Christianity. As the troops defiled before the em- 
 peror on one occasion, each man was ordered to throw 
 a few grains of frankincense upon an altar which stood 
 before him. The Christians were horror-stricken when 
 they discovered that, instead of an act of legitimate re- 
 spect to the emperor, as they supposed, they had been 
 betrayed into paying homage to idols. Some bitterly 
 lamented the involuntary sacrilege, and indignantly 
 threw down their arms. Some of them surrounded the 
 palace, and avowing that they were Christians, loudly 
 reproached the emperor with his treachery, and cast 
 down the largess they had received. For this breach 
 of discipline they were led out to military execution. 
 They vied with each other for the honors of martyrdom. 
 But the bloody scene was interrupted by a messenger 
 from the emperor, who contented himself with expelling 
 them from the army and sending them into banishment. 
 He refused to call the Christians by the name of their 
 Redeemer, but enjoined the use of the" less honorable 
 appellation of Galileans.* He prohibited the Christians 
 from teaching grammar or rhetoric. He directly for- 
 bade them to teach, and indirectly to learn, as they would 
 not frequent the schools of the Pagans. 
 
 On Julian's accession to the throne, he had made a 
 decree that the exiles banished during the reign of Con- 
 stantius should return. The great Athanasius availed 
 himself of this permission, and returned to Alexandria. 
 He once more resumed his place as the patriarch of 
 
 * Or Nazarenes.
 
 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 12J 
 
 Alexandria. His pastoral labors were not confined to 
 the narrow limits of Egypt.* The state of the Christian 
 world was present to his active and capacious mind ; 
 and his age, merit, and reputation enabled him to as- 
 sume, in a moment of danger, the office of ecclesiastical 
 dictator. By the wisdom of a select synod, to which 
 the name and presence of Athanasius gave the authority 
 of a general council, the bishops who had unwarily de- 
 viated into error were admitted to the communion on 
 the condition of subscribing to the Nicene creed, with- 
 out any formal deprivation of their scholastic 
 opinions. 
 
 While Athanasius was thus happily harmonizing the 
 distracted elements of the Church, which had but lately 
 threatened a division of the Greek and Latin churches, 
 the wrath of Julian burst forth with renewed violence 
 against Athanasius. The skill and diligence of the pri- 
 mate of Egypt had greatly tranquillized the churches, 
 before the edicts of Julian were issued. Julian was soon 
 convinced by the earnest solicitation of the people, to 
 stay the hand of persecution, that the majority of the 
 Alexandrians were Christians, and that they were firmly 
 attached to the cause of their oppressed primate. But 
 this knowledge excited him still more, and provoked 
 him to extend to all Egypt, the term of the exile of 
 Athanasius. In writing to the praefect of Egypt, Julian 
 swore by the great Serapis, that unless by the calends 
 of December Athanasius had departed from Alexandria, 
 nay, from Egypt, that the government should pay a 
 hundred pounds of gold ! He calls Athanasius an 
 abominable wretch, who had been the cause of several 
 Grecian ladies, of the highest rank, receiving Christian 
 
 * Gibbon.
 
 128 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 baptism. * The death of Athanasius was not com- 
 manded, but the praefect of Egypt understood that it was 
 safer for him to exceed than to neglect the peremptory 
 orders of an irritated master. The bishop prudently re- 
 tired to the monastaries of the desert, eluded with his 
 usual dexterity the snares of an enemy, and lived to 
 triumph over the ashes of a prince who had declared 
 his wish that the whole venom of the Galilean school 
 were contained in the single person of Athanasius. 
 
 " Julian by an artful system," says Gibbon, " pro- 
 posed to obtain the effects of the Christians, without 
 incurring the reproach of persecution." He abrogated 
 all the exclusive privileges of the clergy ; their immun- 
 ity from taxation, and exemptions from public duties. 
 He would not allow Christians to be praefects, as their 
 law prohibited capital punishments. ' ' But if the deadly 
 spirit of fanaticism perverted the heart of a virtuous 
 prince," says Gibbon, "it must be confesssed that the 
 real sufferings of the Christians were greatly magnified 
 by human passions and religious enthusiasm. The 
 meekness and resignation of the primitive disciples of 
 the Gospel, was the object of the applause rather than 
 the imitation of their successors." The historian makes 
 an apology for Julian, but not for the Christians . 
 
 The wealth and power that entered the Church in 
 the time of Constantine and his successors, had a tend- 
 ency to corrupt the simplicity of the Gospel, and to 
 introduce doctrines, habits and customs that were 
 foreign to the spirit of the Master, and the teachings of 
 Him and of His apostles. Still, the Church, in the 
 darkest and most troublous times, was as " a burning 
 and shining light " amid a dark, tempestuous world. 
 
 * Gibbon.
 
 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 1 29 
 
 The Church was an ark of safety and comfort to 
 those who entered it with honest, true and loving 
 hearts. But in the Jewish, as well as in the Christian 
 dispensation, the evil has been mingled with the good. 
 As early as the fourth century, "corruption, fraud and 
 bloodshed had begun to crowd the path that led to the 
 Shepherd's seat." The seed was sown by the Divine 
 Husbandman, and doctrines far surpassing in purity and 
 efficacy any system of theology which the human mind 
 had previously conceived, were widely promulgated. 
 During the continuance of the Apostolic age, Chris- 
 tianity had extended throughout the Roman world and 
 beyond its limits, so that no local power could crush it. 
 Before the death of the last inspired teacher, Christianity 
 had struck its roots deep into the soil of every country 
 between the Euphrates and the Atlantic Ocean. 
 
 The true Church is an aggregate of individuals, 
 whose hearts have been quickened from above, and 
 whose dispositions are controlled by the genuine prin- 
 ciples of the New Testament. Clouds have darkened 
 the sky in different periods of the history of the Church 
 the germs of many good seed have died, choked by 
 earthly desires a cutting wind of controversy about 
 trifles, and about unimportant rites and ceremonies may 
 have destroyed good fruit yet the Church has much 
 more than survived. It has had to contend with many 
 ills the persecutions of Pagan Rome the inroads of 
 barbarous hordes, darkening the light of civilization by 
 the* dreadful additions brought to Papal Rome from 
 Paganism but the Word of God has remained un- 
 touched. Christianity uprooted in some places, as in 
 Mahometan countries, has sprung up in other countries. 
 The Lord's promise, that he would always be with his
 
 I3O ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 people, seems not to have secured them from some 
 mistakes in doctrine, yet when we review Church his- 
 tory, there is much consolation in the thought, that in 
 the darkest times there has ever been a mystical body 
 a true Church. It mitigated evils which could not 
 be entirely averted it transmitted to a better age, the 
 elements of natural and religious truth. 
 
 The Apostate Julian, soon after the failure of his 
 designs at Jerusalem, set out on an expedition to Persia. 
 He wished to secure by this campaign the Euphratic 
 provinces from a dangerous rival of the Roman power. 
 But death " had marked him for her own." His short 
 reign of two years was brought to an abrupt termina- 
 tion by the arrows of the Persians. 
 
 Not only as an emperor, but as a writer, was Julian 
 indefatigable in his efforts to overthrow Christianity. 
 He wrote during the long winter nights of his Persian 
 campaign an elaborate work against the faith of Christ. 
 It has been said that when he received the fatal death- 
 wound, he uttered the bitter sentence, "Thou hast 
 conquered, O Galilean." But his heathen friends give 
 a very different account of his last hours. He com- 
 forted his weeping friends, they say expressed his 
 willingness to pay the debt of nature, and his joy that 
 the purer part of his nature was soon to be released 
 from the gross and material body. 
 
 Had Julian lived longer, he might have dictated 
 terms of peace and have limited the aggressive designs 
 of Sapor, the Persian Monarch he might have delayed 
 the fall of the empire, but the fall of Paganism could 
 not have been arrested. "The peaceful stream of 
 progressive opinion and religious sentiment, will not 
 retrograde or retire at man's bidding. The oppressor
 
 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 131 
 
 holds the body bound, but he knows not what a range 
 the spirit takes." 
 
 The short reign of Jovian, of a few months, was 
 sufficient to restore the ascendency of Christianity.
 
 132 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 Valentinian, son of Count Gratian, a distinguished 
 Roman, now succeeded to the empire. He ascended 
 the throne with the fame of having rejected the favor of 
 Julian and the prospect of military distinction for the 
 sake of his religion. He had once provoked the danger 
 of disgrace by the contempt which he expressed for 
 heathenism. At Antioch, where he was obliged by his 
 position to attend the emperor to the table, it is said 
 he struck a Pagan priest who had presumed to purify 
 him with lustral water. Valentinian reigned in the 
 West. He soon appointed his brother Valens, after 
 his elevation, as his associate in the empire. Valens' 
 seat of power was at Constantinople. These brothers 
 allowed perfect freedom to the public ritual of Pagan- 
 ism, but both in the East and West a tremendous per- 
 secuting power was waged against magic and unlawful 
 divination. Valens was a fierce Arian and maintained 
 in the East the ascendancy of Arianism. During the 
 life of Athanasius the see of Alexandria remained faith- 
 ful to the Trinitarian doctrines. 
 
 A. D. 364. It was in the year 364 that Valentinian 
 and Valens ascended the two thrones of the empire. 
 The former held the reins of government firmly, but 
 the latter was weak and pusillanimous. Gibbon tells 
 us that Valentinian condemned the exposition of in- 
 fants, and established in the fourteen quarters of Rome 
 fourteen skillful physicians, with stipends and privi- 
 leges. He founded useful and liberal institutions for
 
 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 133 
 
 the education of youth and the support of declining 
 science. It was during the reign of Valentinian that 
 there was a fierce conflict at Rome between the follow- 
 ers of Damasus and Ursinus for the seat of the bishop. 
 Damasus prevailed ; the schism was extinguished by the 
 exile of Ursinus. Ammianus, a reliable heathen his- 
 torian, says of this disgraceful contest: "I am not as- 
 tonished that so valuable a prize should inflame the 
 desires of ambitious men ; but how much more rationally 
 would these Roman pontiffs consult their true happi- 
 ness by imitating the exemplary lives of the provincial 
 bishops, who recommend their religion by their temper- 
 ance and sobriety, by their plain apparel and humble 
 demeanor." 
 
 Valens is charged with some dreadful crimes against 
 the Trinitarian or Catholic party. But we prefer to 
 relate a memorable interview which occurred between 
 him and the archbishop of Caesarea, in Cappadocia. 
 The unscrupulous wicked minister of Valens had been 
 sent in advance to persuade the bishop to accept the 
 Arian opinions of the emperor. Basil was inflexible, 
 though the minister, Modestus, threatened him with 
 confiscation and banishment. Basil said to Modestus, 
 "He who possesses nothing can lose nothing; all you 
 can take from me are my clothes and my books, which 
 are my only wealth. As to exile, the earth is the 
 Lord's; everywhere it will be my country, or rather 
 my place of pilgrimage." Modestus was astonished at 
 the intrepidity of Basil. He returned to his master, 
 telling him that neither violence nor menaces could 
 move this man. Valens shrunk from violence. He 
 approached the bishop in a crowd of distinguished wor- 
 shipers, bearing an oblation. His clergy^stood irres-
 
 134 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 olute, doubting whether they ought to receive his 
 offering. Basil advanced and accepted the oblation, 
 but neither supplications nor threats could induce the 
 bishop to receive the sovereign of the Eastern Empire 
 to the communion. In a personal interview, the em- 
 peror was so overcome with the eloquence of Basil, as 
 to insist upon the bestowment of a gift for the poor. 
 
 Valens listens to the supplications of an immense 
 multitude of Goths, who, alarmed by the inroads of the 
 Huns on the eastern side of the Danube, implore an 
 entrance into the Eastern Empire. They are per- 
 mitted to cross the Danube, and to take possession of 
 the lands of Thrace. Afterwards inceijsed by the in- 
 justice and cruelty of the ministers of Valens, and 
 knowing their own power, Fritigern, one of the Gothic 
 (chiefs, determines to lift the standard of rebellion. 
 Opposing armies of Goths and Romans assemble them- 
 selves in the city of Adrianople. The emperor Valens 
 takes the command of his army and is slain by bar- 
 barian arrows. A great number of brave officers per- 
 ished in this battle, which equalled, says Gibbon, in 
 actual loss and far surpassed in fatal consequences the 
 battle of Cannae. Hordes of barbarians had now made 
 a permanent establishment within the frontiers of the 
 Roman Empire. 
 
 A. D. 376. Within the next century Visigoths, 
 Ostrogoths, Huns, Vandals, Heruli, Franks, Saxons, 
 Lombards, migrated from the East and North, settling 
 themselves by colonization or conquest, introducing 
 one or more new races into every country and province 
 in Europe, also settling "like a pitchy cloud of locusts," 
 in the fair and cultivated fields of northern Africa. We 
 have already said that Christianity mitigated evils it
 
 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 135 
 
 could not avert. In the resettling of Europe and other 
 provinces of the empire, Christianity, says Milman, 
 was the one common bond, the harmonizing principle 
 which subdued to something like unity the adverse and 
 conflicting elements of society. But while it discharged 
 this lofty mission, it could not but undergo itself a great 
 change. It might repress but could not wholly subdue 
 the advance of barbarism. While struggling to count- 
 eract barbarism, Christianity itself became barbarized. 
 It lost for a time much of its gentleness and purity, it 
 became splendid and imaginative, and at length warlike 
 and chivalrous. Christianity had in some degree pre- 
 pared the way for the amalgamation of the Goths with 
 the Roman Empire. During the reign of Gallienus, 
 A. D. 260, in the first inroads of the Goths, when they 
 ravaged quite a large part of the Roman Empire, they 
 carried away numbers of slaves from Asia Minor and 
 Cappadocia. There were many Christians among 
 these. The gentle doctrines of Christianity won their 
 way to the hearts of the barbarous warriors. A Gothic 
 bishop with a Greek name was a member of the 
 Council of Nice. The famous Ulphilas, bishop of the 
 Goths in the reign of Valens, was of Cappadocian de- 
 scent. Thus we see the dispersion of the Christians in 
 the early times, whether as slaves* or soldiers, con- 
 tributed to the spread of the doctrines of Christ. The 
 Christian clergy occupied during the resettling of 
 Europe a strange position in the new state of society. 
 The Christian bishop confronted the barbarian sovereign, 
 and though the lands of the clergy themselves were rav- 
 aged in the indiscriminate warfare, and were sometimes in- 
 
 * It must be borne in mind that the Greek and Roman slaves were 
 frequently intelligent and cultivated.
 
 136 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 suited or enslaved, yet before long the minds of the 
 conquerors were subdued by them. The authority 
 claimed and exercised by the clergy at this period in 
 the progress of civilization was of the highest utility. 
 In these warlike times the clergy were almost the ex- 
 clusive possessors of learning, which commands the 
 reverence of barbarians when not actually engaged in 
 war. The Christian religion rested on a written record ; 
 the best minds of the literary ages had been devoted to 
 its elucidation. It became necessary, in the times of 
 invading, devastating armies, that retreats should be 
 sought for the literary, who were anxious to preserve 
 the fruits of knowledge produced in more peaceful 
 and happier times. The cloister or the religious foun- 
 dation thus became the place of refuge to all that 
 remained of letters or arts. Ulphilas, the most cele- 
 brated bishop among the Goths, made a version of the 
 Scriptures in the Maesic Gothic language. The lan- 
 guage of Ulphilas, says Milman, is the link between 
 the East and Europe, between the Sanscrit and the 
 modern Teutonic languages. A large part of this ver- 
 sion is now extant in the Upsal. It is written in silver 
 letters, on purple parchment. 
 
 The whole Gothic nation received the Arian form 
 of Christianity. When Ulphilas and other Gothic pre- 
 lates visited Constantinople, they found the Arian 
 bishops in chief authority ; they were persuaded, it is 
 said, by these men that the difference between Arianism 
 and Trinitarianism consisted in disputes about words. 
 Arianism continued to be the general form of their 
 religious belief until the fall of the Gothic monarchies 
 in Italy and Spain. 
 
 "The title, the ensigns, the prerogatives of the sove-
 
 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 137 
 
 reign pontiff,* which had been instituted by Numa 
 and assumed by Augustus, were accepted without 
 hesitation by several Christian .emperors, who were 
 invested with a more absolute authority over the religion 
 which they deserted, than over that which they pro- 
 fessed." We presume those emperors regarded the 
 office as political rather than religious. Gratian, son 
 of Valentinian I., was the first emperor who refused the 
 pontifical robe, A. D. 367. Notwithstanding the steady 
 decadence of Paganism, it was still recognized in many 
 parts of the empire by sacrifices. Many of the Pagan 
 temples, especially in Rome, were undisturbed, though 
 some of them were deserted. The Prefect of Rome in 
 the latter part of the fourth century was a Pagan. 
 Symmachus, a. man of virtue and learning, was the 
 Pagan Prefect of Rome when Valentinian II. succeeded 
 to the sole empire of the West. Symmachus mourned 
 over the aggressive acts of Gratian. This emperor had 
 abrogated the immunities of the Pagan priesthood ; he 
 had removed the statue of victory from the Senate 
 House which had been restored by Julian. The senate 
 met under the authority of Symmachus, to prepare and 
 present a petition to be offered to the emperor. Sym- 
 machus in this oration exercised all his eloquence ; he 
 recounts the mighty deeds of .Rome in the days of her 
 Republican glory, ascribing to the Pagan rites the 
 potent spell that repelled her enemies. But a counter 
 petition was prepared by Ambrose, the famous bishop 
 of Milan. He asserts the unquestionable obligation of 
 a Christian sovereign to permit no part of the public 
 revenue to be devoted to idolatry. "Man can not 
 serve two masters." Theodosius was at this time em- 
 
 * Gibbon.
 
 138 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 peror of Constantinople. He was justly styled the Great 
 Theodosius ; he was at first associated with Gratian ; on 
 the death of that monarch he was the protector of Val- 
 entinian II., and his restorer to the throne, after the in- 
 vasion and defeat of Maximus. The accession of 
 Theodosius was hailed with enthusiasm throughout the 
 empire. Theodosius was a Spaniard. In that prov- 
 ince Christianity had been established at an early day. 
 Spain through the commanding influence -of Hosius, 
 had firmly adhered to the Trinitarian or Athanasian 
 doctrines. Theodosius was by character and education 
 deeply impressed with the truths of Christianity and 
 the Trinitarian doctrines. After the defeat and death 
 of the tyrant of Gaul, Maximus, the Roman world was in 
 the possession of Theodosius. He seated Valentinian 
 on the throne of Milan, and fully restored him to the 
 dominion of all the provinces, from which he had been 
 driven by the arms of Maximus. Before the invasion 
 of Maximus, Justina, a woman of beauty and spirit, 
 the mother of Valentinian II., feeling secure in the 
 government of Italy, insisted that she had a right to 
 claim in the dominions of her son the public exercise 
 of her religion. She had been educated in Arianism, 
 and was zealous in instilling her principles into the 
 mind of her son. She therefore proposed to Ambrose, 
 the bishop of Milan, that he should resign to her con- 
 trol a single church in Milan or in its suburbs. Am- 
 brose would not accede to her request; he thought it 
 would be sacrilege to yield a church where Arian prin- 
 ciples would be maintained and taught. The palaces 
 of the earth, he said, indeed belonged to Caesar; but 
 the churches are the houses of God ; and he, within 
 the limits of his diocese, as the lawful successor of the 
 
 i
 
 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 139 
 
 apostles, was the only minister of God. He declared 
 with firmness that he would die a martyr rather than 
 yield to the impious sacrilege. Justina prepared to 
 resist, and exert the imperial prerogative of her son, 
 but finally after much trouble and tumult, she was 
 compelled to yield, seeing that the majority coincided 
 with the archbishop, and the laws of the country con- 
 demned the Arian heresy. The powers of the earth 
 seemed to interfere in the defense of Ambrose, for now 
 the tyrant of Gaul with an army of barbarians seized 
 the fortresses of the Alps, and rapidly approached the 
 gates of Milan. Justina and the young emperor fled to 
 the court of Theodosius. Justina died shortly after the 
 restoration of her son to the throne by the prowess of 
 Theodosius. After the death of his mother, Valentin- 
 ian, either from conviction or policy, professed Trinita- 
 rianism. 
 
 Ambrose, of Milan, at this time the presiding mind 
 of the orthodox clergy, united in himself all the epis- 
 copal virtues in an eminent degree. The natural dis- 
 position of Theodosius, the great captain and em- 
 peror,* of whom we have already said so much, was 
 hasty and choleric. " Within three years ;" says Gibbon, 
 "we must relate the generous pardon of the people of 
 Antioch, and the inhuman massacre of the people of 
 
 * Constantinople, until Theodosius reigned there, had been the 
 stronghold of Arianism. It is said this emperor required Demopolus, 
 the archbishop, either to sign the Nicene Creed or to resign his epis- 
 copal authority over the great city. He. chose to resign, and the 
 famous Gregory Nazianzen was installed in his stead. Gregory when 
 he unwillingly accepted the bishopric, was old and unambitious, his 
 manners pure and simple.
 
 140 
 
 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 Thessalonica. As the recital of the chief incidents con- 
 nected with these two cities illustrates the great power 
 and influence of the bishops of this period, we will 
 attempt to relate them in our next chapter.
 
 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 14! 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 Chrysostom, afterwards so celebrated as the Bishop 
 of Constantinople, presided previously over the churches 
 of Antioch. In consequence of a new taxation laid 
 upon the people of Antioch, whi h they considered 
 exorbitant, a tumultuous insurrection ensued ; the 
 people determined to resist the demands of the imperial 
 officers. The mob were roused to fury, and cast down 
 the statues of the emperor and empress ; also the statues 
 of their two sons, Arcadius and Honorius. This meet- 
 ing was soon quelled by the better classes of the citizens, 
 but the populace were seized with alarm at what they 
 had done, and awaited with fear and trembling the 
 sentence of the emperor. The governor of the province 
 had dispatched to the emperor a narration of the whole 
 transaction, and strict inquisition had been made as to 
 the guilt of individuals. Abject terror seemed to take 
 possession of a large number of the community. This 
 commotion at Antioch was previous to the massacre at 
 Thessalonica. Their only hope of pardon rested upon 
 their aged Bishop Flarianus, whom they induced to 
 undertake a journey of eight hundred miles, to inter- 
 cede for them with the emperor. 
 
 Chrysostom, a presbyter, meanwhile remained with 
 the people, to quiet their fears and administer consola- 
 tion. Twenty-four days after the sedition, the masters 
 of the offices declared to the people the terrible sentence 
 of the emperor.
 
 142 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 The sentence was that Antioch should be degraded 
 "from the rank of a city ; the proud metropolis of the 
 East should be subjected to the jurisdiction of Laodicea. 
 The two officers of justice, however, determined to 
 suspend the execution of the terrible edicts against the 
 city until the return of the orator Caesarius and the 
 Bishop Flarianus. 
 
 The resentment of Theodosius subsided. He granted 
 a free and general pardon. The capital of the East 
 was not shorn of its ancient dignity and splendor. The 
 bishop left the presence of the emperor, with warm 
 expressions of his respect and gratitude for the interces- 
 sion he had made. The emperor also thanked the 
 senate of Constantinople for the interest they had mani- 
 fested for their distressed brethren.* 
 
 Chrysostom, during this interval of terrible sus- 
 pense, had ascended the pulpit day after day, and the 
 people in their distress,, listening to his eloquence, forgot 
 the forum, the theater, and the circus. The monks, 
 too, from their mountain hermitages, came down to try 
 to impart fortitude and consolation to the despairing 
 people. 
 
 There was no repeal nor pardon, however, connected 
 with the more famous sedition at Thessalonica. A favor- 
 ite lieutenant, together with a general and his officers, 
 had been inhumanly murdered. The emperor hastily 
 resolved that the blood of his favorite and that of his 
 brave officers should be expiated in the blood of the 
 citizens of Thessalonica. The zeal of the clergy had 
 almost extorted a pardon from the emperor, when the 
 suggestions of his minister Rufinus again inflamed his 
 
 * Gibbon.
 
 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 143 
 
 anger. After he had dispatched the messengers of 
 vengeance, he tried too late to recall them. 
 
 When Ambrose, Bishop of Milan, heard of the 
 massacre, his soul was filled with horror and anguish. 
 When the intelligence of the massacre first reached 
 Ambrose, he kept aloof from the exasperated emperor. 
 He retired to the country, and wrote to the sovereign. 
 His letter expressed his own distress and the affliction 
 of his brother bishops, at a deed so inhuman as the 
 massacre at Thessalonica. He and his brethren must 
 not only express their detestation of his guilt, but must 
 also refuse to communicate with a man so stained with 
 blood, not of one, but of thousands. He exhorts him to 
 penitence ; he promises the emperor his prayers in his 
 behalf, but tells him the doors of the church must be 
 closed against him. 
 
 The emperor of the world was excluded for eight 
 months from the communion of the Church. On 
 Christmas day, when the holy precincts were open to 
 the slave and beggar, the emperor was denied admission. 
 At length Ambrose consented to an interview with the 
 emperor, in the outer porch of the church, the place of 
 public penitents. The interdict was removed on two 
 conditions : that the monarch should issue an edict 
 forbidding the execution of capital punishments for 
 thirty days after conviction, or that the emperor should 
 submit to public penance. Stripped of his imperial 
 ornaments, prostrated on the pavement, watering the 
 ground with his tears, the master of the Roman Empire, 
 the c.nqueror in so many victories, the legislator of the 
 world, humbled himself before the minister of God 
 and received his absolution. 
 
 In this instance, and in many other events of this
 
 144 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 age, Christianity appears as the glorious champion of 
 outraged humanity. But in this unlimited sovereignty 
 over the mind, so potent to repress evil, when exercised 
 by the honest and true in the punishment of evil acts, 
 there lurked a latent evil. This power, in evil coun- 
 selors and in a darker age, might take cognizance of 
 opinions, as well as deeds or overt acts, and would con- 
 demn the offender to punishment and death. 
 
 In A. D. 385, the first blood wus judicially shed for 
 religious opinions. This was the act of a usurping 
 sovereign, Maximus, and the Spanish bishops Idacius 
 and Ithacius. Priscillian, an eloquent Spaniard, had 
 embraced some Manichean or Gnostic opinions. He 
 and his followers had propagated his opinions in the 
 southern part of Gaul, where they had taken refuge 
 from persecution. This act of persecution was solemnly 
 disclaimed by all the influential dignitaries of the West- 
 ern Church, by Ambrose, Augustine, and Chrysostom, 
 the Golden-mouthed. 
 
 When Ambrose reproached the usurper Maximus 
 with the murder of his sovereign, also with the unjust 
 execution of the Priscillianists, he refused to communi- 
 cate with the bishops-who had any connection in that un- 
 christian and sanguinary transaction. This fatal precedent 
 was disowned by the general voice of Christianity. It 
 required, says Milman, a long period of ignorance and 
 bigotry so to deaden the moral sense of Christianity as 
 to abandon the spirit of love. Martin of Tours urged 
 his protest in vain against the bloody sentence passed 
 upon the Priscillianists or Gnostics. Martin's life had 
 been an unwearied campaign against idolatry. He 
 had demolished every Pagan edifice within his reach ; 
 but persecutiun for opinion's sake he abhorred. St.
 
 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 145 
 
 Martin has been a favorite subject for legend. He once 
 met a poor creature at Amiens suffering with cold. 
 Martin had nothing but a cloak. He cut the cloak into 
 two pieces, giving one piece to the poor man. The 
 following night, Jesus appeared to him in a dream, 
 dressed in a half cloak. Ambrose of Milan died in A. D. 
 397. To this devout prelate is ascribed the grand 
 hymn, "7V Deum Laiidamns." Tradition says it was 
 first chanted in the cathedral of Milan when Augustine, 
 bishop of Hippo, was baptized. 
 
 Of all Christian writers since the apostles, Augustine 
 has maintained the most permanent influence, though 
 some of his opinions were harsh, in view of the certain 
 truth that " God is love." He had comparatively little 
 influence in the Greek Church, but the dominion of 
 Augustine over the opinions of the Western world was 
 eventually over the greater part of Christendom. 
 
 The Greek Empire, after the reign of Justinian, 
 greatly contracted its limits. The Greek Church seemed 
 for a time to forget her great writers on the momentous 
 subjects of religion and morality, for the Church wasted 
 her energies on frivolous and insignificant questions .of 
 faith. We have said in the earlier part of this abstract 
 of Church history, that Christianity was a Greek religion 
 for more than three centuries ; but from the time of 
 Augustine (A.D. 384), the Latin language became almost 
 that of Christianity. The language of Basil and Chrys- 
 ostom now became foreign or dead to the larger part of 
 the Christian world. Mahometanism at length robbed 
 Christianity of some of her fairest provinces, and nar- 
 rowed the Greek Church to a smaller circle. In modern 
 days, we see its enlargement in its extension in the 
 Russian Empire.
 
 146. ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 Of all the Latin writers, Augustine was the most 
 commanding and influential. Abstruse topics, which 
 had been but slightly touched in the apostolic writings, 
 became the prominent points of the Augustinian the- 
 ology. " Augustinianism has constantly revived, in 
 every period of religious excitement. It formed much 
 of the system of Luther in later days ; his doctrines 
 (the doctrines of St. Augustine) were worked up into a 
 rigid and uncompromising system by the severe intel- 
 lect of Calvin ; it was remoulded by Jansenius into the 
 Roman Catholic doctrine. The theology of most of 
 the Protestant sects is but a modified Augustinianism." 
 
 St. Augustine was born (A. D. 354) in Tagasta, a city 
 of Numidia (Algiers). His parents were Christians of 
 respectable rank. His mother Monica became quite 
 famous, in consequence of her religious anxiety with 
 regard to her son. While pursuing his studies at Car- 
 thage, his ardent mind plunged into the intoxicating 
 enjoyments of the theater, and other sinful gratifications. 
 He was first arrested in his sensual course, it is said, by 
 the remonstrances of Pagan literature ; especially from 
 Cicero did he learn the dignity of intellectual attain- 
 ments. But philosophy would not satisfy the cravings 
 of his spirit. He turned to the religion of his parents, 
 but the inimitable simplicity of the New Testament 
 could not at first satisfy him. He turned aside to the 
 books of the Gnostics, and for several years was deeply 
 imbued with the wild doctrines of Manicheism. His 
 mother, the holy Monica, watched over the irregular 
 development of his powerful mind. His mother's 
 distress at his Manichean errors was consoled by an 
 aged bishop, who had himself been involved in the 
 same opinions: "Be of good cheer; the child of so
 
 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 147 
 
 many tears and prayers can never perish." This an- 
 swer of the good bishop has infused a ray of comfort 
 into the heart of many a pious mother, all down the 
 ages from the days of the great theologian. How 
 strange, that he who for nine years wandered amid the 
 mazes and reveries of Oriental theology, should have 
 become at length the most logical of theologians !
 
 148 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 Augustine grew discontented with the Manichean 
 doctrines, which could not satisfy the religious yearn- 
 ings of his heart. He determined to leave Carthage 
 for Rome, where he would have a more extended 
 sphere as a teacher of rhetoric. The fame of his 
 talents reached Milan. He was born within the magic 
 circle of the great ecclesiastic of Milan. The eloquence 
 of Ambrose induced him to study the writings of the 
 apostles, which until now'he had rejected. He thought 
 he saw in the description Paul gives of the dissolute 
 morals of the heathen a fearful picture of his own life. 
 In his religious agony he seemed to hear a voice say- 
 ing, "Take and read, take and read." He now com- 
 menced a strictly religious life; his mother, who fol- 
 lowed him to Milan, lived to witness his baptism at the 
 hands of Ambrose. He wrote controversial treatises 
 against the Manicheans, Arians and Pelagians, and 
 seemed to have the power to bring down these abtruse 
 subjects to popular comprehension. His great work 
 was called "The City of God." He dedicated thirteen 
 years of his life to this great work. This work was 
 chiefly intended to expel the idea that the decay and 
 fall of Rome was in any regard due to the introduction 
 of Christianity or the alienation of its Pagan deities. 
 The Roman Pagan aristocracy fled to different parts of 
 the world in the hour of peril, many of them to the yet 
 uninvaded, peaceful province of Africa ; they ascribed 
 the ruin of their city to the anger of their Pagan
 
 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 149 
 
 deities. "The City of God" is a funeral oration of 
 the old Pagan society, and a gratulatory panegyric on 
 the birth of the new Christian society. Augustine in- 
 stitutes a comparison between the Christian Alaric 
 (barbarian as he was) and the Pagan Radagaisus who 
 left the cities that he entered a pile of ruins, whereas 
 Alaric held Rome six days and did but little mischief. 
 He spared the churches and the lives of unresisting 
 citizens. Our modern historian Gibbon institutes a 
 comparison between Alaric, the Goth, in his treatment 
 of Rome, and that of Charles V., in the sixteenth cen- 
 tury, a Roman Catholic prince, who held Rome nine 
 months, when nearly every day was stained by some 
 atrocity of the soldiers. 
 
 To return to Augustine's great work. Milman says 
 "The City of God" was undoubtedly the noblest 
 work, both in design and execution, that had yet been 
 contributed to the cause of Christianity. The apologies 
 hitherto written by the Fathers were framed to meet 
 particular emergencies, and were brief and pregnant 
 statements of Christian doctrines. The work of Au- 
 gustine was a comprehensive survey of the whole reli- 
 gion and philosophy of the school of Christ of antiquity. 
 It has preserved more, on some branches of this sub- 
 ject, than the whole surviving Latin literature. "The 
 City of God" was not merely a defense, but a full ex- 
 position of Christian doctrine. 
 
 The threatened invasion of Florence by Radagaisus, 
 the king of the confederate Germans, is beautifully 
 related by Gibbon. "Radagaisus passed without re- 
 sistance the Alps, the Po and the Apennines, leaving 
 on one hand the inaccessible palace of Honorius, se- 
 curely buried among the marshes of Ravenna, and on
 
 I5O ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 the other hand the camp of Stilicho, at Paria, who 
 waited to assemble his distant forces before he made 
 battle with Radagaisus." Meanwhile Florence was 
 reduced to the last extremity ; their fainting courage 
 was sustained sifhply by the authority and sympathy of 
 Ambrose, bishop of Milan, who had in a dream the 
 promise of speedy deliverance. On a sudden they be- 
 held from their walls the banners of Stilicho,* who ad- 
 vanced with his united force to the relief of the faithful 
 city, and who soon marked that fatal spot for the grave 
 of the barbarian host. Radagaisus did not go to Rome. 
 While the firmness of the people of Florence checked 
 and delayed the German king in his course, Rome one 
 hundred and eighty miles distant, trembled lest he 
 should approach. Alaric was a Christian and soldier 
 who respected the sanctities of treaties, but Radagaisus 
 was a stranger to the manners, the religion and even 
 the language of the civilized nations of the South. 
 Stilicho defeated Radagaisus, and deserved a second 
 time the title of Deliverer of Italy. Radagaisus was 
 beheaded, which, says Mr. Gibbon, disgraced the 
 triumph of Rome and Christianity. But when it is 
 remembered, and was certainly believed by the actors 
 in that terrible drama, that he had made a vow to de- 
 stroy Rome and sacrifice her senators on their altars, it 
 is not surprising that he was punished with death. He 
 had been in the habit of immolating his prisoners to his 
 gods he was taken in arms. At this time Innocent I. 
 was bishop of Rome. When Italy was invaded by 
 Alaric, at the head of the Visigoths, Innocent went to 
 
 * Stilicho, a great military genius, in the service of Theodosius. 
 He was descended from the Vandals. He was honored with a triumph 
 at Rome for his great services.
 
 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. !$! 
 
 Ravenna to solicit the aid of the emperor Honorius. 
 During his absence the city was taken and plundered, 
 A. D. 410. After the departure of the Goths Inno- 
 cent returned to Rome and exerted himself to relieve 
 the wounds of the scathed metropolis. His zeal and 
 charity endeared him to all classes of the people. This 
 bishop interceded without avail in behalf of the famous 
 Chrysostom, bishop of Constantinople, who had been 
 deposed from his see by the wicked Eudocia, empress 
 of Constantinople. Chrysostom, Ambrose and Augus- 
 tine though younger lived at the same time. Jerome 
 also lived in his cell at Bethlehem about the same time, 
 making his Latin translation of the Bible. Innocent I. 
 though more distinguished perhaps than any of his 
 predecessors in the see of Rome (of whom anything is 
 certainly known) could not compare in mental ability 
 with those of whom we have just spoken. Augustine's 
 personal life contrasts with those of Ambrose and Chry- 
 sostom. He had not like Ambrose to interpose be- 
 tween rival emperors, or like Chrysostom to enter into 
 conflict with the vices of a court, and like John the 
 Baptist to reprove a monarch for her sin. He assumed 
 the episcopate in the city of Hippo, in Africa, and was 
 faithful to his first bride, his earliest though humble 
 see. Though Africa had long escaped invasion, it was 
 at length fearfully visited by the Vandals. When the 
 Vandal army gathered around Hippo, one of the few 
 cities which still afforded a refuge for the persecuted, 
 he refused, though more than seventy years old, to 
 abandon his post. In the third month of the siege 
 death gave him deliverance, and he thus escaped the 
 horrors of the capture, the cruelties of the conqueror 
 and the desolation of his church. A. D. 340.
 
 152 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 MONACHISM. JEROME. 
 
 Jerome was the great advocate of rnonachism in the 
 West. He began and closed his career as a monk in 
 Palestine. His great work, the translation of the 
 Scriptures into Latin, was performed in Palestine, in 
 a cell at Bethlehem. He engaged in the study of 
 Hebrew as a severe occupation, to withdraw him from 
 impure and worldly thoughts, which his austerities had 
 not entirely subdued. When weary with the difficult 
 task of converting Hebrew into Latin, he would seek 
 solace in the elegant pages of Cicero, or in the musical 
 periods of Plato. But the scrupulous conscience of 
 Jerome would sometimes tremble at the profane admix- 
 ture of sacred and profane studies. There is little 
 doubt, however, that his love for the great authors of 
 Greece and Rome greatly contributed to the polish of 
 his style in the Latin version of the Scriptures. The 
 purity that distinguished the writers of the Augustan 
 age had greatly degenerated in the time of Tertullian 
 and of Ammianus Marcellinus. The vivid and glowing 
 style of the Vulgate Bible is thought, by scholars, 
 to be the result of an intimate acquaintance with the 
 pages of Tully and Plato. 
 
 Jerome was ordained a presbyter, but was never 
 made a bishop. He left to Ambrose, to Chrysostom, 
 and to Augustine the authority of office, and was con- 
 tent with the influence he exercised by personal com-
 
 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 153 
 
 munication and the effect of his writings. He passed 
 his youth in literary studies at Rome during the episco- 
 pate of Damasus. He consulted the libraries of many 
 of the cities of the East. He was received in Cyprus 
 by the bishop Epiphanius. In Syria he plunged into 
 the deepest asceticism. 
 
 Jerome was born in Dalmatia, but may be consid- 
 ered as a Roman, as he passed his early years and 
 received his education at Rome. Jerome was deeply 
 imbued, as we have said, with the spirit of mon- 
 achism ; he labored to awaken the tardy West to rival 
 Egypt and Syria in what he considered to be the sub- 
 lime perfection of Christianity. He influenced, while 
 at Rome, matrons and virgins of patrician families to 
 adopt the monastic life. They attempted to practice in 
 a busy metropolis the rigid observances of the desert. 
 
 Christianity in its genius and origin is opposed to 
 monachism, which had little encouragement either from 
 the precepts or practice of its Divine Author. " Go ye 
 into all the world and preach the Gospel to every crea- 
 ture," was His command. Yet the monastic system is 
 not peculiar to Christianity ; the Jews had their her- 
 mitages and their cenobitic institutions. The Essenes, a 
 sect of the Jews in the days of our Lord, were ascetics. 
 
 Anthony is usually regarded as the founder of the 
 monastic life ; but it is clear he only imitated and 
 excelled less famous anchorites. He was born of Chris- 
 tian parents, bred up in the faith. At an early age he 
 found himself possessed of considerable wealth. He 
 determined to imitate the example of those Christians 
 who, in primitive times, "had laid their wealth at the 
 apostles' feet." He was a native of Egypt. He re- 
 tired to the base of a rocky mountain, and took up a
 
 154 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 solitary abode, but made it a pleasant spot, with vines 
 and shrubs. An ancient monastery in the vicinity of 
 the Red Sea still preserves the name and memory of 
 the saint. He enjoyed the friendship of the great 
 Athanasius, and this Egyptian hermit declined an invi- 
 tation from the emperor Constantine to visit his court. 
 
 Many colonies of monks, after the example of An- 
 thony, settled upon the rocks of Thebais, the deserts of 
 Libya, and in the cities of the Nile. Athanasius, says 
 Gibbon, introduced into Rome the knowledge and 
 practice of the monastic life ; and a school of this new 
 philosophy was opened by the disciples of Anthony at 
 the threshold of the Vatican. 
 
 "It is impossible to survey monachism," says our 
 author Milman, " in its general influence from the earli- 
 est period of its interworking into Christianity, without 
 being perplexed at its opposite effects. Here, it is the 
 undoubted parent of the most ferocious bigotry, some- 
 times of debasing licentiousness there, monastic insti- 
 tutions become the guardians of learning, the authors 
 of civilization, the propagators of an humble and peace- 
 ful religion. While much of the gross superstition of 
 the Byzantine Church is to be traced to the dominant 
 spirit of monachism, to the same spirit in the West 
 must be attributed much that was salutary, its constant 
 aggression on barbarism and its connection with Latin 
 literature. If human nature was degraded by the 
 neglect of personal cleanliness and the fanatical self- 
 torture, the callous apathy and occasional sanguinary 
 violence of the Egyptian or Syrian monk, yet it must 
 be recollected that the monastic retreats sent forth men 
 like the Basils and Chrysostoms. Was their devotion 
 to Christianity strengthened by their detachment from
 
 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 155 
 
 mankind ? Certainly not, we think. The Basils and Chry- 
 sostoms were great and good, in spite of the monastic 
 system.* These monastic retreats were the best places 
 for education and development that the world then 
 presented. The world, at the time of which we are 
 writing, was a theatre for embattled hosts. Chrysos- 
 tom and Basil spent much of their time (when they 
 emerged from monasteries), in great cities, combating 
 evil. The sermons preached by Chrysostom against 
 the vices of the court of Constantinople, were replete 
 with eloquent invective." 
 
 What can be more contrary to the beneficent spirit 
 of Christianity, what more opposed to the attributes of 
 God as revealed to us by our Lord in the New Testa- 
 ment, than some features of the monastic system, as 
 revealed in the Byzantine Church and by some of the 
 monks of Egypt ? Yet it must be acknowledged that 
 there was a grandeur of soul in some of these men and 
 women who rose above worldly cares and anxieties, 
 from a genuine desire of improving the moral condition 
 of their fellow-men, willing to forego all the pleasures 
 of life, as they are termed, that they might impart 
 spiritual hopes to the wretched and barbarous. It must 
 be concluded, that amid the blindness, superstition and 
 ferocity of the monastic life, there were noble charac- 
 ters among them, taught of God, who effected much 
 good. 
 
 We see now, in our enlightened days, the obvious 
 evil tendencies of this system. It tends to deaden 
 
 * It is an irresistible conclusion, that monasteries, in those days 
 when the earth was filled with violence, and was a theatre for embattled 
 hosts, were the best places for education and development. They served 
 a good purpose in a dark age.
 
 156 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 natural affection, it mars the sweet charities of life, it 
 tempts the weak-minded to dissolve the natural ties 
 that our Father and nature have thrown about them, 
 and consort with strangers. Seclusion from mankind 
 is as dangerous to enlightened religion as it is to 
 Christian charity. Yet self-denial is imperative to the 
 Christian, and the limiting and confining our love to 
 those who love us is certainly forbidden by our Great 
 Teacher. 
 
 "If ye love your brethren only, what do ye more 
 than others?" Something of the same spirit that in- 
 duced Anthony and many others to retire from the 
 world and seclude themselves in monasteries, manifests 
 itself in this age by a missionary spirit, that sends them 
 out "into all the world " to teach the ignorant and pro- 
 claim to the heathen "the unsearchable riches of 
 Christ." This is a return to the practice of the early 
 Christians in the primitive ages, and in simple obedi- 
 ence to the command of the Master. Both forms of 
 zeal, though seemingly opposite, have proceeded from 
 the longings of the immortal soul to reach a higher life. 
 The missionary spirit is more consonant to the practice 
 and precepts of our Lord than the conventual system. 
 The experience of the world has proved that the assem- 
 bling of men and women in religious houses, with the 
 fanciful idea of promoting holiness and increasing the 
 knowledge of God, is fallacious, and in some sad in- 
 stances has tended to fearful superstition and licentious- 
 ness. The cloister is in these days an unnecessary 
 feature in the religious world. It is as a fungus on 
 trees of righteousness, eating out the heart and healthy 
 substance of true religion. 
 
 Good men and women doubtless live within the
 
 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 1 57 
 
 walls of a convent; but to immure oneself, and to break 
 asunder the ties that God and nature have imposed, 
 seems to us a sad misinterpretation of the teachings of 
 the New Testament. In times of misrule and war, 
 when armies of barbarians were shaking Europe with 
 a heavy tread, conventual establishments were neces- 
 sary and served a noble purpose. Then they served as 
 schools for the young, and retreats for the aged. Here 
 learning and religion took refuge from the soldiery and 
 the din of arms. In the monastery, books were tran- 
 scribed, and valuable archives, both political and 
 religious, were preserved. A great debt is due to the 
 monks of the middle ages for their efforts in preserving 
 valuable records, especially those which related to 
 Christianity. It is true, that, owing to the scarcity of 
 writing materials, many a palimpsest or parchment was 
 made valueless by some ignorant monk when he erased 
 the valuable record to transcribe his own musings. 
 
 "The abbeys," says Mr. Froude, "that towered in 
 the midst of the English towns, with the houses clus- 
 tered at their feet, like subjects round some majestic 
 queen, were images of the supremacy which the Church 
 of the middle ages had asserted for itself. The heavenly 
 graces had once descended upon the monastic orders, 
 making them ministers of mercy, patterns of celestial 
 life. Then it was that art and genius poured out their 
 treasures to raise fitting tabernacles to the Father of 
 mankind and of His especial servants. The poor out- 
 casts of society gathered around these hallowed walls 
 the debtor, the felon and the outlaw. These abbeys of 
 the middle ages abode through the storms of war and 
 conquest, like the ark upon the waves of the flood ; in 
 the midst of violence remaining inviolate, through the
 
 158 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 awful reverence that surrounded them. The abbeys at 
 the time they were visited by Henry's ministers, just 
 before their dissolution, were as little like they had 
 been once, as a living man in the pride of his growth 
 resembles the loathsome corpse which the earth hastens 
 to hide forever.," 
 
 In the year 1489, Pope Innocent the Eighth, 
 moved by the stories that reached his ears, of 
 the corruption of certain monasteries in England, 
 granted a commission to the Archbishop of Canterbury 
 to investigate this matter. The result of the inquiry 
 contained overwhelming proof of the corruption and 
 defilement of the holy places. The monastery of St. 
 Albans is specially mentioned as having been the 
 theatre of great and abounding iniquity. But the 
 abbot was not deposed, but severely reprimanded to 
 amend his doings. 
 
 Some say these imputations are false and exagger- 
 ated, but the charges to which we have just alluded 
 were brought in the fifteenth century by Morton, 
 Henry VII. 's minister, legate of the Apostolic See, in 
 a letter addressed to the abbot of St. Albans himself. 
 The abbot of St. Albans was a peer of the realm, 
 living but a few miles from London. Queen Mary's 
 agents destroyed the records of the visitation of the 
 monasteries in her father's time, but there is abundant 
 evidence extant in the official letters of the Cotton 
 library, many of which have been published by the 
 Camden. Society.* Bishop Latimer tells us, that when 
 the report of the visitors of the abbeys was read in the 
 Commons House, there rose from all sides of the house 
 
 * Froude.
 
 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 159 
 
 the cry " Down with them." Wolsey, a devoted son 
 of the Church, first made public the infamies which 
 disgraced the Roman Catholic monasteries. Their 
 glory had departed, but many modern writers affect to 
 disbelieve the testimony of those great men. 
 
 The general visitation was made fifty years later 
 than the inquest made by Morton, the minister of 
 Henry VII. It is probable that for several centuries 
 the monasteries had been verging to decay and dissolu- 
 tion, from their hypocrisy and corruption. 
 
 Though the dark tints predominate in a true picture 
 drawn of the monasteries in the sixteenth century, yet 
 in the latest era of monasticism in England, there were 
 some types yet lingering of an older and better age. 
 There was certainly much heroism shown by some of 
 monks of the Charterhouse, an order of the Carthusians, 
 who chose to die, rather than perjure themselves in the 
 matter of the king's supremacy. Some of these died 
 heroically, as did More and Fisher. 
 
 The word monk occurs first in the fourth century. 
 The monks were divided into Cenobites and Eremites, 
 the former class lived in communities, the latter in 
 lonely and desolate places. 
 
 Self-denial is certainly a Christian requirement, but 
 the monastic system, as such, fulfilled its destiny more 
 than three hundred years ago.* It is a system divorced 
 from healthy life, too often a thing of creed and cere- 
 mony, which leaves the lower nature unaffected and 
 unsubdued, and the heart untouched by true love to 
 God and our neighbor. Institutions under the care of 
 the church, whether Roman Catholic or Protestant, 
 
 * Froude.
 
 l6o ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 whose design is to train persons into useful knowledge, 
 that they may be able to serve in this world of ours in 
 any capacity to which they may be called by the provi- 
 dence of God, must ever be necessary "until time shall 
 be no longer." 
 
 But while monastic establishments are no longer 
 needed in a land of light and liberty, there is one 
 branch of this system that must commend itself in its 
 main features to every Christian heart. We mean the 
 institution of the Sisters of Mercy. These are the 
 missionaries to the desolate garret, seeking the poor, 
 the sick and the friendless. They are found in the 
 obscure retreats of our crowded cities, bearing the mes- 
 sage of the Gospel to the dying. Let deaconesses or 
 sisters of mercy be raised up by Christians of every 
 name to carry forward works of benevolence and mercy. 
 PJiebe was a servant of the Church in apostolic days. 
 She was the messenger of St. Paul on one occasion from 
 Cenchrea, a port of Corinth, to the Romans. 
 
 Before we leave the subject of monasticism, we must 
 mention Benedict* of Nursia, as he was called. This 
 famous founder of the Benedictine Order was born in 480. 
 His sister Scolastica, who seems to have been as great 
 an enthusiast as himself, dwelt near him. Their influence 
 in self-denial and energy were manifested by the spread 
 of Benedictine monasteries throughout Italy, from 
 Calabria to the Po. Totila, a Gothic monarch, was re- 
 proved by him and induced to lead a better life. St. 
 Maur introduced Benedictine monasteries into France. 
 The name of St. Maur is dear to letters. With Augus- 
 
 * The Benedictines preserved and copied many volumes of the 
 ancient literature.
 
 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. l6l 
 
 tine, the missionary to the Saxons, the Benedictine 
 rule passed into England. The fairest spots in England 
 were chosen for the monasteries. Abbeys rose and 
 fell like other institutions. The rural districts, which 
 in early Christian times were given up to Paganism, 
 were gradually drawn into these communities by the 
 establishment of hermitages and monasteries in their 
 neighborhood. The very name "Pagan" is derived 
 from the fact that the villages* of Italy so long resisted 
 the teaching of Christianity. 
 
 We have already alluded to the violent fanaticism of 
 the Eastern monks. The monks of the Western Church 
 were usually very different. They spent their time, as 
 do our modern missionaries, in useful labors. 
 
 * "Pagus," a village.
 
 l62 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 A. D. 402. The fifth century commences with In- 
 nocent I. Rome seemed deserted by both her emper- 
 ors ; one reigned in Ravenna, the other in Constanti- 
 nople. The aristocracy of the sacred city had been 
 scattered by Alaric. In the fifth century the bishops 
 of Rome were respected by the barbarians. In this 
 century the Roman See in dignity and in the regular 
 succession of its prelates, stood alone and unapproach- 
 able. Some of the sees of the East had been contami- 
 nated by Arian prelates. The fierce rivalries of Alex- 
 andria and Constantinople had induced the contending 
 partisans to appeal to Rome. 
 
 The great Ambrose * was dead. Chrysostom, 
 though still living, was the victim of persecution. 
 Rome had steadily held the doctrines of Athanasius 
 without wavering. Valentinian II. made a law in 381 
 that the councils differing in Trinitarian and Arian doc- 
 trines should appeal to Rome. There was at this time 
 no commanding mind in the West that could obscure 
 the rising fame of Innocent I. Upon the mind of this 
 bishop now seemed to dawn the ecclesiastical suprem- 
 acy of Rome. Theophilus, bishop of Alexandria, was 
 a bold, bad man, and a virulent persecutor of the eloquent 
 Chrysostom. Innocent I. took the part of the bishop 
 of Constantinople. This was the popular side. The 
 East, however, resented the interference. The Roman 
 
 *Once the influential bishop of Milan.
 
 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 163 
 
 Pontiffs, from the time of Innocent I., began to found 
 their supremacy in their supposed succession of St. 
 Peter ; but the world at large looked up to Rome 
 chiefly on account of the civil supremacy of the city. 
 There was a prestige in her former majesty and renown 
 that could not be forgotten. The Pope was head of 
 Christendom, because he was the bishop of the first 
 city in the world. While the bishops of Rome and 
 other cities of the West were strengthening their power 
 over the hearts and minds of men, and not troubling 
 themselves with metaphysical subtleties of doctrine, 
 the bishops of the great Eastern sees were engaged in 
 ignoble strife. Nestorius, Bishop of Constantinople, 
 contended that Christ was the God-man, and repudi- 
 ated the term,* "Mother of God," that was at this 
 time frequently applied to Mary the Mother of Christ. 
 Cyril, Bishop of Alexandria, became the fierce 
 persecutor of Nestorius. Who would not, says an elo- 
 quent writer, prefer to meet his .Redeemer in judgment 
 with the doctrinal errors of Nestorius (if they were 
 errors) rather than with the barbarities of Cyril. Much 
 blame has rested upon the memory of Cyril with regard 
 to Hypatia, who was murdered in the streets of Alex- 
 andria by fanatical monks. It is alleged that his great 
 influence might have been used to control the mob that 
 destroyed this accomplished Greek woman. The ex- 
 citement produced in the Eastern Church by the dis- 
 cussion of abstruse metaphysical questions present some 
 painful chapters in the history of the Greek Church. 
 The Arian controvery was finally settled by Theodosius 
 about the year 380. 
 
 *\Ve, like Nestorius, are repelled by the term "Mother of God." 
 Mary is nowhere in the New Testament called the Mother of God.
 
 164 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 The heresy of Macedonius, Bishop of Constanti- 
 nople, who taught that the Holy Spirit is a divine 
 energy, and not a person distinct from the Father and 
 the Son, was condemned by the Council of Constanti- 
 nople in 381. 
 
 "Two other controversies after this time produced 
 much excitement. One was headed by Nestorius, to 
 whom we have already alluded. Nestorius maintained 
 there are two persons in Christ the divine and the 
 human. This error was condemned by the Council of 
 Ephesus, A. 0.431. The other controversy was headed 
 by Eutyches, a monk of Constantinople, who taught 
 that there is but one nature in Christ that of the Word, 
 who became incarnate. This opinion was condemned 
 in the Council of Chalcedon, A. D. 451. The doctrine 
 of the Universal Church was then defined to be that in 
 Jesus Christ there is but one person, yet two natures no 
 way confounded. The decisions of these four councils 
 have been received by the whole of Christendom, East 
 and West, as the true exposition of the faith. " 
 
 The Pelagian question agitated the West during the 
 last years of Innocent's Pontificate. Pelagius was a 
 Briton. Christianity had been planted in Britain very 
 early. Pelagius went to Rome in 409, and was the 
 founder of a religious system. The peculiar tenet of 
 Pelagius was his denial of original sin. Some obscurity 
 clings to his system. Though an earnest Christian, he 
 seemed to reject the doctrine of "justification by faith." 
 He claimed that infants inherit eternal life, though not 
 baptized. The disciples of St. Augustine opposed him. 
 Pelagius formed no sect, but his system, though con- 
 demned, retained its advocates.
 
 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 165 
 
 The Church of to-day* doubtless contains many 
 members who hold his peculiar opinions without know- 
 ing that they pertain to any system of theology. The 
 African churches repudiated with one voice the reason- 
 ings of Pelagius. They adopted entirely, as far as they 
 could understand them, the doctrinal views of St. Augus- 
 tine, the great Bishop of Hippo. The most distin- 
 guished advocate of semi-Pelagian views was Cassianus. 
 He went to Constantinople and became a favorite pupil 
 of Chrysostom, whose writings were adverse to the 
 predestinarian system of Augustine. Semi-Pelagianism 
 aspired to hold the balance between Pelagius and Au- 
 gustine. It repudiated the heresy of the denial of orig- 
 inal sin. It asserted divine grace. The semi-Pelagians, 
 though censured in several councils, formed no separate 
 or hostile communities. Pelagius, it is said, was once 
 arraigned for false doctrine at Lydda, in Palestine, be- 
 fore fourteen prelates. His accusers spoke Latin, 
 while the bishops spoke Greek. Pelagius spoke both 
 languages. It is said the Fathers were imposed on by 
 the plausible dialectics of Pelagius. The confusion of 
 tongues made it difficult for the council to understand 
 with clearness, or to detect heresy in his subtle defini- 
 tions. He was solemnly acquitted at this council. As 
 a Western monk, however, he was amenable to the 
 tribunal of Rome. His theological opponents lost no 
 time in appealing to the Bishop of Rome. Pelagius, 
 also, wrote a letter explaining fully his views, but be- 
 fore the letter reached Rome Innocent I. was dead ! 
 Fosimus, his successor, was a Greek, and was disposed 
 
 * Leaders of thought to-day reecho the doctrine of Pelagius in de- 
 nying orignal sin.
 
 l66 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 to treat the Pelegian heresy as a matter of little im- 
 portance. 
 
 The whole theology of Chrysostom, of whom we 
 have already spoken, was a practical appeal to the free 
 will of man. The depravity against which he inveighs 
 is a personal spontaneous surrender to evil practices 
 and influences, to be broken off by a vigorous effort of 
 religious faith, to be controlled by self-imposed relig- 
 ious discipline. So far as is consistent with prayer and 
 earnest seeking, man is the master of his own destiny. 
 The two great masters of theology Augustine and 
 Chrysostom had grappled deeply with the great mys- 
 teries of the New Testament, the sovereignty of God, 
 and the free agency of man." * 
 
 "O, Thou in heaven and earth, the only peace 
 Found out for mankind, under wrath! 
 
 Be thou in Adam's room ; the Head of all, though Adam's son. 
 Thy merit imputed shall absolve all who renounce 
 Their own deeds, and from Thee receive new life." 
 
 God's sovereign grace was the favorite theme of 
 the African Bishop, and the free will of man the inspir- 
 ing subject of Chrysostom. The predestinarian doc- 
 trines of Augustine seemed not to be congenial to the 
 Greek mind. Augustine, after the death of Ambrose, 
 was the great authority in theology. His great work, 
 "The City of God," was written to silence the remon- 
 strances and wipe out the aspersions of Paganism. 
 
 Innocent I. was Pope f when Alaric entered Rome. 
 Leo I. was Pope when Genseric sacked Rome. By 
 the middle of the fifth century the grand work of the 
 spiritual monarchy of Rome had been laid by Innocent 
 
 * Milton. tOr Chief Bishop of Rome.
 
 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. l6/ 
 
 I. and Leo I. Leo I. died before the conquest of 
 Odoacer, A. D. 476. 
 
 The immediate successors of Leo were subordinate 
 to the barbarian kings of Rome. As a proof of the 
 subordinate condition of the bishops of Rome during 
 the adminstration of the Gothic kings, we are told 
 that Theodoric * determined to send John I., who was 
 then Pope, on an embassy to Constantinople. Justin was 
 then Emperor. He had forbidden to the Arians the 
 use and possession of the churches. Theodoric desired 
 the Pope to remonstrate with the Emperor as to his 
 illiberal course. John was very unwilling to undertake 
 the mission, but there was no appeal from the will of 
 the Gothic king. John was required to present to the 
 Eastern Court a written protest in words like these : 
 'To pretend to a dominion over the conscience is to 
 usurp the prerogative of God ; in the nature of things, 
 the power of sovereigns ought to be confined to polit- 
 ical government. The most dangerous heresy is the 
 belief that a sovereign may separate from a part of his 
 subjects because their creed differs from his own." 
 Yet this king of noble sentiments, who had acted con- 
 sistently with his "golden words" until the latter part 
 of his reign, suffered himself to be misled by some 
 unprincipled members of his household. These offi- 
 cers of his palace created suspicion in the breast of the 
 monarch against two of the most virtuous and dis- 
 tinguished men of Rome Boethius and Symmachus. 
 Gibbon depicts with a master's hand the virtues and 
 great learning of these men. He says Boethius was 
 
 * Theodoric became king of Rome 490. He was an Ostrogoth.
 
 l68 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 the last of the Romans whom Cato or Tully would have 
 acknowledged as their countryman. 
 
 We, however, have introduced this episode to show 
 how submissive the Popes of Rome were compelled to 
 be during the sway of the Gothic king, Theodoric. 
 It is not known certainly how the Pope performed his 
 mission. But on his return from the Greek capital he 
 is thrown into prison, where he died. It is thought 
 that Theodoric suspected the great men* whom he 
 so cruelly executed, of a correspondence with the East, 
 inviting an invasion. An invasion was made shortly 
 after the death of Theodoric. This king was an Arian, 
 but he had treated the Trinitarians, or Catholics, as they 
 were now called, with much generosity and considera- 
 tion. His latest days were greatly troubled with re- 
 morse on account of the execution of Boethius and 
 Symmachus. 
 
 Leo I.f was the Pope of Rome but a short time pre- 
 vious to the subjugation of Rome by Odoa^er and 
 Theodoric. The sermons of Leo are the first of a 
 Roman Bishop that have come down to us. The 
 Bishops of Rome before his time were inferior men. 
 Leo dwells on the worship of Christ, not on the Virgin 
 and the saints. The four Popes that preceded Gregory 
 I. were inglorious and feeble. When the sixth century 
 grew to a close, Italy, from being a Gothic kingdom, 
 became a province of the Greek Empire. Theodoric 
 had been killed in a battle against the Vandals. 
 
 Rome was now the second city of the civilized 
 world. The Lombards had entered Northern Italy, 
 
 '* Boethius and Symmachus. 
 
 t Ieo I. was Pope 440. Odoacer conquered Rome 476.
 
 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 169 
 
 invited, it is said, by Narses, the late exarch of Ra- 
 venna, who was stimulated by jealousy of the Byzan- 
 tine Emperor. The Lombards were a fierce heathen 
 people when they entered Italy. 
 
 Genseric, the Vandal king, after remaining a year 
 or two in Spain, passed over into Africa, ravaging and 
 desolating the beautiful and populous country. The 
 dioceses of the great Augustine and of Cyprian, of 
 Carthage, were made desolate. The good offices of 
 the Bishop of Carthage must not be forgotten, in try- 
 ing to ameliorate the condition of the Roman captives 
 carried off by Genseric, the gold of the churches was 
 freely taken to buy their redemption from the cruel 
 conqueror. The narrow tract of the African court filled 
 with monuments of Roman art and magnificence was over 
 whelmed by the invasion of the Vandals, and soon 
 seven fruitful provinces from Tangier to Tripoli became 
 as a desert. 
 
 Genseric, an Arian Christian, nominally united 
 with the Donatists, a powerful schismatical sect, who 
 had long troubled the churches of Africa with their 
 discontents and divisions to effect the ruin of the coun- 
 try. The Donatists were themselves involved in ruin. 
 Religious discord was perhaps almost as fatal to the 
 churches of Northern Africa as the ravages of the 
 Vandals. The Saracens soon followed, and Mahome- 
 tanism put out the light of Christianity. The candle- 
 stick * was removed from its place, because of sectarian 
 dissensions and persecutions. The Roman \vorld was 
 girt by enemies on every side. The entrance of the 
 heathen Lombards, also the tyranny of the Exarchs of 
 
 * Revelation of John ii. 5.
 
 I7O ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 Ravenna, caused the Italians to regret the milder sway 
 of the Gothic monarchs. 
 
 John, the Bishop of Constantinople, presuming on 
 the civil supremacy of his city,* claimed to be Uni- 
 versal Bishop. Gregory I. , Bishop of Rome, reproves 
 the presumptuous John in strong language: "Is this 
 a time to assume so arrogant a title, when we are beset 
 by enemies on every side. Our priests should bewail 
 in dust and ashes the sin and misery of this unhappy 
 time, instead of adopting profane appellations to grat- 
 ify their pride." 
 
 Am I defending my own cause? Is your presump- 
 tion an injury to Rome ? I am pleading for the cause 
 of God, the cause of the whole church. Gregory then 
 declares that he is a prelate of a see where there are 
 many heretics. Let every Christian heart reject the 
 blasphemous name of Universal Bishop. It was once 
 applied, he continues, to the see of Rome by the 
 Council of Chalcedon, in honor of St. Peter, but the 
 more humble pontiffs rejected the title as injurious to 
 the rest of the priesthood. Gregory brands the arro- 
 gance of the Bishop of Constantinople as a sign of the 
 coming of Antichrist. He compares this movement to 
 that of Satan, who aspired to be highest in the hier- 
 archy of angels. No one in the church has yet dared 
 to usurp the name of Universal Bishop. It is sacrilege. 
 Gregory I. wrote these words with great sincerity, but 
 a few years after the death of this good Pope the in- 
 famous Emperor Phocas pronounced the Bishop of 
 Rome Universal Bishop. The Greek Emperor Phocas 
 gave this title to the prelate at Rome, because he hated 
 
 * Rome was at this time subject to the Greek Empire.
 
 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. I/I 
 
 the patriarch of his own city. This hatred, it is said, 
 arose from the kindness and protection afforded by the 
 Patriarch to the family of Maurice, the predecessor of 
 Phocas. 
 
 In the interval between Gregory I. and Gregory II. 
 there were twenty-four Bishops or Popes of Rome. 
 Gregory I. was justly called the Great, because of his 
 wise administration of religious affairs at a very trying 
 time. He it was who sent Augustine as a missionary 
 to the Saxons, when he became Bishop of Rome. The 
 old story, with regard to the beautiful fair Saxon boys 
 with flaxen hair, whom Gregory saw in a slave market 
 at Rome, has often been told, but never more strikingly 
 related than recently by Dean Stanley.* "Gregory 
 was deeply impressed by the appearance of these 
 heathen children. He resolved to go as a missionary 
 to the Saxons, or at once to send one. He was too 
 much needed at Rome to go. He, therefore, sent Au- 
 gustin, f with forty monks, from "a convent on the old 
 Celian Hill." 
 
 The British Christians had made little effort to 
 Christianize their cruel and savage Saxon conquerors. 
 Augustin was anxious to meet the British clergy. 
 He doubtless intended to usurp authority over the 
 British churches of Wales. The British Bishops and 
 Presbyters met and conferred with Augustin and his 
 monks; but as they differed somewhat in their Liturgy, 
 and in other customs, especially in the time of the 
 proper observance of the Easter festival, the British 
 
 * " Notes on Canterbury," Stanley. 
 
 t Augustin, missionary to the Saxons in England, was very differ- 
 
 from the great Augustine of the fourth century.
 
 1/2 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 Christians for a long time refused to obey the Roman 
 rule. 
 
 Gregory, in his letters from Rome, gave Augustin 
 wise counsel, urging him to conciliate the Britons, and 
 allow them to use their own liturgy. Gregory I. was 
 wise and conciliatory. He arranged a book of services. 
 He did his utmost to train the Romans in self-discipline 
 and to soften the Teutons. He arranged the chants 
 that are still called by his name, though both the 
 chants and the services were probably derived from 
 earlier models. There are letters extant* from Greg- 
 ory to Augustin, advising him how to deal with other 
 Christian communities, especially with the old British 
 churches. When you meet, he said, with anything 
 really good in these churches, you must adopt it. 
 "Things are not to be loved for the sake of places, but 
 places for the sake of things." Augustin, however, 
 seems to have been haughty in his intercourse with the 
 Britons, and little disposed to regard their prejudices. 
 It is said that when Augustin first met some of the 
 British bishops and clergy in council, under an oak tree, 
 the monk Augustin behaved with haughty sever- 
 ity. 
 
 The parents of Gregory I were noble Romans. 
 His grandfather had been Bishop of Rome. When 
 Maurice was Emperor of Constantinople, Gregory was 
 sent to this great city of the East as Nuncio of the 
 See of Rome. 
 
 Justin the Younger, in 574, had appointed Gregory 
 Prefect of Rome. He acceded to the Papacy soon after 
 his return from Constantinople. He was distinguished 
 
 * Dean Stanley.
 
 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 1/3 
 
 not only for his religious zeal and charity, but for his 
 learning, his knowledge of philosophy of civil law and 
 the canons of the church. His ample fortune was de- 
 voted to works of piety. He built six monasteries in 
 Sicily. In these distracted times monasteries were 
 necessary as houses of refuge from barbarous foes, and 
 as places of instruction for the young and ignorant. 
 
 The heathen king of Kent, who received Augus- 
 tin, had a Christian wife, Bertha. She had a chaplain 
 and worshiped in a chapel once used by the Bntish 
 Christians. When the Saxons drove out the British 
 Christians, they heathenized the places of Christian 
 worship. After the success of Augustin, they were 
 again converted into places of Christian worship, The 
 baptism of Ethelbert, husband of Bertha, took place 
 A. D. 597.
 
 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 Rome, says Gibbon, at the close of the sixth 
 century was at the point of her lowest depression. By 
 the removal of the seat of the empire, and the loss of 
 many provinces, the sources of public and private 
 wealth were exhausted. The Romans, too, suffered 
 anxiety at this time from the threatening Lombards in 
 North Italy, and from the despotism of the Greek em- 
 pire. They were blessed, however, with the wise and 
 paternal pontificate of Gregory I. Unlike most of his 
 successors, he frequently ascended the pulpit, and by 
 his pathetic eloquence kindled the congenial passions of 
 his audience. The minds of the people, depressed by 
 calamity, were directed to the hopes and fears of the 
 invisible world. Till the last days of his life, he officia- 
 ted in the imposing service of the Church. These 
 services were made more soothing by grand melodious 
 chants. These melodies softened the fierceness of bar- 
 barian hearers, and tended to refine the dark enthusiasm 
 of the vulgar, as well as to strengthen their faith in 
 Jesus, " the man of sorrows." 
 
 The sixth century knew little of the baneful effects 
 of priestcraft. Gregory I., great and good as he was, 
 was somewhat credulous and superstitious. Under his 
 teaching the Arians in Italy and Spain were reconciled 
 to the Trinitarian, or Catholic Church. He as an 
 apostolic shepherd watched over the faith of the subor- 
 dinate pastors.
 
 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 1/5 
 
 The success of Augustin* in preaching to the Anglo- 
 Saxons reflected much glory on the work of Gregory. 
 The calamities of these times, and the excellence of 
 Gregory, tended greatly to increase the power of the 
 Roman bishop. Rome was a central point, to which 
 Italy and its surrounding States had long looked as a 
 model. 
 
 We must now speak of the mission of Augustin. 
 We learn from Bede, a Saxon historian who lived in 
 the early part of the eighth century, that when Augus- 
 tin invited the British bishops to conform to the Roman 
 rule, they positively refused to yield their own customs, 
 and that they retired in disgust at the pride of the 
 Roman agent. 
 
 The enmity between the Britons and Anglo-Saxons 
 seems not to have been diminished by the conversion 
 of the latter nation, because their conversion was not 
 derived from the conquered people. The Saxons 
 received Christianity as it existed in the days of Greg- 
 ory I. The Britons had received their knowledge of 
 Christ through their connection with the Eastern 
 Church. For the sake of protection, they afterwards, 
 after much warfare and trouble, acknowledged the 
 supremacy of the See of Rome. A century of cruel 
 warfare with the heathen Saxons, in which they were 
 compelled to yield all the possessions they held dear, 
 did not improve their tempers, or enlighten the minds 
 of the native Britons. Jerome and Chrysostom both 
 testify to the orthodoxy of the early British Christians. 
 The representatives of the British Church took part in 
 
 * The monk sent by Gregory. He must not be confounded with St. 
 Augustine of the fourth century.
 
 1/ ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 the councils of Aries and Sardica. The enlightened 
 Pelagius and Celestine were Britons. 
 
 When Gregory I. heard of the opposition of the 
 British bishops to the liturgy of Augustin, he counsels 
 him in these wise words: " Choose from each church 
 those things that are pious and good, and when 
 you have made them, as it were, up in one body, let 
 the minds of the people become accustomed thereto." 
 Augustin was successful in Kent, but he made little 
 progress in the other parts of the island. 
 
 We have already said, that after the success of 
 Augustin in Kent, the old British churches were 
 purged from their heathenish character and converted 
 into Christian temples. Laurentius was the successor 
 of Augustin in the cathedral of Canterbury. Ethelbert, 
 the king of Kent, was baptized in A. D. 597. The 
 baptisms of that day were performed by immersion in 
 the little rivers of the neighborhood. 
 
 The authentic materials for the mission of Augustin 
 are almost entirely derived from Bede's Ecclesiastical 
 History, written in the early part of the eighth century. 
 Augustin died in 605, Gregory I. in 604. 
 
 The chief instruments in the conversion of the 
 Anglo-Saxons were Aidan, Finan and Colman, by 
 whom the kingdom of Mercia and the East Saxons 
 were Christianized. 
 
 There were three ecclesiastical parties in England in 
 the closing of the sixth century and in the early part of 
 the seventh century, namely : The old British church, 
 that had existed lor centuries before Augustin came to 
 England ; the Saxons converted by Irish missionaries ; 
 and the Saxons converted by Roman missionaries. The 
 Augustinian party prevailed at last, more by diplomacy
 
 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 1/7 
 
 than by missionary work. A synod for the discussion 
 of the several views of the three parties was held at 
 Wliitby, at the convent of the famous abbess Hilda.* 
 On one side of the controversy was Colman, bishop of 
 Lindisfarne, on the other was Wilfrid, bishop of York. 
 Wilfrid had visited Rome, and was inclined to favor the 
 Roman view. Colman urged the descent of their tra- 
 dition from St. John. To this tradition also, Columba, 
 the ardent missionary and bishop of Iona,f clung with 
 much reverence. Wilfrid maintained with great energy 
 the tradition of St. Peter. 
 
 Gradually the Scottish clergy and the monks in 
 England ceased to dispute, and occupied themselves 
 with what they deemed more important matters. 
 Those who objected to the peculiar Roman usages re- 
 tired to lona, which was long considered a sacred 
 place, famed for its good works and learning. Colman 
 and his clergy retired to Ireland. 
 
 The Britons who had lived secluded in their Welsh 
 mountains, indulging in animosities that even Chris- 
 tianity could not allay, were at length brought into 
 peaceful communication by the monasteries of Ireland 
 first with Northumbria, and then with the rest of 
 England. There was a constant flow of missionaries 
 across the British Channel, who possessed much of 
 the knowledge which still remained in Europe. The 
 early bishops of Canterbury were foreigners, also other 
 southern sees ; but the Anglo-Saxons were soon 
 ambitious of a native clergy. It is said a native 
 
 * In Hilda's monastery lived Csedmon, the poet, who rehearsed in 
 Saxon verse the whole sacred history as recorded in the Bible. 
 
 T A little island in the Hebrides, famous for learned institutions 
 and religion.
 
 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 clergy grew up in Britain more rapidly than in any 
 other of the Teutonic kingdoms. 
 
 Wilfrid of York blended with the rigor of a monk 
 a love of magnificence. His visits to Gaul and Italy 
 made him desire to introduce better church-buildings 
 than Saxon architecture could produce. Houses of 
 rude timber, thatched with reeds, were soon replaced 
 by churches of stone with windows of glass. Wilfrid's 
 present to a church at Ripon, was a copy of the four 
 gospels, written in letters of gold on a purple ground. 
 
 Romanism, it must be recollected, had not assumed 
 its modern form in the time of Gregory I., or in the 
 time of Bede. The supremacy of the Pope was not 
 established ; the universal dominion of any Pope or 
 bishop was denied and strongly condemned by Gregory 
 himself. Nor was transubstantiation yet accepted, and 
 many other dogmas, now received by the Romanist, 
 were then unknown. 
 
 The Anglo-Saxons after they received Christianity 
 made great progress in literature. Bede translated the 
 New Testament (or a part of it), into his own tongue. 
 Bede, by an amanuensis, translated the last chapters of 
 St. John's gospel a few moments before he expired. 
 Adhelm and Caedmon were famous for their Saxon 
 verses. Caedmon engaged the attention of his unlet- 
 tered congregation by singing to them the essential 
 doctrines of Christianity. It is thought by some that 
 Csedmon's poem on the Creation, or the "Origin of 
 Evil," suggested to Milton Paradise Lost. 
 
 We must now revert to a still earlier time, and 
 speak of the most famous missionary of them all. The 
 early conversion of Ireland to Christianity is attributed 
 to the zealous preaching of St. Patrick. Much obscurity
 
 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 1/9 
 
 envelopes the time and the place of his birth. He was 
 taken to Ireland as a captive, say most writers on this 
 'subject, about the middle of the fifth century, more 
 than a century before Augustin went to England. He 
 escaped from captivity and went to Brittany, in France 
 (probably his native country ; thousands of Britons had 
 passed over to this province in France, during the long 
 war between the Britons and Anglo Saxons, in their 
 contention for Britain or England). The birth-place of 
 Patrick is uncertain, but his zeal for the truth of God 
 and his love for the souls of men is undoubted. He re- 
 turned to Ireland so soon as he was prepared for teach- 
 ing, and devoted his life to the work of an evangelist. 
 His success as a preacher was wonderful ; he had prob- 
 ably several assistants, as Ireland early became an abode 
 of piety and learning. It has been already said that 
 Irish and Scottish missionaries had preceded Augustin 
 in the work of teaching Christianity to some of the 
 Anglo Saxon kingdoms. Columba is said to have 
 founded the monastery of lona, and to Aidan, monk 
 from Ireland, is attributed the bishopric and monastery 
 of Lindisfarne. Cuthbert, the apostle of the Lowlands 
 of Scotland, traveled over moor and mountain sides to 
 teach the peasants of Scotland and Northumbria. Bede, 
 in Jiis day, calls Ireland "the isle of saints." But Ire- 
 land was destined to suffer like England from Danish 
 invasions, and for a longer time. The Danes seized 
 the government of Ireland and ruled it with severity 
 for a long time. When the native kings of Ireland 
 "were restored they did not exercise the wisdom of 
 Alfred or Athelstan. 
 
 But little is known of the history of Ireland, either 
 in Church or State, from the time that Bcde wrote
 
 ISO ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 his history until the twelfth century. Bede died about 
 755. "I spent my whole life in the monastery of 
 Jarrow, in Northumbria, " says this learned man. " My 
 pleasure lay in learning, teaching and writing." It is 
 said that Bede learned Greek from the school that the 
 Greek Bishop Theodore founded at Canterbury. A 
 late historian,* says that this good and great man was 
 the founder of medieval history, and \hefirst English 
 historian. A few weeks before his death he resolved 
 to finish his version of St. John's Gospel in English. 
 As he approached his end he called his scholars around 
 him and bade them ivrite. ' ' There is still a chapter 
 wanting," said his scribe. "Write it quickly," said 
 the dying man. "It is now finished." Supported in 
 his scholars' arms, his face turned to the spot where he 
 was wont to pray, he passed away chanting "Glory 
 to God." Before the time of Bede and Alcuin, both 
 Saxons, some of the priests knew little more than the 
 Creed and the Lord's Prayer. Hence the importance 
 of the English or Saxon translation of the Gospel of 
 St. John. His ecclesiastical history was written in 
 Latin. He left many works on different subjects to 
 attest his great industry. His death took place about 
 a century and a half after the landing of Augustin. 
 
 It is wonderful that so much was accomplished in 
 the propagation of Christianity during this time, when 
 we think how the Roman world was torn by disastrous 
 wars. During the reign of Justinian, the Greek em- 
 peror, Rome changed her masters five times. During 
 this period the famous Belisarius made and unmade 
 kingdoms not for himself but for his master Justinian. 
 The calamities of these times tended to increase tl 
 
 * Mr. Green.
 
 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. l8l 
 
 JDOwer of the bishop of Rome. Rome now began to 
 jissert that her episcopate had been founded by St. 
 iPeter, a thing hard to disprove in times of ignorance. 
 Nicolas I., in 868, appealed to certain papers called 
 Decretals, to strengthen his assumption of Peter's 
 supremacy. 
 
 Until the time of Nicolas I. the only documents re- 
 garded as genuine was the collection of Dionysius, be- 
 ginning with Siricius, in the fourth century, together 
 with the documents by authentic councils, given 
 by Isidore. Suddenly the Pope, Nicolas, appeals to a 
 new code. It was then discovered that fifty-nine 
 spurious decrees had been added to the old authentic 
 documents. It was pretended that these decrees were 
 made by the twenty oldest popes, from Clement to 
 Melchiades. The pretended donation of Constantine is 
 mentioned in these false decretals. The evident design 
 of these spurious papers and letters was to aggrandize 
 the see of Rome, and to bring all other sees in sub- 
 jection to it. While the power of Rome was thus 
 sought to be increased, the Patriarchates of Alexan- 
 dria, of Antioch and of Jerusalem (the mother Church) 
 were cast down and discouraged by the influx of the 
 Mahometans in Northern Africa, Egypt and Syria. 
 The religion of the Moslem threatened almost to 
 quench the light of Christianity in these countries. 
 This extensive manual * of sacerdotal literature, un- 
 known in the earlier ages of the church, claimed for 
 Roman bishops the guardianship and legislation of the 
 Christian Church throughout the world. Those schol- 
 ars who have thoroughly examined those Decretals say 
 that they were not written at Rome. They were evi- 
 
 '* The Decretals.
 
 1 82 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 dently written, say they, after the council of Paris, in 
 829. Metz is the place designated where they were 
 written. The archives of Rome show no vestiges of 
 any such writing. This fraud was perpetrated in the 
 ninth century. 
 
 It was in this century that Charlemagne made the 
 bishop of Rome a king. The bishop of Rome after- 
 wards asserted that the states of the Church given to 
 the Papacy by Pepin and Charlemagne were but a 
 restitution of lands given by Constantine. This gift, 
 claimed in the Decretals as Constantine's, is acknowl- 
 edged by Roman Catholics to be a forgery. The lands 
 given to the Church by Charlemagne had been wrested 
 from the Lombards. The famous iron crown 
 was bestowed upon a duke of Turin (successor 
 to the Lombard king) as a reward for his efforts in 
 reclaiming Lombardy from Arianism. The super- 
 stitious of this age alleged that this crown was made 
 out of the nails of the true cross. Though at this time 
 the masses of the people were superstitious and ignor- 
 ant, it is said that the Lombards, ' ' called the long- 
 bearded monsters of the North," had acquired, as ex- 
 hibited in their laws, the best fruits of civilization. The 
 system of laws framed by the Lombard king, Rotharis, 
 is esteemed the best of the barbarian codes. The king- 
 dom of Lombardy in Italy was more peaceful and pros- 
 perous than any other which had been formed from the 
 fragments of the Roman Empire. It was in the reign 
 of Justinian, and it was the chief glory of that reign 
 that the emperor employed the ablest lawyers of his 
 time in compiling the Code, the Pandects and the In- 
 stitutes. The Institutes contained the elementary 
 principles of law, the Code was a revised edition of all
 
 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 183 
 
 the enactments from the time of Adrian, emperor of 
 Rome. The Pandects were a digest of the precedents 
 and decision of the wisest judges which had been ac- 
 cumulating for a thousand years. To extend the ad- 
 vantages of the new system, schools of law were founded 
 in Rome, Constantinople and Beirut. 
 
 In speaking of the events of the sixth century,* 
 both in church and state, we have wandered from Italy 
 to Britain or England and then to Constantinople. It 
 was during the reign of Justinian that the magnificent 
 church of St. Sophia was built (now a mosque), and in 
 this reign the culture of silk was introduced into Greece 
 by two Persian monks. But perhaps the most remark- 
 able feature of Justinian's reign was the trampling of 
 mighty hosts. Narses and Belisarius led armies against 
 the expiring armies of the Goths and against the Van- 
 dals, assisted by the Huns and the Turks. Learned 
 men have had much disputation as to the origin of the 
 barbarian hordes. All of them came from Asia at 
 different periods. The Goths were on the Vistula, 
 and the Vandals on the Oder in the days of the An- 
 tonines. Though these two people were very dif- 
 erent in some respects, yet they belonged to the 
 great division of the Suevi. The Vandal race, once 
 so celebrated in the annals of mankind, have so 
 perished from the face of the earth that no lan- 
 guage remains to testify to their German, Sclavonic 
 or independent origin. One province, Andalusia, 
 in Spain bears witness to their abode in that country 
 for a time. The Goths were incorporated with the 
 Spanish and French under many tribal names. The 
 Lombards impressed their name upon northern Italy, 
 
 * The sixth, seventh and eighth centuries.
 
 184 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 the Huns in Hungary, and the Angles and Burgund- 
 ians in England and France. Their descendents in the 
 northern countries of Europe are all comprehended by 
 the name of Teutons ; as the original inhabitants of 
 Western Europe were known by the name of Celts. 
 
 Early in the eighth century Boniface, a native of 
 Devonshire, England, became missionary to some of 
 the German States. The language of Boniface closely 
 resembled the German dialects. He would, therefore, 
 be more readily understood by them than missionaries 
 from Italy. 
 
 In 715 Boniface left his native country and attempted 
 in vain to disseminate the doctrines of Christ in Fries- 
 land. He was afterwards very successful in Thu- 
 ringia and other German provinces. He was made 
 bishop by Gregory II. He was assisted by Charles 
 Martel, Mayor of the Palace (he who drove back the 
 Mahometans from Tours), w r ho appointed for him pious 
 and learned associates. With these he had great suc- 
 cess. It is evident from traditions that have come 
 down to us that Boniface did not possess the meekness 
 of Columba, who labored before him in Alsace. He 
 had imbibed some of the sacerdotal spirit, which was 
 sometimes conspicuous afterward in those who sought 
 honors from the Court of Rome. He was called the 
 Apostle of Germany, but he was widely different, says 
 Mosheim, from the pattern the genuine apostles have 
 
 left us. 
 
 "The honor and majesty of the Roman Pontiff, 
 whose minister he was, seemed equally his care ; nay, 
 more so than the glory of Christ and his religion. 
 He marched into Thuringia at the head of an army and 
 used compulsion or artifice, as it suited him. If Boni-
 
 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 185 
 
 face used unjustifiable measures in attempting to bring 
 the heathen into the Church of God, most grievously 
 did he answer for his fault. In 755, when he went 
 back to Friesland with many associates, he was mur- 
 dered by them, together with fifty of the clergy, who 
 accompanied him. Some years before this time he had 
 received from the Pope Zacharias the Archbishopric of 
 Metz and the Primary of Belgium as a reward for his 
 vast labors. Charlemagne, in 772, attempted the 
 Christianizing of the Saxons. He first sent bishops 
 and monks to instruct them. Charlemagne was as 
 much actuated, perhaps, by political motives as by re- 
 gard for their religious interest. The Saxons were 
 troublesome neighbors, and often interfered with the 
 rights of the subjects of the great Emperor of the 
 West. The missionaries of peace and love had small 
 success. War was tried upon these rebels for two 
 successive years. Alcuin,* a learned Saxon of Charle- 
 magne's Court, gives his views as to the failure of these 
 missions. Had the easy yoke of Christ, with its light 
 burden, been presented to the Saxons with as much 
 earnestness as the payment of tithes and legal satisfac- 
 tion for small faults, the Saxons would not have re- 
 jected the Sacrament of Baptism. 
 
 Monarchs were more influenced by a desire 
 for extent of empire than from a desire to im- 
 prove the moral condition of the people. Charle- 
 magne was a wise statesman. He knew that Chris- 
 tians would make better subjects than the heathen, 
 and that civilization would come with Christianity. 
 
 * Let the Christian teachers learn from the Master they profess to 
 serve and from his apostles. Let them be preachers, not plunderers. 
 ALCUIN.
 
 1 86 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 The general features of the conversion of the Northern 
 races were somewhat different from the Christianizing 
 of the civilized world of Greece and Rome. The gos- 
 pel, when first preached, spread from soul to soul, and 
 was addressed to earnest inquiring minds, who grasped 
 its truths to direct them in life and sustain them in 
 death ; but Christianity had little political significance 
 or importance until the age of Constantine. 
 
 "When the missionaries went to the northern 
 countries of Europe, they usually addressed themselves 
 to the barbarous chiefs, kings or warriors. These laid 
 the subject before the free assemblies of the people. 
 There were no powerful pagan hierarchies to dispossess, 
 as in civilized countries ; no proud temples to destroy, 
 as at Ephesus or in Athens. Sometimes the people 
 agreed by thousands to fellow the example of their 
 chief, and receive the new religion in receiving baptism. 
 When opposing factions arose, preferring the Norse 
 mythology of their ancestors, their disputes would lead 
 to bloodshed. Very little did many of them under- 
 stand of the nature or power of godliness. The con- 
 sciences of few of them, perhaps, were stirred with 
 the question, "What must we do to be saved?" 
 Christianity was sometimes extended by a Christian 
 royal marriage with a pagan king. 
 
 The Queen would require the free exercise of her re- 
 ligion, with a chapel and clergy to administer the ordi- 
 nances of her religion. The histories of Clotilda, 
 Bertha, and Ethelberga will recur to the mind in this 
 connection. But one of the most efficient modes was 
 the establishment of monasteries, gradually gathering 
 colonies of people around them. These religious 
 houses in early times were not, as they became after-
 
 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. l8/ 
 
 wards, stately homes of learned leisure, whose ruins 
 are still among the architectural glories of the land. 
 No, they were simple dwellings, built by the monks. 
 They felled the trees, erected the mill, plowed the 
 ground. An industrious, civilized community, on the 
 borders of a heathen land. The monasteries to which 
 we allude numbered their inmates by hundreds, and in 
 process of time by thousands. A few of these were 
 the teachers and governors. The Irish monastery at 
 Bangor numbered 4,000, and the Fulda in Germany, 
 at the death of its founder, number as many. Some of 
 the most celebrated missionaries often applied to the 
 bishops of the great cities for a sanction, but many 
 went forward without any other authorization than their 
 love for the souls of men. The oratory often grew 
 into a church, and the cell into a religious house. 
 They taught the heathen by voice and by a self-deny- 
 ing life. In transactions like these all parties were 
 acting honestly for Christ. The Teutonic nations were 
 brought under Christian influence about three centuries 
 before the Sclavonic nations, were brought into the 
 fold of Christ.
 
 1 88 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 ICONOCLASM. 
 
 In 570 the Roman Empire was broken up. The 
 great city of Rome, the " Niobe of nations," sub- 
 mitted to Gothic sway for about the space of fifty 
 years. The feeble Augustulus, the last of the Emperors 
 of Italy, yielded to the superior powers of Odoacer. 
 He, as King* of Italy, reigned for seventeen years, 
 and was not unworthy of his high station. He had 
 been instructed in the doctrines of Arian Christianity, 
 but he seems to have revered monastic and episcopal 
 characters, and to have exercised toleration in religion. 
 He was succeeded by Theodoric, the great king of the 
 Ostrogoths, who vanguished Odoacer in battle, and it 
 is supposed he had him assassinated. Gibbon describes 
 Theodoric as a great hero and statesman. His latter 
 days were full of remorse, because of the violent deaths of 
 Boethius and Symmachus, two of the most illustrious 
 of the citizens of Rome. Theodoric reigned thirty- 
 three years. 
 
 Italy then became subject to the Exarchs of Ra- 
 venna, who were appointed by Justinian, Emperor of 
 Constantinople. Rome, the former "mistress of 
 the world," was now governed as a province. The 
 Greek Empire, though despoiled of some valuable 
 provinces, still possessed great wealth. Her Emperors 
 
 * He refused to be called Emperor or to wear the Purple.
 
 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 189 
 
 lived in state and splendor, their palaces were lined with 
 porphyry hung with purple, and filled with gold and 
 silver. Narses and Belisarius commanded her armies. 
 But suddenly, in the early part of the eighth century, 
 Rome burst the bonds that connected her with Con- 
 stantinople, both politically and ecclesiastically. The 
 immediate cause of this disruption was called Icono- 
 clasm. 
 
 In A. D. 726 Leo, the Greek Emperor, commanded 
 all images of saints to be removed from the churches. 
 The image of Christ was alone excepted. Iconoclasm 
 separates Latin from Greek Christianity ! 
 
 The expressive symbol and the suggestive picture 
 of the fourth century, which were intended to instruct 
 the unlearned, and had been introduced into the 
 churches, simply to explain passages in the lives and 
 deaths of Christ and his apostles, had become in the 
 later centuries a snare to delude the souls of the weak 
 minded. The Emperor Leo was opposed in this meas- 
 ure by Gregory II., Bishop of Rome. A dangerous 
 conflict ensued in Constantinople, and insurrections in 
 Italy. It is probable that the minds of the Eastern 
 Emperors, and especially the bishops and clergy, were 
 aroused to consider the subject of images and their 
 dangerous tendencies from surrounding Mahometanism 
 and Judaism. But for the monks, images would forever 
 have disappeared from the East. 
 
 "Iconoclasm proscribed idolatry, but it could not 
 kindle or awaken a purer faith. There was in this 
 iconoclastic strife no appeal to principles, as in the 
 Reformation, to justification by faith and to the indi- 
 vidual sense of responsibility. " fc * It must be remem- 
 
 * Milman.
 
 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 bered, however, that the history of this movement 
 comes to us from enemies. Latin historians have cast 
 much obloquy on the names of the two Greek Emper- 
 ors, Leo the Isaurian and Constantine Copronymus. 
 Hatred of images could become a fanaticism, but it 
 could not become a religion. Some said that in the 
 Greek Empire the State overshadowed the Church, that 
 the Patriarch was a puppet in the hands of the Em- 
 peror. This may have been sometimes the case, de- 
 pending on the character of the Emperor or priest, but 
 much more frequently the bishops and clergy inflamed 
 the zeal of the monarch. 
 
 If the secular arm had not interfered the war 
 against Iconoclasm would have been more short-lived 
 and more effectual. Leo, the first Emperor who op- 
 posed images, was doubtless honest and right in his 
 opposition. He had been fighting against Mahometans, 
 and their taunts of idolatry rankled in his breast. The 
 restoration of images was twice effected by women by 
 Irene, the widow of Leo, and afterwards by Theodora, 
 the widow of Theophilus. The conflict lasted between 
 the East and the West for about 120 years. The 
 Greek Church then declared that no carved, sculptured 
 work, ormolten images shouldbe allowed injtheir churches. 
 This position it holds to-day. They consented that 
 some pictures might be permitted in the churches, as 
 they were not images, but representations. Those 
 images to which the Greeks objected did doubtless 
 minister to superstition. Men prostrated themselves 
 before them, and burned incense before them. They 
 insisted that they simply honored them, but did not 
 adore them. 
 
 It was argued that the Jews, to whom the second
 
 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. IQI 
 
 commandment was given, had in their temple the image 
 of the Cherubim, shadowing the mercy-seat. Since 
 the Incarnation they further argued that all was 
 changed. "God was manifest in the flesh." The 
 Church of Rome was unrelenting in her opposition to 
 the Iconoclasts. The wisest words on this subject, 
 says Milman, are embodied in the books called the 
 Caroline books, in honor of Charlemagne. They are 
 said to have been written by Alcuin, the Saxon who 
 resided at the Court of Charles the Great. 
 
 In these books, there is distinct condemnation 
 of all religious homage to images a vigorous refu- 
 tation of all arguments that could justify such honor or 
 homage. At the same time the image-breakers are 
 reproved for not distinguishing between these sacred 
 representations and the false idols of the heathen. 
 Man is not all soul ; he may, therefore, use sensuous 
 helps, such as the paintings of the Savior and his 
 apostles. It was declared that no one should kneel to 
 any image, picture or statue. These decrees were 
 published fully and specifically in the famous Caroline 
 Books. Yet Charlemagne was not an Iconoclast. He 
 wished some pictures to be retained in v the churches as 
 ornaments and reminders of the pious men who had 
 performed pious deeds. 
 
 It was at a council in Frankfort, in 797, when 
 Charlemagne presided, and at which a large number of 
 the clergy of different grades were present, that the declar- 
 ations made in the Caroline Books were proclaimed to the 
 assembly. The learned Alcuin was present. This 
 was a noble protest against the abuse of images, but it 
 can not be determined how much good was effected by 
 them.
 
 Ip2 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 Pepin, the father of Charles the Great, had, with 
 the sanction of Pope Zacharias, dispossessed the last of 
 the Merovingian kings of his throne and crown. Some 
 years afterwards, when Desederius, King of the Lom- 
 bards, invaded the patrimony of St. Peter i. e., the 
 lands given by Pepin to the Pope, who sanctioned his 
 usurpation, Hadrian I., who was then pontiff, had re- 
 course to Charles the Great, the son of Pepin. 
 
 In the year 774 Charlemagne crossed the Alps with 
 a large army. He overturned the kingdom of the 
 Lombards, which had held dominion in Northern Italy 
 for two centuries. He increased the donations that 
 Pepin had made, giving to Hadrian cities and provinces 
 not included in the grant of Pepin. In this manner 
 was the Bishop of Rome made a temporary king* 
 Our Lord's solemn prohibition, with regard to worldly 
 titles and honors, Mas no longer remembered. "It 
 shall not be so among you." 
 
 During the seventh and eighth centuries many bar- 
 barous nations had entered the Christian Church. 
 When they assumed the name of Christians, they 
 transferred the high prerogatives of their ancient priests 
 to the bishops and ministers of the new religion. 
 Hence originated, says Mosheim, the monstrous au- 
 thority of the priesthood in the European churches. 
 Their dependence on their former priests and their rev- 
 
 *"The Holy See was invoked for the first time by Pepin as an 
 international power. The Pope assumed to depose Childeric, and gave 
 to the royal office oT his successor a sanctity hitherto unknown. He 
 gave to Pepin the Hebrew rite of anointing and the Roman diadem. 
 Before this time a Prankish election consisted in raising the chief on a 
 shield amid the clash of arms. Pepin twice rescued the Pope and 
 Rome from the Lombards.
 
 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. IQ3 
 
 erence for them, had doubtless its influence upon their 
 views of the priestly office, but had the Christian pre- 
 lates done their duty, the result would have been very 
 different. During this period immense wealth and 
 riches were conferred upon the church. "An idea 
 somehow became prevalent at this time that punish- 
 ment for sin may be bought off or cancelled by gifts to 
 the churches, to the temples and to the ministers of 
 God." 
 
 This was the principal source of these treasures 
 which, from this century (the eighth) onward flowed in 
 upon the clergy, churches and monasteries. Those 
 persons whose duty it was to teach their flocks humil- 
 ity and indifference to worldly things, now became 
 sovereign Lords, Dukes, Counts, and some of them 
 placed themselves at the head of armies. This ag- 
 grandizement commenced with their head, the Roman 
 Pontiff. Charlemagne made splendid offerings on the 
 altar of St. Peter. 
 
 Charles coming to Rome in the year 800, the Pon- 
 tiff Leo III. persuaded the Roman people, who were 
 supposed to be free, and to have the right of choosing 
 an Emperor, to proclaim him * Emperor of the 
 West. The Pope put the crown on the head of the 
 Monarch while he was kneeling at the altar. He 
 affected surprise. Leo III. was one of the most mu- 
 nificent and splendid of the bishops of Rome. His 
 wealth was great in consequence of the gifts of the 
 Emperor. Buildings in Rome were lined with marble 
 and mosaic. There were priestly robes of silk and 
 embroidery, set with precious stones. Vessels of gold 
 and columns of silver were seen. Leo III. also ob- 
 
 * Charlemagne.
 
 194 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 tained money from heavy exactions levied upon the 
 people. While he was enriching the churches and 
 palaces of Rome, his own life was endangered by a 
 popular insurrection. 
 
 Paschal, the successor of Leo III., was accused of 
 being accessory to a great crime committed against 
 two distinguished men. Paschal refused to give up 
 the murderers. He was called before thirty bishops to 
 answer for the imputed crime. He took a great oath, 
 declaring his innocence. In a few days after he was 
 called before a higher tribunal. He died ! His death 
 excited a fierce contention in cisalpine and transalpine 
 regions. 
 
 The patricians and nobles of Rome call upon Lo- 
 thair, the grandson of Charlemagne, to settle the diffi- 
 culty. Lothair issued his mandates, but they were of 
 little avail. He went to Rome in person, and finding 
 that many of the estates of the Roman nobles had been 
 confiscated in consequence of the indolence and avarice 
 of the Popes, he used his power as Emperor of the 
 West, and compelled a restitution of the property to 
 the rightful owners. 
 
 In 824, Claudius, of Turin, lived. He was a 
 bishop of blameless life, and his scriptural doctrines 
 were a return to primitive Christianity, or in anticipa- 
 tion of the reformation of later times. The apostolic 
 office, Claudius taught, ceased with St. Peter. The 
 power of the keys, he believed, passed equally to the 
 whole Episcopal order. Some of the successors of 
 Claudius' opinions lay concealed in the valleys of the 
 Alps, to appear again under the name of Waldenses. 
 He removed from all the churches of his diocese the 
 images that adorned them. He was unrebuked, though
 
 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 195 
 
 he lived in the heart of Italy. Monastic discipline was 
 almost prostrate in this century. Most of the West- 
 ern monks still followed the order of St. Benedict, but 
 there was little discipline or vitality among them, until 
 other orders arose. Supreme power over the whole 
 sacred order was, both in the East and West, vested 
 in the emperors and kings. This power in the East 
 was undeniable, but in the West the flatterers of the 
 popes have labored to conceal the fact. 
 
 Hadrian I., in a council at Rome, conferred on 
 Charlemagne and his successors the right of appoint- 
 ing the Roman pontiffs. Charles and his son Louis 
 declined the exercise of this power, but they reserved 
 to themselves the power of accepting and confirming 
 the election made by the Roman clergy and people. 
 The emperors of the Franks, by their judges called 
 Legates, inquired into the lives of the clergy. 
 
 There were not many famous writers in the eighth 
 century, either in the East or West. Bede and Alcuin 
 belong to the early part of this century. The former 
 died in 755. Charlemagne was a great promoter of 
 learning. He employed amanuenses, who composed 
 and compiled a great deal under his dictation. The 
 four Caroline Books against image-worship were drawn 
 up under his direction and in accordance with his views. 
 
 Eginhard wrote the biography of Charlemagne. 
 Several of the popes of this century left epistles. The 
 fundamental doctrines of the Christian faith were yet 
 preserved, both by the Greek and Latin writers. This 
 is certain from the writings of Damaxenus and others of 
 this age. But to the pure seed of the word were added 
 many tares. The efficacy of the merits of the Savior 
 were acknowledged, and yet it was maintained that
 
 196 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 man could appease God by gifts and offerings, and un- 
 dergoing voluntary punishment. 
 
 We have spoken of the riches and treasures of the 
 Roman Church, yet during the controversy about image, 
 worship, the Greeks deprived them (the Romans) of some 
 valuable possessions in Calabria, and Sicily, and Apulia, 
 and exempted the bishops of these districts from the do- 
 minion of the Roman Pontiffs, together with the provinces 
 of Illyricum, and placed them under the control of the 
 Bishop or Patriarch of Constantinople. The power of 
 the Pontiff at this time was confined within narrow 
 limits. He could not decide by his sole authority, but 
 was obliged to call a council. With the contests re- 
 specting images sprung up another controversy respect- 
 ing the procession of the Holy Spirit. The Latins 
 contended that the Spirit proceeded from the Father 
 and the Son. The Greeks that the Holy Spirit pro- 
 ceeded only from the Father. The Greeks charged 
 the Latins with changing the creed of the church. 
 
 It has been alleged that Hosius, Bishop of Cordova, 
 in Spain, added the word filioque (from the Son), about 
 the time of the adoption of the Nicene Creed by the 
 Council at Nice. 
 
 As an evidence of the increase of superstition in 
 the eighth century, it is related of Gregory III. that 
 he required severe penances of all those who should, 
 through negligence, injure or destroy the Eucharist. 
 
 It has been asked by theologians, Was it providence, 
 or permission, or patience, that the dominion called 
 the Papacy grew up in the church ? This is a perplex- 
 ing question. The Papacy was certainly permitted for 
 a few centuries to exercise much power. Perhaps, in 
 dark ages, in the time of tyrannical misrule, a great
 
 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 1 97 
 
 central power in the church averted much evil. Sev- 
 eral of the popes did exert themselves to prevent the 
 wicked divorces of kings, and took part with the op- 
 pressed when civil law was powerless.
 
 198 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 Gregory I., in 570, as we have already said, had ad- 
 vised Augustine and other missionaries to consult pru- 
 dence in the arrangement of liturgies, and to permit 
 the Christians of Britain (ior instance) to use their own 
 ancient form, if it did not sacrifice the essentials of 
 religion. 
 
 But in the time of Gregory VII. , 1073, strict conform- 
 ity was required in the liturgies. The Spaniards were 
 for a long time obdurate, preferring their Gothic liturgy 
 to the Roman form. 
 
 There were doubtless some in every country of 
 Europe who received the precious seed of the gospel 
 into honest hearts in this century as in the succeeding 
 centuries ; but the prevailing tone of the visible church 
 in these middle ages seemed greatly to consist in 
 founding, enriching and embellishing churches and 
 chapels, and in hunting up and venerating the relics of 
 holy men, and in making pilgrimages to the holy places, 
 especially Palestine. Ignorance of the word of God 
 was very general, both in the East and in the West. 
 The true religion of Jesus Christ, if we except the 
 doctrines contained in the Creed, was but little under- 
 stood or felt at this time. Charlemagne's reverence for 
 the sacred volume was very great. He made many 
 efforts to excite the clergy to a more diligent investiga- 
 tion of the sacred books. He employed Alcuin in re- 
 vising the Latin translations ; indeed, he himself spent 
 a portion of the last years of his life in correcting the
 
 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 199 
 
 errors that had crept in. It has been said that he pro- 
 cured a translation of the sacred books into German ; 
 but others attribute this translation to his son Lewis 
 the Pious. Knowing that few of the clergy were com- 
 petent to explain well the gospels and epistles, as les- 
 sons used in public worship were called, he directed 
 Diaconus and Alcuin, two of the learned and pious 
 men of his court,, to collect from the Fathers homilies 
 or discourses on these lessons, that the ignorant teach- 
 ers might recite them to the people.* The lives of 
 eminent saints, by his direction, were collected into a 
 volume, so that the people might have among them 
 the dead examples worthy of imitation, while they had 
 so few among the living. 
 
 So long as Charlemagne lived, which was until the 
 year 814, missions were established among the Huns, 
 the Saxons, and others. His son Lewis had the same 
 zeal in propagating Christianity, but he was greatly his in- 
 ferior in other respects. Two preachers of Christianity 
 were sent under his patronage, in 828, to Jutland and to 
 Sweden. Ansgarius, one of these two missionaries, 
 was very zealous and successful. Returning to Ger- 
 many in 831, he was made, by the influence of Lewis, 
 Archbishop of Hamburg, a new see, to which Bremen 
 was added. There were more labors and perils in this 
 high position than pecuniary profit. Ansgarius con- 
 tinued to visit the Danes, Cimbrians, and Swedes after 
 his advancement, though sometimes at the peril of his 
 life. 
 
 Christian captives, who had been carried by the 
 Normans in their plundering expeditions into Sweden 
 
 * A chapter in the Old Testament and a chapter In the New Testa- 
 ment are still called first and second lessons.
 
 2OO ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 and other countries, had given these people a favorable 
 idea of Christianity. About the middle of the ninth 
 century two Greek monks Methodius and Cyril 
 were sent from Constantinople by the Empress Theo- 
 dora to the Mesians and Bulgarians, and aftewards to 
 the Bohemians and Moravians. The Teutonic nations 
 had been gradually yielding to the influences of Chris- 
 tianity for three centuries before the Sclavonic nations. 
 The Bulgarians, Moravians, Bohemians, and Poles, inhab- 
 ited both sides of the Danube. 
 
 When Theodora TI, in the ninth century, was Empress 
 of the Greek Empire, Bogoris, a prince of Bulgaria, 
 was taken as a captive to Constantinople. He em- 
 braced Christianity. When Bulgaria adopted the re- 
 ligion of Christ, Nicholas, Pope of Rome, claimed the 
 country and its converts, because it was within the limits 
 of the Western Empire, the Patriarch Photius claimed 
 that Bulgaria belonged to the Greek Church, because 
 Greek Christians had introduced Christianity among 
 them. The Greek monks Methodius and Cyril- 
 translated the Gospels and the Acts into their own 
 tongue. The Pope Adrian, hearing of their work 
 among the Moravians and Bulgarians, summoned them 
 to Rome. The Pope, after some hesitancy, approved 
 the translation of the Greek bishops. 
 
 When Moravia was invaded by the pagan Magyars, 
 it was united to Bohemia, and ceased to be an inde- 
 pendent kingdom. Bohemia and Poland both received 
 the knowledge of Christ from Moravia. The great 
 achievement of the Byzantine Church was the conver- 
 sion of Russia. 
 
 Ruric, the leader of Scandinavian bands, had estab- 
 lished a capital called Novgorod as early as 809. In
 
 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 2OI 
 
 955 the Russian Empress Olga visited Constantinople. 
 She then made a profession of Christianity in baptism. 
 The Emperor Constantine Porphyrogenitus was her 
 sponsor. Some years after a Russian Prince, the 
 grandson of Olga, married a sister of the Emperor 
 Basil. The condition required was, that this Prince 
 should accept Christianity. The grandeur of the serv- 
 ice in St. Sophia greatly impressed the Russians. It 
 was, however, many years before Christianity gained 
 much ascendency over the old Sclavonic religion. In- 
 nocent III , imitating the spirit of Mahomet rather 
 than the master he professed to serve, directed a crusade 
 at the sword's point against the heathen of the North- 
 east of Europe. It was this Pope who permitted and 
 stimulated the fanaticahDe Montfort in a crusade against 
 the Albigenses in the South of France. 
 
 We have anticipated the march of events in speak- 
 ing of the Albigenses in the last chapter. The Albi- 
 genses were said to be the remnant of a sect who had 
 sprung up in the seventh century in the Eastern church. 
 They were at first called Paulicians, from the great im- 
 portance they attached to the writings of St. Paul. 
 Yet this can scarcely be the true origin of the name, 
 inasmuch as they were Gnostics in doctrine and more 
 or less imbued with Manicheism. They protested 
 strongly against the ceremonial character of the ruling 
 church. They rejected baptism by water, but believed 
 in spiritual baptism. The Albigenses, or some of 
 them at least, agreed with the ancient Gnostics in hold- 
 ing to the Persian dualism, and in the opinion that the 
 God of the Old Testament was an evil being. Upon 
 the doctrine of the Trinity there was substantial unity 
 
 * The Albigenses.
 
 2O2 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 of faith. It is quite certain that their doctrines were 
 not well understood by their enemies, or if understood, 
 they were greatly maligned. Some of them were mys- 
 tics and ascetics. We find them in 970 in great num- 
 bers in Bulgaria. They extended their doctrines by 
 successive migrations in Southern and Western Europe. 
 They became very celebrated in the countries of Pro- 
 vence and Languedoc, in Southern France. Among 
 them were men of learning, rank and substance, with 
 great zeal for their faith. 
 
 Raymond, Count of Toulouse, almost an independ- 
 ent sovereign, of the most prosperous and civilized 
 country in Europe refused to persecute his non-Catholic 
 subjects. Pope Innocent III. then proclaimed a cru- 
 sade against Raymond VI. The war raged from 1208 
 to 1229. Everywhere fertile fields were laid waste, 
 town and villages depopulated. The Albigenses had 
 among them many enterprising, zealous preachers, who 
 traveled over their land exciting their people to stead- 
 fastness. Four councils were called by the Roman See 
 in 1165, 1176, 1178 and 1179, which successively 
 denounced them as heretics. The war continued 
 through the short reign of Louis VIII.; was ended 
 during the minority of Louis IX. This war commenced 
 by Philip Augustus ; was, so far as that king was con- 
 cerned, more a political than a v religious movement. 
 The estates of Toulouse were chiefly annexed to the 
 crown, and in this way France gained the control of 
 Mediterranean ports. The most active crusader against 
 the Albigenses was De Montfort, the father of that De 
 Montfort, earl of Leicester, who led the English barons 
 in their opposition to Henry III. 
 
 The separation of France and England was made
 
 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 2O3 
 
 complete by a law of Louis IX., forbidding any vassal 
 of his to hold estates under another crown. A. D. 1244. 
 
 We have spoken of the decline of monasticism in 
 the previous centuries, but now, in the midst of Albi- 
 gensianism, arose two famous orders. These were the 
 Dominicans and the Franciscans. Dominic was born 
 in 1170, in Old Castile. He could not close his eyes 
 to the contempt in which the clergy had fallen. It is 
 said of him that when he met three legates of Innocent 
 III. returning after a. defeat by tike Albigenses in Lang- 
 nedoc, that he uttered to them a bold rebuke. "It 
 is not by pomp or display that you can impress these 
 people, the heretics ; win proselytes by zealous preach- 
 ing, apostolic humility and seeming holiness." Since 
 the time of the crusades preaching had been greatly 
 neglected by the regular clergy. Now the Friar 
 preachers arose under Dominic and St. Francis. 
 Preaching had been the great forte among the heresi- 
 archs. The new orders saw the necessity that these 
 great orators should be answered, whether among the 
 Albigenses or among "the poor men of Lyons," or 
 the disciples of Arnold of Brescia. Dominic sought 
 earnest men from every land and of every tongue, and 
 overspread the land with active, devoted men, whose 
 function was popular instruction. 
 
 St. Francis, of Assisi, was full of mystic devotion. 
 He renounced riches both for himself and for his order. 
 All the priests of his order must live upon alms. They 
 must be begging Friars ! 
 
 It seemed to be the ambition of the Dominicans to 
 make the world one vast cloister not to immure them- 
 selves in convents, not to flee from the world, as some 
 of the early monks had done, but to subjugate the
 
 2O4 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 world. Dominic exercised in Spain the peculiar relig- 
 ious character, which afterwards culminated in Loyola, 
 the founder of the Jesuits, in the sixteenth century. 
 When Dominic and his Friar preachers commenced 
 work at Rome, they were at first received with cold 
 suspicion. But in 1220, seven years after he left Langue- 
 doc, he had become Master General of his Order 
 Whenever a Dominican ascended the pulpit a large 
 number of disciples and votaries crowded the churches. 
 Monasteries of their order, for men and women, were 
 established in all the principal places. But, alas, dur- 
 ing the dreadful persecution of the heretics in South- 
 ern France, the voice of Saint Dominic, lifted in 
 love or pity, was not heard. Throughout the crusade 
 Dominic was not mentioned by either historian or poet. 
 Whether he ever expreased horror or approbation at 
 the cruelties of Simon De Monfort does not appear. 
 His title of founder of the Inquisition,* says Milman, 
 belongs not to history, but to legend. He was born 
 in Old Castile in 1170, of wealthy parentage. 
 
 St. Francis was an Italian. He was in early youth 
 gay and full of revelry, but some adverse circumstance 
 led him to view this world through a different medium. 
 His future bride was poverty. He founded the order 
 of Mendicant Friars. The strange, fervent piety of 
 Francis kindled the zeal of many. Innocent III. re- 
 ceived St. Francis after some deliberation, saying that 
 the poor men of the church must outdo and outwork 
 the "poor man of Lyons." How wise was the policy 
 of Innocent III. 
 
 Thus we see that all down the ages new forms of 
 monasticism arose, vitalizing the church in imparting 
 
 * Dominic's title.
 
 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 energy and zeal to the people. There was evil mingled 
 with the good, but it was life. These orders for a 
 time, the Dominicans and Franciscans, cast into ob- 
 scurity the Benedictines, the Clugnians and the Cister- 
 cians. ' ' The cradle of the first great organization of 
 this kind, A. D. 528, had benefited the world by their 
 care and preservation of the treasures of ancient liter- 
 ature, and by their compilation of great historical 
 works." 
 
 The Order of the Carthusians was instituted in 
 1048. The Monastery of Citeaux became the founder 
 of 3600 convents of the Cistercian Order. The Car- 
 melites founded in Palestine, migrated to Europe in 
 1238, assuming the rule and name of St. Augustine.* 
 
 The Crusades gave rise to several military orders 
 of monks. The Knights of St. John originated in 
 Jerusalem, and derived their name from a hospital in 
 the sacred city, dedicated to John the Baptist. They 
 extended relief to the sick and needy of Jerusalem. 
 They afterwards became military characters, and were 
 divided into three classess : Knights of noble birth, 
 whose business it was to fight for religion, priests who 
 conducted the religious services of the order, and setv- 
 ing brethren, soldiers of ignoble birth. After the loss 
 of Palestine, the Knights of St. John passed into the 
 island of Cyprus ; afterwards they occupied for a long 
 time the Island of Rhodes, until expelled by the Turks. 
 Malta then became their possession, obtained by them 
 from Charles V. In 1798 these Knights of Malta be- 
 trayed to the French fleet this island, who were then 
 carrying Bonaparte to Egypt. The English then block- 
 
 * Thalheimer's Medieval History.
 
 2O6 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 aded the island for two years ; they took it and still 
 hold it. 
 
 The Templars, as an order, derived their name from 
 their residence near the site of Solomon's Temple. 
 They were required, too, to defend the temples of relg- 
 ion or religious houses, to defend the highways, and 
 protect pilgrims journeying to Palestine. They began 
 at Jerusalem in A. D. 1128.* By their valor and fame 
 they gained vast wealth, which afterwards excited jeal- 
 ousy and cupidity in some of the monarchs of Europe. 
 This order was suppressed by the Pope. They were 
 accused of heresies and crimes. De Molai, the Grand 
 Master, was burned at the stake. He died protesting 
 his innocence. 
 
 The third military order were called Teutonic 
 Knights. Frederick Barbarossa raised them to an or- 
 der of knights. When they returned from Palestine 
 they became missionaries to the Prussians. They in- 
 troduced Christianity into Prussia. When Dominic 
 and Francis became the institutors of the Mendicant 
 orders, they protested against the wealth and luxury of 
 the monks. About this time Peter Waldo, a rich man 
 of Lyons, sold his possessions, devoting his money to 
 pious uses. His disciples were called the "Poor Men 
 of Lyons." It was to these persons that Innocent III. 
 alluded when he received St. Francis. When Waldo 
 applied to the church for countenance, he was refused. 
 St. Francis remained steadfast to his vows of poverty, 
 but many of his followers wished to be divorced from 
 them. Bonaventura, fifty years after the death of 
 
 *The Templars. This order was incorporated by Honorius II., un- 
 der the direction of St. Bernard in 1128. It was suppressed by Clem- 
 ent V. under the influence of the wicked Philip the Fair, 1312.
 
 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 2OJ 
 
 Francis, said that a begging Friar was dreaded like a 
 robber. 
 
 The Institution of Chivalry arose between the time 
 of Charlemagne and the Crusades. This was a strange 
 growth for those rude times. It produced flowers of 
 courtesy, truth and honor, and developed many brave 
 and gallant deeds. This institution, so far as it ex- 
 tended, must have ameliorated the evils of the time. 
 Like every human device, it was not always competent 
 to grapple with fierce passion when interest clashed 
 with fidelity to their vows, their knighthood some- 
 times trailed in the dust. Chivalry had great sway 
 in France. Mr. Green, the English historian, speaks 
 of Chivalry in France "as a picturesque mimicry of 
 high sentiment, before which all depth and reality dis- 
 appeared, to give place to a narrow caste spirit and a 
 brutal indifference to human suffering. The word, as 
 it survives among us at this day, is certainly associated 
 with beautiful, manly qualities. We can not but think 
 that this historian's picture is unfair, though there was 
 sometimes affectation and exaggeration mingled with 
 their actions. In the fourteenth century English and 
 French knights united to quell an insurrection, known 
 as La Jaquerie, which threatened to destroy the 
 castles, and which involved the lives and safety of 
 several noble ladies. It is true that war and 
 tyranny had reduced these poor insurgents to a 
 deplorable state, but chivalry was not to blame 
 for that. All classes were not directly benefited 
 by it. The time had not come, except in the New 
 Testament, when the rights of the poor and lowly were 
 fully recognized ; but chivalry was an advance in the 
 right direction. It was generally the protector of the
 
 2O8 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 weak and defenseless. The humanities of chivalry 
 were sanctioned by legal and ecclesiastical power. 
 
 The Council of Clermont, 1085, which authorized 
 the first crusade, required that every nobleman's son, 
 at the age of twelve years, should take an oath* be- 
 fore the bishop of his diocese to defend the oppressed, 
 that women of noble birth should have his special care ; 
 that traveling must be made secure, and that the evils 
 of tyranny be destroyed. The connection between 
 the church and chivalry was very close. The Tourna- 
 ment ultimately was opposed by the church, because 
 they objected to the expense, and sometimes lives were 
 lost. But these brilliant festivals must have imparted 
 much zest and coloring to the otherwise monotonous lives 
 of the nobility of the middle ages. Gibbon acknowl- 
 edges the benefits of this institution to refine the tem- 
 per of barbarians, and its power to infuse some princi- 
 ples of justice and humanity were strongly felt and 
 observed. "Impartial taste," says he, "must pre- 
 fer a Gothic Tournament to the Olympic games of 
 classic antiquity." Romances of a highly moral and 
 heroic kind appeared in these times, full of incredible 
 adventures, yet the knights were patterns, not of cour- 
 age merely, but of the higher virtues. They were no 
 less distinguished for modesty, delicacy and dignity of 
 manners. 
 
 *The requirements of a knight when he was instituted seemed to 
 cover the sum of human duty. The union of these English and 
 French knights in the cause of humanity prove that there was among 
 them an esprit de corps.
 
 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 2OQ 
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 DUNSTAN. 
 
 We will now speak of a famous monk of the tenth 
 century. Dunstan was the most remarkable man of 
 his time. "He was the first in a line of ecclesiastical 
 statesmen," says Mr. Green, "who counted among 
 them Lanfranc and VVolsey, and ended in Laud." He 
 was abbot of Glastonbury, bishop of London, and 
 afterwards archbishop of Canterbury. He managed 
 with a master's hand some of the rude kings of Saxon- 
 England. He was energetic and arbitrary. He was a 
 student of books, of music and painting. He built a 
 cell against the walls of Glastonbury cathedral ; here he 
 passed much of his time, the people thought in fasting 
 and prayer. 
 
 Many legendary stories are told of him. He en- 
 graved and illuminated books with the most exquisite 
 designs. He wrought curious patterns in gold and 
 silver, and fashioned utensils of silver for the use of the 
 altar. He so won the love and confidence of Athelstan, 
 by his wisdom in state affairs, by his music and other 
 accomplishments, that it stirred the jealousy of the 
 courtiers. These accused Dunstan of magical arts, and 
 so strong was the testimony against him in this super- 
 stitious age, that he was banished from the court of his 
 king. He was soon recalled. 
 
 One act of cruelty is ascribed to him. When Edwin 
 wished to marry his cousin Elgira, Dunstan, who re-
 
 2IO ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 garded it as an uncanonized marriage, sent an emissary 
 when she was traveling to brand her face with red-hot 
 iron. This is doubtless a fiction invented by his 
 enemies. 
 
 Dunstan introduced the Benedictines into England. 
 He imposed a penance of seven years on Edgar, the 
 Saxon king, for his licentiousness. On the accession of 
 the wicked Ethelred, finding that his discipline was 
 unheeded, he retired to Canterbury, and died full of 
 mortification. 
 
 Otho III, in 963, the emperor of Germany, sought 
 to raise the character of the Romari bishops. The 
 papacy for sixty years previous had been degraded 
 through the influence of two Roman women of rank 
 and wealth, but unprincipled in morals. They had so 
 controlled Roman affairs as to dispose of the papal 
 crown. The efforts of the young emperor, however, to 
 elevate the papacy were not successful. He died in the 
 dawn of manhood. Two antipopes disputed the title 
 of Gregory VI., bringing the papacy by their un- 
 righteous dealing to the lowest point of degradation. 
 Henry III. then inheriting the empire of Otho, deposed 
 the favorites of the two women to whom we have 
 alluded, and appointed Clement II. A succession of 
 several German popes revived the credit of the 
 Roman See. 
 
 During the long minority of the son of Henry III. 
 Hildebrand, a Tuscan monk, produced by his great 
 efforts a strong reaction against the imperial power. 
 He had influenced the election of five popes before he 
 himself was raised to the papal chair, A. D. 1073. He 
 strove for a celibate clergy. He sought to fasten op- 
 probrious names on the wives of the married clergy.
 
 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 211 
 
 He deposed every bishop who had received his investi- 
 ture from lay hands. This matter of investiture was 
 settled in 1122. Lay hands no longer gave the ring 
 and crosier, but the priestly hand touched the scepter 
 in token of homage for the temporalities received. 
 
 Hildebrand obtained a decree against the married 
 clergy. The Lombard priests quoted the teachings of 
 Ambrose, and the example of some of the successors of 
 Ambrose to justify themselves. 
 
 One of the flagrant abuses of this time, was the 
 purchase of offices in the church ; this crime was called 
 " simony." It was pretended that the Lateran council 
 had desired to avoid this sin when they forbade clergy- 
 men to receive benefices from laymen or own allegiance 
 to them. 
 
 When Gregory VII. became Pope, Henry IV. being 
 emperor of Germany, there was a bitter struggle 
 between these potentates, that ended only with the life 
 of the pope in exile. It is said that this pope declared 
 to Henry before his election, that when he took the 
 papal chair he would certainly call him to account for 
 the scandals and disorders of which he was known to 
 be guilty. Henry, however, consented to the election 
 of Hildebrand. The Pope commenced his attack on 
 what he deemed the gigantic abuses of the church 
 "simony" and the marriage of the clergy. 
 
 Gregory VII., says Mosheim, was the most daring 
 of all the pontiffs that ever filled the chair of St. Peter. 
 He was greatly excited by the complaints of the 
 Asiatic Christians, in regard to the cruelties of the 
 Mahometans. In the commencement of his pontificate 
 he wished to engage personally in a Holy War, and more 
 than fifty thousand men were prepared to march under
 
 212 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 him. But he was kept too busy at home ; it was re- 
 served for others to engage personally in the Crusades, 
 not for him, and of whom we shall speak hereafter. 
 
 Hildebrand was a Cluniancier, a monk of the mon- 
 astery of Clugny. He was a Tuscan. He soon became 
 archdeacon of Rome, and from the time of Leo IX. 
 had governed the pontiffs, as we have before hinted, 
 until his own accession. His great aim and desire was 
 to make the papacy omnipotent ; this is proved not 
 only by his acts, but also by his writings. He left cer- 
 tain writings called dictates, which embody the most 
 arrogant propositions ; he was the vicegerent of Christ, 
 and was not accountable to any mortal. Nearly the 
 whole form of the Latin church was changed by this 
 pontiff; the most valuable rights of councils, of 
 bishops, of religious societies, were subverted and 
 transferred over to the Roman pontiff. His vaulting 
 ambition, so far as he was personally concerned, "over- 
 leaped itself." He wished to reduce all kingdoms into 
 fiefs of St Peter ; and to subject all causes of kings and 
 princes to the decision of an assembly of bishops who 
 should meet annually at Rome. He was considered a 
 man of extraordinary abilities intrepid, sagacious and 
 full of resources but proud, pertinacious, intractable. 
 He had a powerful foe to contend with in Henry IV., 
 the emperor of Germany, and the vigilance of England 
 and France thwarted his ambitious designs. 
 
 Much has been said of the humiliation of Henry at 
 Canossa. Gregory VII. was solemnly deposed by the 
 diet at Worms ; Henry IV. by the council at Rome. 
 A sentence of excommunication absolved all the sub- 
 jects of Henry from their allegiance, and declared it a 
 crime to render him any service. The papal authority,
 
 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 213 
 
 more respected in Germany than in Italy, encouraged 
 Rudolph of Swabia, with other nobles and bishops, to 
 make a fierce war upon Henry. A diet was called to 
 Augsburg, where the Pope was to preside, and to judge 
 between Henry and his foes. If his excommunication 
 was not then removed, a new sovereign was to be 
 chosen. The emperor in mid-winter traversed some of 
 the wildest passes of the Alps to meet this emergency. 
 It is said he stood bare-foot and fasting for three days 
 at the gate of the castle at Canossa before he obtained 
 a mitigation of the sentence that had been passed upon 
 him ; he was required to promise that he would submit 
 his imperial title to the decision of a diet at any place 
 or time his holiness should indicate. The Germans 
 were indignant that their sovereign should have been 
 thus humiliated. As for Henry, he no sooner left the 
 papal presence, than he resumed the war with fresh 
 fury and gained in his next engagement a decisive vic- 
 tory over Rudolph of Swabia. The contest lasted a 
 long time, with alternate victories and defeats. Henry 
 was excommunicated a second time ; the Pope sent a 
 crown to Rudolph, who was supported by Swabia and 
 Saxony also by the wealth of the Countess Matilda, 
 who was the devoted friend of Gregory and who made 
 the church the heir of her vast estate. Ultimately, 
 Rudolph died of a wound received in battle. Henry, 
 in revenge, supported by many German and Italian 
 bishops, in a convention in the Tyrol, created the 
 archbishop of Ravenna supreme pontiff, under the 
 name of Clement III. He was consecrated at Rome, 
 1080. Henry made several campaigns against the 
 forces of Matilda, who were fighting for Gregory.
 
 214 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 Twice Henry besieged Rome in 1084; he became 
 master of a great part of the city. 
 
 The Pope Hildebrand meanwhile was shut up in the 
 castle of St. Angelo. He was delivered from his 
 prison by Robert, duke of Calabria and Apulia, and by 
 him taken to Salerno ; and here it was in the year fol- 
 lowing that this man, who aspired to rule the world, 
 terminated his days, in the year 1085. His last words 
 were said to be : "I have loved justice, and hated 
 iniquity, therefore I die in exile." In his great desire- 
 to have a celibate clergy, he denounced those who 
 lived in virtuous wedlock with their wives, not distin- 
 guishing, as he should have done, between honorable 
 men and those who lived in concubinage. 
 
 Some of the clergy were at this time very corrupt 
 there was much outward devotion, but it was not un- 
 frequently divorced from true piety and virtue. The 
 important truth that religion cannot live, unless it is 
 based on morality, seems not to have been fully recog- 
 nized in this age. The Roman head notably took the 
 right side in several instances, in behalf of public 
 morals ; as in maintaining the sanctity of the marriage 
 tie, when kings and laymen wished to annul their mar- 
 riage vows, " but there is a balance sheet on the other 
 side." Unrighteous wars were maintained by some of 
 the popes, and sons were encouraged to rebel against 
 their fathers. The court of Rome in the case of Charles 
 of Anjou did a great wrong in pretending to give what 
 was not hers, and it was attended by terrible results. 
 The blood shed at ' ' the Sicilian vespers cried from the 
 ground against the foreign participators." 
 
 Western Christendom never fully recognized the 
 Pope as an umpire ; there were many dissentients and
 
 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 215 
 
 dissensions in the different kingdoms. "There never 
 was," says Trench in his Medieval History, " a golden 
 age in the Church, nor ever will be, until Christ her 
 Lord shall come." 
 
 The election * of pope was transferred to the cardin- 
 als by Nicholas II. under the influence of Hildebrand. 
 This was one of the wisest acts of his policy. States- 
 men can consolidate the power of a church, as politic- 
 ians can increase the power of a state. Leo I., Gregory 
 I., Nicholas I., Gregory VII., Alexander III. and Inno- 
 cent III. were reckoned as great statesmen. 
 
 The exile and death of Gregory VII. were followed 
 by trying times. Clement III., appointed by Henry 
 IV., ruled at Rome, and Henry continued the war with 
 the princes. The friends of Hildebrand had appointed 
 Victor III. to the papacy, but he soon died, having 
 never reigned at Rome. 
 
 In 1095, Urban II. having acceded to the papacy, 
 the council of Clermont determined upon the first cru- 
 sade against the Mahometans in Palestine. 
 
 But before we enter upon the crusades, we will 
 speak of two remarkable men who lived in England 
 in the eleventh century. One of the first acts of 
 William I. after the conquest f of England, was to send 
 for Lanfranc from Normandy, to aid him in the reform 
 of the Church, as he termed it. Lanfranc was raised 
 to the see of Canterbury. His elevation was followed 
 by the removal of most of the English prelates and the 
 appointment of Norman ecclesiastics in their places. 
 The new archbishop did much, says a contemporary, to 
 restore discipline, "as in choosing bishops he consid- 
 
 * A. D. 1080. t Norman Conquest, A. D. 1066.
 
 2l6 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 ered not so much men's riches or power as their holi- 
 ness and wisdom." It must, however, have been a 
 grievous thing to the Saxons to see their native clergy 
 displaced for Norman ecclesiastics. Lanfranc opened 
 a famous Benedictine school, to which Berengarius was 
 attracted. He afterwards became celebrated as a con- 
 troversialist on the subject of the Eucharist. Lanfranc 
 was esteemed as a man of learning and munificence. 
 He improved the monastic system, and built hospitals, 
 churches and cathedrals. 
 
 Lanfranc's successor to the see of Canterbury was 
 Anselm. He was so learned and industrious in inter- 
 preting the doctrines of the greatest of the Latin 
 fathers, that he has been called the Augustine of the 
 middle ages.* The life of Anselm has been written 
 not only by the brethren of his own order, but by 
 Protestant writers and historians of philosophy. 
 
 Anselm was so bold in reproving the rapacity of 
 William Rufus, that he was banished for a time. At 
 the accession of Henry I. he was recalled, and was 
 clothed with much power, both in church and state. 
 Henry wished to marry a Saxon princess, the niece of 
 Edgar Atheling. This lady was detained in a convent 
 by her aunt, the abbess, who maintained that her neice 
 had assumed the veil. The princess escaped from the 
 convent and appearing before Anselm at Canterbury, 
 "told her tale in wo'rds of passionate earnestness." 
 She had been veiled in her childhood, asserted Matilda, 
 
 * When Anselm was asked by the Norman bishops if he considered 
 Alfege, who was killed by the Danes at Greenwich, could be called a 
 martyr, because he died not on behalf of the faith of Christ, he .s:iil, 
 " Yes, he was a martyr, because he died for justice (to prevent the levy- 
 ing of an unjust tax) ; justice is the essence of Christ, even though His 
 name is not mentioned.
 
 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 2 IJ 
 
 merely to protect her from rude soldiery. Anselm de- 
 clared her free from conventual bonds, and when he 
 placed the crown on her head as England's queen, 
 uniting her in marriage to Henry, the joyful shouts of 
 the English multitude drowned the murmurs of either 
 churchman or Norman baron. 
 
 Anselm, it is said, possessed much zeal, charity and 
 faith, and differed much in his spirit from his successor, 
 Thomas a Becket. 
 
 St. Bernard of Clairvaux was the most influential 
 man of his time. He did not, as Anselm, grapple with 
 the deep questions of philosophy, but with the practical 
 issues of his day. St. Bernard was a great organizer. 
 When there were two popes in Europe, Bernard, the 
 abbot of Clairvaux in 1130, was the governing head of 
 Europe. He was the master-spirit that organized the 
 second crusade; his eloquence was irresistible. One 
 hundred and sixty monasteries derived their rules from 
 him. Among his disciples were many bishops and one 
 pontiff, Eugenius III. He left many writings. All 
 Christians sing the beautiful hymn attributed to St. 
 Bernard. We will transcribe four verses : 
 
 " Jesus, the very thought of Thee 
 
 With sweetness fills the breast ; 
 But sweeter far Thy face to see, 
 And in Thy presence rest. 
 
 No voice can sing, no heart can frame, 
 
 Nor can the memory find, 
 A sweeter sound than Jesus' name, 
 
 The Saviour of mankind. 
 
 Oh Hope of every contrite heart, 
 Oh Joy of all the meek ;
 
 2l8 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 To those who fall, how kind Thou art ! 
 How good to those who seek. 
 
 But what to those who find ? 
 
 Ah this ! Nor tongue nor pen can show : 
 The love of Jesus, what it is 
 
 None but his loved ones know. 
 
 St. Bernard was called ' ' The Watchdog of the 
 Church." He with energy forbade the persecution of 
 the Jews. There was a schism in the sacred college 
 after the death of Hildebrand. Peter of Leon, the son 
 of a Jew, but a cardinal of ability, sought the papacy. 
 He possessed much wealth. Several of the cardinals 
 hostile to Peter called a secret conclave and nominated 
 Innocent II. At the head of this conclave was St. 
 Bernard. Peter for a while by his wealth and ability 
 seemed to overshadow the claims of Innocent. Peter 
 took the name of Ariacletus. The Jew's son reigned a 
 short time in Rome. Bernard visited the sovereigns of 
 Europe, and by his earnest appeals secured their assent 
 in setting aside the claims of Anacletus in the secular 
 courts. When -he visited the German emperor, he was 
 accompanied by Innocent. Holding the bridle of the 
 horse upon which Innocent rode, the emperor led the 
 candidate for the papacy through the streets of Liege. 
 But more honored was the Cistercian monk of Clairvaux 
 than either pope or emperor. He visited the convent 
 of the Carmelites, of which Heloise was abbess. Through 
 his influence, it is said, Abelard declined to assert his 
 opinions at the council of Sens, in 1140. 
 
 St. Bernard was well acquainted with the Scriptures, 
 but quotes chiefly from the Vulgate,* and shows little 
 
 * "Vulgate," is the translation of the Scriptures in Latin.
 
 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 2 19 
 
 acquaintance of the Greek or Hebrew text. It is to be 
 regretted that his sermons in the common tongue have 
 not survived, as he awakened so mighty a revival by 
 his preaching. He once, it is said, healed a feud in an 
 opposing army of the knights and people of Metz on 
 opposite banks of the Moselle. At first they were dis- 
 posed to despise the eloquent entreaties of the ghost-like 
 old man, but ultimately they united in singing the 
 Gloria in Excelsis, and departed in peace. He died at 
 the age of sixty-three, A. D. 1153.
 
 22O ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 THE CRUSADES. 
 
 Palestine was among the earliest conquests of the 
 Saracens.* The Caliph, Omar, took Jerusalem in A. D. 
 637. The Mahometans occupied the Holy City, but the 
 Christians for a long time after its conquest still re- 
 tained the Holy Sepulchre and the Church of the Re- 
 surrection. Pilgrims from all the countries in Europe 
 went thither and were undisturbed. Harounal Ras- 
 chid, Caliph of Bagdad, and the hero of many Arabian 
 tales, sent the keys of Jerusalem to his great contem- 
 porary Charlemagne. These keys were intended as a 
 symbol of safety and security to the Christian visitors 
 of that city. When, however, the Seljukian Turks in 
 the eleventh century took Palestine from the Saracens, 
 they inflicted upon the Christian residents many atroci- 
 ties, and treated the pilgrims visiting the Holy City 
 with much indignity. The Egyptian Caliphs also 
 sometimes refused protection. These grievances were 
 soon made known to all Christendom. Michael VII. , 
 the Byzantine emperor, fearing that the Turks would 
 take Constantinople, sent to Gregory to entreat assist- 
 ance. Another embassy was sent a few years after- 
 ward by Alexis Comnenus to Urban II. Peter the 
 Hermit, an obscure man of Picardy, precipitated the 
 movement. He had gone as a pilgrim to Jerusalem ; 
 he had witnessed the wrongs perpetrated upon Chris- 
 
 * The Arab followers of Mahomet were called Saracens.
 
 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 221 
 
 tians. His soul was filled with enthusiasm. By his 
 preaching he kindled into flame the smouldering fires in 
 the bosoms of the men of the West. In 1096 vast 
 armies left Europe for the East under different leaders. 
 Peter led an army of poor people, many of whom per- 
 ished miserably. Few of them reached Palestine. A 
 division of this army under Walter * the Penniless, was 
 destroyed in Bulgaria. Peter conducted a large 
 number across the Bosphorus who were destroyed by 
 the Turks. Those cruel barbarians made a pyramid of 
 their bones. 
 
 No king accompanied the first crusade, but a 
 number of feudal princes. Among these princes was 
 Robert, duke of Normandy, the eldest son of William 
 the Conqueror; Godfrey Bouillon, Raymond, count of 
 Toulouse, Bohemond, of Tarento, Tancred and others. 
 The first rank, both in war and council, is due to God- 
 frey. "Happy," says Gibbon, "would it have been 
 for the crusaders if they had yielded to the sway of that 
 accomplished hero, a worthy representative of Charle- 
 magne, from whom he was descended in the female 
 line. His father was of the noblest race of the counts 
 of Boulogne. Brabant, a province of Lorraine, was the 
 inheritance from his mother. In the service of Henry 
 IV. he had borne the great standard of the empire, he 
 had pierced with his lance Rudolph, the rebel king, 
 and was theyfoy/to ascend the walls of Rome: he had 
 borne arms against the Pope ! His sorrow for that act 
 
 * Walter was reputed to be a good captain. His followers per- 
 ished in consequence of the crimes they themselves committed. So 
 little did they comprehend the nature of the mission they had under- 
 taken. Few of them knew anything of the teachings of the Prince of 
 of Peace.
 
 222 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 now confirmed, perhaps, a resolution he had made to 
 visit the Holy Sepulchre, not as a pilgrim, but as a de-~ 
 liverer. 
 
 Godfrey was accompanied by his brothers Eustace 
 and Baldwin. Godfrey lived on the Rhine and knew 
 the languages spoken on both sides of the river. He 
 was among heroic men the hero and the victor of the 
 first crusade, the one who deserved to wear the crown 
 for his good and great qualities. 
 
 " Two causes, the one moral and the other social, 
 impelled Europe to the crusades. The moral cause 
 was the constant struggle Christianity had had to 
 maintain with Islamism. This struggle began at the 
 close of the seventh century. It succeeded in confin- 
 ing the religion of Mahomet to the south of Spain. 
 The social cause was the aspiration of the people for a 
 wider sphere. A vast and unexplored world was laid 
 open to the view of European intelligence by the con- 
 sequences of the crusades. The Crusaders were brought 
 into contact with two states of civilization. The pol- 
 ished Greeks on the one hand (though enervated by 
 luxury), and the Mussulman on the other. Mongol 
 ambassadors, we are toid, were sent to Christian kings, 
 to persuade them to enter into alliance for the common 
 interest of the Mongols and Christians. 
 
 One of the most conspicuous nobles that assumed 
 the cross in the first crusade was Hugh, count of Ver- 
 mandois, brother of the king of France. Robert of 
 Normandy attained no distinction, on account of his 
 indolent, easy temper. Stephen, count of Blois, was 
 one of the richest men of his time ; he was eloquent and 
 
 * Guizot.
 
 AXXAL3 OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 22$ 
 
 literary, and was chosen by the chiefs as their presi- 
 dent. The legate of the Pope was Adhemar, from 
 southern France. From the same region came Ray- 
 mond of Toulouse. These two, the prelate and the 
 veteran warrior, assumed the command of large bodies 
 of men. Raymond had fought the Saracens of Spain, 
 he wished now to devote his declining years to the 
 service of the Holy Sepulchre. Bohemond, the son of 
 Robert Guiscard, was already famous for a victory over 
 the Greek emperor. Several Norman princes, together 
 with his cousin, Tancred, accompanied Bohemond. 
 This general is described by historians as unscrupulous 
 and designing, a cool and crafty politician ; while 
 Tancred's love of glory and his disdain of wrong and 
 perfidy rendered him the mirror of European chivalry. 
 Both history and poetry describe him as a true knight. 
 He is a favorite of Tasso in his great Epic. It is said 
 that he, Tancred, sought diligently to mitigate the 
 sufferings of the defeated at the siege of Jerusalem, 
 when the fanatical crusaders were sating their ven- 
 geance in the blood of the Mahometans. It is prob- 
 able that the romantic interest that surrounds the 
 name of Tancred is chiefly due to Tasso, who in his 
 great poem, "Gerusalemne liberata," makes Tancred 
 the lover of Clorinda, the heroine of the poem. Both 
 poetry and painting have sometimes assumed the garb 
 and authority of history. 
 
 Godfrey, of Bouillon, commenced his march from 
 the banks of the Moselle ; he conducted his people with 
 admirable prudence and order by the same route that 
 proved so disastrous to the rabble tkat preceded him. 
 When he reached Hungary he demanded from the 
 king an explanation of the circumstances that provoked
 
 224 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 their destruction. The king exposed the crimes that 
 raised the vengeance of the Hungarians. 
 
 Walter was represented as a good captain, but 
 utterly unable to control the host that followed him. 
 He perished in Asia Minor in a conflict with the 
 Turks. 
 
 Peter the Hermit reached Palestine in safety, and 
 witnessed the victory that Bouillon and the other lead- 
 ers achieved. ' ' The grateful multitudes, instructed by 
 the Patriarch of Jerusalem* (who had just arrived in the 
 camp from an exile (in Cyprus), prostrated themselves 
 before the poor solitary of Amiens, as a revered and 
 chosen servant of God. How great must have been 
 his joy and gratitude at that moment? His name is 
 never mentioned afterwards."! His success is a strik- 
 ing proof of the power of simple earnestness. 
 
 When the crusaders entered the Byzantine prov- 
 inces their able leader continued to maintain strict dis- 
 cipline. Alexius, the emperor of Constantinople, assisted 
 his efforts by supplying the wants of the army in its 
 passage through the desolate forests of Bulgaria, until 
 the first division of the European chivalry had entered 
 into the fertile fields of Thrace. It is possible that 
 the host of Godfrey would have perished, without 
 his aid, in passing amid lands imperfectly cultivated 
 and among barbarous natives. We must look with 
 suspicion upon the reports of some Latin chron- 
 iclers, who acknowledge a kind reception at first, 
 but afterwards accuse the emperor of perfidy and hos- 
 tility. It is probable that the confidence he reposed in 
 the noble designs of Godfrey did not extend to all the 
 
 * Peter, t " His work was clone."
 
 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 225 
 
 leaders. Bohemond had been his enemy, and he may 
 have suspected him of a design to subjugate the East- 
 ern world to the spiritual dominion of the Latin church, 
 under the plea of delivering the Holy Sepulchre from the 
 hands of the Turks. By the decay of the power of the 
 Seljukian Turks,* he had been delivered from the fear 
 that his predecessors had felt of the ruin of his empire. 
 The splendor of Constantinople excited great astonish- 
 ment and perhaps envy in the breasts of the Latins. 
 Hugh, of Vermandois, the two Roberts and the Count 
 of Chartres had passed through France and Italy for 
 the purpose of embarkation. 
 
 The Pope had given to the brother of the king of 
 France the standard of St. Peter. This Count of 
 France sent a haughty message to the emperor, to 
 prepare to receive the standard-bearer of the Pope, and 
 the brother of the king. This message was resented as 
 an insult by the Emperor of Constantinople. The 
 crusaders retaliated. Eventually, the Count of Verman- 
 dois was taken prisoner, and instead of the magnificent 
 reception he had claimed and contemplated, he entered 
 Durazzo as a suppliant. His brother crusaders now 
 joined their forces with his and compelled or induced 
 Alexius, by severe retaliation, to submit to their 
 wishes. After several collisions of arms and some de- 
 grading compliances (as some thought), the crusading 
 levies at length effected a junction on the plains of Asia 
 Minor. The Provencal forces were the last to arise. 
 Tancred had crossed the Bosphorus in disguise, in ad- 
 vance of Bohemond's forces, not wishing to acknowl- 
 edge himself, as his cousin Bohemond had done, the 
 vassal of a foreign prince. 
 
 'I he Greek emperor.
 
 226 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 The Christian hosts now directed their steps to 
 Nice, the former capital of Bithynia, at this time the 
 capital of a Turkish kingdom founded in 1074 by the 
 Seljukian Turks. The Christians captured this city, it 
 is said, by the timely aid and assistance of Alexius. 
 The morning after the defeat of the Turks, the crusad- 
 ing leaders were mortified and infuriated to see the im- 
 perial banner of Alexius floating over the ramparts of 
 Nice. It will be remembered that in this city Nice 
 was the first council of the church, held in A. D. 325. 
 The murmurs of the crusading chiefs were soon stifled 
 by honor or interest. In a few days they set out for 
 Antioch. This superb old city, the capital of the 
 Greek Seleucidae, was now in the latter part of the 
 eleventh century, governed by a Turkish Emir. This 
 city had a special historical interest, in the eyes of 
 Christians of every age ; to this city, it was said, many 
 Christians had fled after the persecution of Stephen ; 
 here Paul and Barnabas had preached, and here, says 
 the evangelist Luke, ' ' the disciples were first called 
 Christians." When the Crusaders reached this famous 
 city there were many (called) Christians yet in An- 
 tioch. 
 
 Bohemond soon discovering that the Christians 
 were full of discontent, availed himself of the favor of 
 a prominent citizen, who possessed the confidence of 
 the Turkish Emir, to betray the city to them (the 
 Crusaders), but reserving to himself the sovereignty of 
 that great city. But, lo, while the Crusaders were ex- 
 pecting an easy victory, the lieutenant of the Persian 
 king appeared before Antioch with a mighty host ; this 
 mighty army had previously been directed against 
 Edessa, the capital that Baldwin had made his own, but
 
 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 22/ 
 
 hearing that Antioch was likely to fall into the hands 
 of the Christians the Persian general rushed impetu- 
 ously to Antioch. The deliverance of the Crusaders 
 from this mighty host has been ascribed, in a super- 
 stitious age, to miracle. 
 
 The losses of the Christian army had been great 
 before they reached Antioch. The count of Toulouse 
 and the duke of Lorraine were carried in litters. Ray- 
 mond was ill with disease, Godfrey had been wounded 
 in a contest with a bear. Tancred and Baldwin had 
 been detached sometime before from the main army, 
 with their squadrons of five and seven hundred knights. 
 Honor and fame was the reward of Tancred, but the city 
 of Edessa was the portion of Baldwin, his more selfish 
 rival. 
 
 The Christians at Antioch now suddenly find them- 
 selves surrounded by the army of Kerbogen, the lieu- 
 tenant of the king of Persia. The Crusaders were be- 
 sieged within the city. Among their chiefs there were 
 at least three heroes who were without fear or re- 
 proach. Godfrey was sustained by pious hope, Bo- 
 hemond by ambition ; Tancred declared that so long as 
 he had forty knights he would never relinquish a holy 
 enterprise. For twenty-five days the Christian army 
 seemed on the verge of destruction. In this extremity, 
 the choice of servitude or death, they gathered up the 
 relics of their strength, sallied from the city, and in one 
 day dispersed the host of Turks and Arabians, which 
 consisted, as the uncertain chroniclers of that day re- 
 port, of hundreds of thousands. 
 
 We have alluded to miracle. While in great dis- 
 tress at Antioch, a priest of Marseilles pretended that 
 St. Andrew had appeared to him, and disclosed the
 
 228 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 exact spot where the sacred lance lay that had piercec 
 the side of our Lord. This lance was found and put 
 into the hands of one who led the procession of priests 
 on the day that they sallied forth, singing the martial 
 psalm, "Let the Lord arise, and let his enemies be 
 scattered." The enthusiastic shouts were loud and 
 long when the sacred lance was brandished. "Its 
 potent energy was assisted by a rumor or a stratagem 
 of miraculous complexion." Three knights were said 
 to stand on the hill beyond them, dressed in resplend- 
 ent garments with arms in their hands. Adhemar, the 
 Pope's legate, pointed them out to the people, pro- 
 claiming them to be the martyrs St.' George, St. Maur- 
 ice and St. Theodore.* "The tumult of battle," says 
 Gibbon, "gave no time for scrutiny; the welcome ap- 
 parition kindled into a flame the superstitious enthusi- 
 asm of the army." Milman thinks the true cause of 
 the remarkable victory was a terrible feud in Ker- 
 bogen's army. Was not this the providence of God? 
 After a delay of several months the goal for which they 
 had dared and suffered so much was attained ; the re- 
 duced army reached Jerusalem. Their victorious ban- 
 ners were planted on the heights of Jerusalem in 1099. 
 Here a new kingdom was established. Godfrey was 
 proclaimed king. It is said he refused the title of king 
 or the crown f from motives of modesty, saying that he 
 would not wear a crown of gold where his Master had 
 worn a crown of thorns. He reigned as king, how- 
 ever, and permitted the soldiers who loved him and 
 
 *This incident at the battle of Antioch recalls the old Roman story 
 of the battle of Regillus, when the leaders pretended that Castor and 
 Pollux might be seen at the head of their forces. A temple com 
 memorative of this victory was dedicated to them at Rome. 
 
 tHe refused to be crowned.
 
 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 22Q 
 
 wished to remain with him to continue in the city they 
 had helped to conquer, but the discontented and rest- 
 less returned to Europe. Godfrey died in a year after 
 his conquest, leaving his throne to his brother Baldwin, 
 and his name to Christendom, 
 
 "One of the few, the immortal names 
 That were not born to die."
 
 23O ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 THE CRUSADES CONTINUED. 
 
 Louis VII. of France and Conrad III., emperor of 
 Germany, led the second crusade. They were incited 
 to this by Bernard, abbot of Clairvaux. The new king- 
 dom of Jerusalem was still in the possession of Chris- 
 tians when this second crusade was projected, but 
 Edessa had fallen into the hands of the infidels, and 
 Antioch was threatened. Many of the Christian princes 
 of the first crusade had returned home, and the courage 
 of the Christians in Palestine began to waver. They now 
 begged for new armies of crusaders. 
 
 Louis and Conrad collected large armies, and led 
 them to Palestine in 1 147. They reached Jerusalem, 
 but did not effect any important results. They returned 
 to Europe in 1149. The second crusade was a failure! 
 A want of harmony among the chiefs of this enterprise 
 rendered futile the great preparations they had made. 
 
 In thirty-eight years from the time of their retreat, 
 the famous Saladin, a Saracen, had become viceroy of 
 Egypt and Syria. He had assailed the Christians at 
 the battle of Tiberias, 1187, captured Guy, king of 
 Jerusalem, and in the same year captured Jerusalem. 
 For almost a century the Christians had held it as their 
 own. Great was the grief and consternation in Europe 
 when the "Fall of Jerusalem" reached them. The 
 king of the two Sicilies and the kings of England and 
 France at once concentrated plans for a third crusade.
 
 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 23! 
 
 The aged emperor Frederick Barbarossa summoned a diet 
 at Metz, in which he himself and his son, with eighty- 
 eight spiritual and temporal lords, assumed the cross. 
 The emperor crossed the Hellespont, not choosing to 
 go to Constantinople. In Asia Minor he had a battle 
 with the Turks, in which he conquered their capital 
 city, Iconium, after experiencing heavy losses. Shortly 
 after he was drowned when bathing in a river of Cilicia. 
 Some writers say, it was the river Cydnus, which had s,o 
 nearly proved fatal to Alexander the Great. This is the 
 river, too, upon which the Egyptian queen Cleopatra 
 sailed, with great pomp and luxury, to meet Anthony. 
 When the master-spirit, Barbarossa, was taken away, 
 little was done by his army, the remains of which 
 finally reached Acre. 
 
 Meanwhile, Richard I.* and Philip Augustus had 
 arrived at Acre. This city surrendered to them 1191. 
 The crusaders, in violation of their word, butchered 
 five thousand Turks, who had been left in their hands 
 as hostages. 
 
 During these wars for the possession of the Holy 
 Land arose the three celebrated orders to which we 
 have alluded in another place ; the Knights of St. 
 John, the Templars, and the Teutonic Knights, who 
 combined the charities of the Hespitallers with the 
 chivalric vow of the Templars. These last bound 
 themselves to the relief of the sick and the defense of 
 the holy places. 
 
 The king of France returned to Europe shortly 
 after the siege of Acre, leaving a part of his army 
 under the conduct of the duke of Burgundy. 
 
 * King of England Coeur de Lion.
 
 232 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 After Philip's departure, Richard Cceur de Lion 
 prosecuted the war with vigor; he not only vanquished 
 the great Saladin in several battles, but took the cities 
 Jaffa* and Caesarea in Palestine. When almost in sight 
 of Jerusalem, it is said the French and Italians refused 
 to accompany him, and he was compelled to desist 
 from the undertaking. He made, therefore, a truce 
 with Saladin for three years, three months and three 
 days. 
 
 At the close of the first crusade a large portion of 
 Palestine was in the hands of the Christians ; at one 
 time only four cities were in the hands of the Turks. 
 But their possessions soon escaped from their grasp, 
 after the third crusade. 
 
 Richard at the siege of Acre had offended the duke 
 of Austria, whose revenge was implacable, and caused 
 Richard a long and weary captivity. He regained his 
 liberty by a heavy ransom collected by his mother, 
 Eleanor, and paid to the emperor of Germany. 
 
 The fourth crusade was commenced in 1200. Inno- 
 cent III. was the great mover, and it was chiefly 
 French in its character and composition. They went 
 to Venice in 1 202, expecting to be transported in Ven- 
 etian ships to the Bosphorus. As the people of Venice 
 required a larger sum than they could pay, they agreed 
 to aid the Venetians, in lieu of money, to assist them 
 in taking a town in Dalmatia that had revolted. This 
 they accomplished in defiance of a papal proJitbition, 
 and without the sanction of their chief, Montserrat. 
 They then went to Constantinople and agreed with 
 
 * In this city Jaffa, a Christian school is now (1882) taught by some 
 devoted Episcopal missionaries from the valley of Virginia, in the 
 United States.
 
 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 233 
 
 Alexis, the son of the deposed emperor Isaac Angelus, 
 to restore his father to the throne. These princes 
 being restored, soon died in an insurrection of the 
 people. The crusaders, pretending at first to be the 
 champions of the dead princes, waged successful war, 
 took the city, and established a Latin empire at Con- 
 stantinople which lasted about fifty-seven years. The 
 territory conquered was divided beween the Venetians 
 and their Western associates. In taking the city much 
 that was antique, rare and beautiful was destroyed ; 
 sculptures preserved from ancient Greece were de- 
 stroyed by the rude barbarians. The Venetians, more 
 discerning of beauty, saved the fine bronze horses of 
 Lysippus to adorn a church in Venice.* 
 
 Michael Paleologus in 1261 expelled the sixth Ven- 
 etian usurper and recovered the throne of the Greek 
 empire. 
 
 Though Jerusalem had fallen, the Christians still 
 claimed a right to the shadowy crown of Jerusalem. 
 The king of France designated John of Brienne to be 
 the husband of Mary, the daughter of Isabella and 
 Conrad of Montserrat. No nobleman in Palestine was 
 judged so worthy as he to share this nominal but peril- 
 ous honor. John was accompanied from Europe by 
 three hundred knights, the whole contribution at the 
 time, to recover the Holy Sepulchre. This new king 
 of Jerusalem appealed for aid. Innocent III. made a 
 stirring appeal to all western Christendom. Egypt 
 was now the stronghold of the Moslem power. 
 
 * Over the portals of St. Mark's Cathedral, in Venice, stand the 
 bronze horses of Lysippus, brought from the hippodrome of Constan- 
 tinople. Lysippus was a sculptor in the time of Alexander the Great, 
 B. c. 330.
 
 234 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 The fifth crusade was undertaken by the united 
 forces of Italians and Germans. The commander-in- 
 chief was Andrew, king of Hungary. Honorius III. 
 had now succeeded to Innocent III., 1216. Andrew 
 after one campaign returned to Hungary. The other 
 generals captured the strong city of Damietta in Egypt, 
 A. D. 1 220. Their successes were of brief duration, 
 for the next year a Saracen fleet destroyed that of 
 the Christians and cut off their supplies. They lost 
 Damietta. 
 
 A new army of crusaders was now enrolled by the 
 legate and missionaries of the pontiff; this army was 
 increased by the idea that their commander would be 
 the great Frederick II. This monarch had promised 
 the pope that he would command the army in his own 
 person. Frederick had married Jolanda, the daughter 
 of Brienne, king of Jerusalem, which was an additional 
 reason why he should keep his crusading vow. But 
 under various pretexts he delayed going to Palestine 
 until 1228. Frederick being then excommunicated, he 
 set out with a small retinue to join the forces that were 
 anxiously awaiting his arrival in Palestine. Instead of 
 carrying on the war, he soon terminated it. * 
 
 Yet he did much; he made a treaty with the sultan, 
 by which the Christians were to be allowed freely to visit 
 Jerusalem ; and Bethlehem, Nazareth and other places 
 were made over to them. He made a truce of ten 
 years with the sultan ; the principal condition was that 
 he should be regarded as the king of Jerusalem. When 
 he visited the church of the Holy Sepulchre, it is said 
 
 * Gibbon says, "Frederick II. despised the phantoms of supersti- 
 tion, and the kingdoms of Asia. He wished to establish the Italian 
 monarchy from Sicily to the Alps."
 
 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 235 
 
 he took the crown from the altar and put it upon his 
 own head. We suppose the priests would not crown 
 him, as he had been excommunicated. 
 
 The fifth crusade was brought to a happy termina- 
 tion, yet the pope's* anger still raged against the em- 
 peror. He attempted to inflict many injuries upon him 
 during his absence. The emperor returned to Germany 
 in 1229. 
 
 The quarrels of the crusaders in Palestine led to the 
 loss of the good that Frederick had obtained for them. 
 A sixth crusade was proclaimed. The sultan of Egypt 
 determined to be beforehand with his enemies. He 
 entered Palestine, and drove the Christians from Jeru- 
 salem. The nobility of England and France determined 
 to go yet again to the relief of Palestine. Theobald, 
 count of Campania and king of Navarre, with other 
 French and German princes, went in 1239; Richard 
 of Cornwall, the brother of Henry III. of England, in 
 1240. The English were well received by the Chris- 
 tians, whose affairs they reestablished. Jerusalem and 
 the greater part of Palestine were surrendered by the 
 sultan of Egypt ; the walls -of Jerusalem were rebuilt 
 and the churches reconsecrated. 
 
 The objects of this expedition having been gained 
 by negotiation, some writers do not reckon it in the 
 number of crusades. It is usually, however, called the 
 sixth crusade. 
 
 A seventh crusade was proclaimed in 1245. Jeru- 
 salem was again in the hands of the Egyptians. This 
 crusade, it is said, grew out of a great Mongol move- 
 ment that terrified the world in the thirteenth century. 
 
 * Gregory IX.
 
 236 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 Christians and Mussulmans now leagued together 
 against the common enemy. Acre had now become 
 the refuge of the Christians, and was the only 
 important place left of all their former possessions in 
 Palestine. 
 
 Louis IX., St. Louis of France, was the leader of 
 the seventh crusade. A large army assembled at Cy- 
 prus. The English joined it there under the command 
 of Edward,* prince of Wales, afterwards Edward I. of 
 England. After much delay they went to Egypt. 
 Louis had some success at first, having captured Dam-' 
 ietta, a strong city of Egypt, but disasters dire soon 
 followed. The heroic king was taken prisoner, and 
 after spending four years in Palestine, an immense sum 
 of money was paid for his ransom, and he returned to 
 France with a few followers in 1254. Great, indeed, 
 was the cost of blood and treasure paid for the tem- 
 porary victories and uncertain tenure by which they 
 held the holy places. 
 
 Louis renewed the war in 1269, as he supposed he 
 had not yet satisfied his solemn vow to God. He died 
 at Tunis, in 1270, of a pestilence which swept off the 
 greater part of his forces. 
 
 In 1291, by the capture of Ptolcmais by the Moham- 
 medans, the empire of the Latins in the East became 
 extinct. 
 
 The loss of Palestine was attributed far more to the 
 disunion of the Christians than to the valor of the 
 enemy. There was much profligacy among those who 
 called themselves Christ's soldiers, and there was much 
 ignorance and obstinacy among the papal legates, who 
 
 * Edward was two years in Palestine. His feats of valor, according 
 to Gibbon, were as great as those of his uncle, Richard I.
 
 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 often thwarted the well-planned measures of the heroic 
 and the true. 
 
 With Gregory X. the crusades ended, one hundred 
 and seventy-seven years from the time the first had 
 been preached. The king of Jerusalem, the patriarch, 
 and the great master of the Hospital escaped to Cyprus. 
 Many thousands at the last storming of Acre were 
 slain with the sword ; some perished on the scaffold. 
 The churches and fortifications of the Latin cities were 
 demolished. Silence reigned upon the coast which had 
 so long resounded " with the ivorld's debate."
 
 238 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 END OF THE CRUSADES. LOUIS IX. 
 
 The crusades began at the close of the eleventh cen- 
 tury and lasted through the twelfth and thirteenth. 
 Until the war for the recovery of Jerusalem, Europe 
 had never been moved by a common sentiment, nor 
 acted in a common cause. 
 
 "The principal effect of the crusades," says Guizot, 
 ' ' was their tendency to the emancipation of the mind and 
 a decided progress towards liberal ideas. With Greg- 
 ory expired the crusades ! For nearly two centuries 
 these wars had connected as a principle of union the 
 countries of Western Asia with Europe. This tie was 
 broken. No longer could the Pope claim a title to ex- 
 act a tribute from a vassal world. The high tides of 
 the Papacy began to ebb in 1303. The last convulsive 
 effort for the world's dominion was made by Boniface 
 VIII. It ended in the captivity of Avignon. 
 
 For seventy years Rome was deprived of the pres- 
 ence of her chief bishop. Avignon was their place of 
 exile. After the death of Gregory X. three successive 
 Popes passed away in three years Innocent V., 
 Hadrian V., and John XXII. The last was killed by 
 the falling of a roof of a noble chamber, which had 
 been erected specially for him. We have spoken of 
 two crusading expeditions of the good Louis IX., of 
 France. There was an interval of twenty years be- 
 tween the two visits of Louis to the East. He spent
 
 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 239 
 
 this time in improving the condition of the Gallican State 
 and church. Louis, assisted by the lawyers of France, 
 issued an edict called the Pragmatic Sanction. This 
 edict limited the power of the clergy, in denying to the 
 Court of Rome the power of ecclesiastical taxation ; also 
 limiting their interference in the election of the clergy. 
 This Pragmatic Sanction became a charter of independ- 
 ence to the Gallican Church. Among the dearest ob- 
 jects of St. Louis was the reformation of the clergy. 
 The high religiousness of this king, together with the 
 unsettled state of the Papal hierarchy, enabled him to 
 promulgate this charter of liberty without disturbance. 
 
 Henry II. of England had labored in the twelfth 
 century to achieve a similar result, but he had to con- 
 tend with a most formidable opponent in Thomas a 
 Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury. Henry's solicitude 
 was not on account of the corrupt lives of the clergy, 
 but his anxiety was directed to the curtailment of their 
 power. In the Council of Clarendon, A. D. 1164, 
 articles were drawn up by the king and ratified in a full 
 assembly of the great lords, barons, and prelates, 
 wherein the prerogatives of the bishops and clergy 
 were circumscribed within narrower limits, and the 
 regal power in respect to the clergy more accurately 
 defined. By these articles the clergy were made amen- 
 able to the laws of the land, if they were guilty of 
 crime, and as liable to punishment as laymen. 
 
 There were many other points discussed at this 
 council, all tending to show that the king, and not the 
 priest, should govern the State in England. Becket 
 refused to submit to these regulations, pretending that 
 they were injurious to the divine rights of the church at 
 large, and of the Roman Pontiffs. Becket, as Chancel-
 
 240 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 lor of England, had administered his high office with 
 great ability, living, however, in great luxury and os- 
 tentation. When he was afterwards made Archbishop 
 of Canterbury, he renounced the vain pomp of the 
 world, and living as an ascetic he induced the people 
 to believe that he was possessed of great sanctity and 
 holiness. He refused to sign the constitution of Clar- 
 endon. He fled to Avignon, to Alexander III., who 
 was an exile there. 
 
 Becket returned to England, but was still inflexi- 
 ble in his opposition to the salutary laws enacted at 
 Clarendon. This contest of Becket was a struggle for 
 power. Henry II. had kingly qualities. He was 
 chivalrous and brave, but passionate, lustful, and some- 
 times cruel. But through all this trouble between Jhe 
 king and Becket the Archbishop utters no warning 
 voice against the vices of Henry and his infractions of 
 the moral law, but complains loudly of the king's dis- 
 obedience to the hierarchy. The tragical death of 
 Becket is well known. Henry was annoyed with the 
 dogmatism of this prelate and his interference with the 
 affairs of the State. In hasty passion he cried out, 
 " Will no one rid me of this turbulent man? " Some 
 servile courtiers heard his rash words. Hoping for re- 
 ward, they secretly set out for Canterbury. These 
 ruffians slew the prelate at the foot of the altar. 
 Becket had fled thither, hoping that the sanctity of the 
 place would protect him. But these degraded ones 
 were dead to any such influence. The king was over- 
 come with remorse when he heard of the deed. He 
 went to Canterbury and submitted to a scourging on 
 his body, as a penance for the sin of his soul. He could 
 not have given to man an evidence of more bitter re-
 
 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 24! 
 
 pentance. Was it acceptable to God ? It is said the 
 wretched assassins fled in abject fear to the Pope, and 
 obtained absolution on condition of perpetual exile. 
 Who can forgive sins but God alone ? "The blood of 
 Jesus Christ cleanseth from all sin." Christ, the High 
 Priest, has given authority to his ministers to declare 
 forgiveness of sins to'all who, by repentance and faith, 
 turn to him. A declaration of absolution on the con- 
 ditions of true faith and penitence may give, and has 
 given, comfort to souls distressed on account of sin. 
 But in a wilderness, in every place and nation with- 
 out priest or altar or audible voice, the offering of a 
 contrite heart will be accepted and absolved. This 
 absolution rests upon the word of God, that can not be 
 broken. Nevertheless, Christ did appoint special min- 
 isters of his word to administer consolation to his dis- 
 ciples when he had ascended to his father. Becket was 
 murdered in the year 1170. He was enrolled, as we 
 have said, among the martyrs and glorified saints. 
 
 NOTE ON BECKET'S TOMB AT CANTERBURY. The shrine of Becket 
 was for three centuries a centre of reverence and adoration, not only 
 to the English, but to all the countries of Europe. It was in the 
 twelfth century that the relics of the dead bodies of those esteemed to 
 be saints were held in the highest reverence. Multitudes of people 
 and the proudest monarchs journeyed to Canterbury with votive offer- 
 ings of gold and jewels. In 1370 the spirit of Sudbury, Bishop of 
 London, was stirred within him when he saw blind devotees journey- 
 ing to the shrine of Becket. He remonstrated with the people on the 
 "mischievous superstition," but some of them hurled imprecations 
 against him. In 1513, at the dawn of the reformation, Erasmus and 
 Colet visited this famous shrine. The treasures amassed on this altar 
 were enormous. They were filled with disgust and contempt at the 
 idolatry they witnessed. In 1538 this jeweled shrine, this hold of su. 
 perstition was destroyed by the order of Cranmer. It is said that 
 Mary Tudor, during her reign of five years, wore upon her breast the 
 most precious gem taken from this famous shrine.
 
 242 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 Numerous pilgrimages were made to Canterbury, 
 the place of his burial. Monarchs from France and 
 Germany, at different periods, prostrated themselves on 
 the pavement that covered the bones of St. Thomas a 
 Becket. There is a vulgar superstition among kings as 
 among other men. The honest voice of Wickliffe de-. 
 nounced this mummery with much effect. So gorgeous 
 were the decorations of art, so resplendent the jeweled 
 memorials that past centuries had gathered round this 
 tomb, that some lovers of the beautiful in art, even 
 Dean Stanley in his "Notes on Canterbury," seemed 
 almost inclined to drop a tear on the now vacant places. 
 In his own eloquent words he says, "It is true that 
 reverence for the dead ought never to stand in the way 
 of the living, that when any evil is avoided, or any 
 good attained by destroying old recollections, no his- 
 torical or antiquarian tenderness can be pleaded for 
 their preservation. No great institution perishes with- 
 out cause." 
 
 Alexander III., the same Pope to whom Becket 
 had fled for refuge, deprived bishops and councils of 
 the right of designating who should be worshiped as 
 saints. He determined that canonization should be de- 
 cided solely by the Pontiff. Alexander III. also 
 claimed the right of creating kings. This power had 
 been claimed by the Popes since the time of Hilde- 
 brand, but Alexander was the first Pope that actually 
 used this power. At this time the election of Popes 
 by cardinals assumed the forms they still retain. In 
 the same century that Becket lived in England, Arnold, 
 of Brescia lived in Italy. He was a pupil of the fa- 
 mous Abelard. Arnold was a man of learning and pure 
 morals. Arnold attempted, in the middle of the twelfth
 
 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 243 
 
 century, a civil and ecclesiastical revolution in Italy. He 
 saw th evils that arose from the vast riches of the clergy. 
 He thought that the interests of the Church required that 
 they should be deprived of many prerogatives. He 
 was persecuted by St. Bernard, who probably misun- 
 derstood him regarding him as a dangerous man. 
 Adrian IV. so feared the spread of his doctrines that 
 he -sent him, into exile. The people sustained him. 
 Frederick J. delivered him up to the pope. He was 
 executed, his body was burned, and his ashes cast into 
 the sea lest the people should venerate his corpse. 
 But of all the leaders and sects that arose in this cen- 
 tury, none obtained so great reputation for probity and 
 innocence as the Waldenses. Peter Waldo did not 
 aim to inculcate new articles of faith, but he strove to 
 restore the Church to its primitive form, to purify the 
 morals of the clergy, and to restore the apostolic sim- 
 plicity which they had learned from the words of 
 Christ. The Waldensian Church was governed by 
 bishops, presbyters, and deacons, for they supposed 
 these orders were instituted by Christ or his apostles. 
 They taught, as our modern Protestants do, that in the 
 time of Constantime the Great, the Church began to 
 degenerate from her original sanctity. They denied 
 the supremacy of the bishop of Rome. Their doctrines 
 seem to have been almost identical with the teachings 
 of Claude, bishop of Turin, who lived in the ninth 
 century, and of many others all down the ages, whose 
 names are not conspicuous in the calendars of earth, 
 but whose registry is in heaven. 
 
 In the fourth council of the Lateran, A. D. 1215, 
 Innocent III. published three decrees which contained 
 enactments not only to increase the power of the pon-
 
 244 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 tiffs, but attempted to widen the religious system by 
 adding new doctrines, or as they are called, articles of 
 faith. Previous to this time there had been various 
 opinions as to the manner in which the body and blood 
 of our Lord are present in the Eucharist. No public 
 decision had as yet * defined what must be held and 
 taught on this point. Innocent pronounced at this 
 fourth council of the Lateran that view to be the true 
 one, which is now universal in the Rom^n Church. 
 He consecrated also the hitherto unknown term of 
 transubstantiation. He required it to be held as an 
 article of faith that all are bound to confess to a priest. 
 Confession of sin was held to be a duty ; but until now 
 every one was at liberty to confess mentally to God 
 alone, or orally to a priest. 
 
 The reception of both these dogmas was enforced 
 simply upon the injunction of Innocent III. In 1260 
 a strange fanatical sect arose, called Flagellants. 
 These deluded people ran about the cities and town 
 with whips in their hands lacerating their almost naked 
 bodies, that by this voluntary punishment they 
 might obtain pardon for their sins. These extreme 
 views had doubtless arisen from the teachings they had 
 received from the monks of the mendicant orders. 
 Their turbulence and extravagance soon produced dis- 
 gust, and both emperors and pontiffs issued -decrees to 
 stop this religious or superstitious frenzy. 
 
 A strange controversy filled all the schools of Eu- 
 rope for many centuries. The respective disputants 
 were called Nominalists and Realists. There was also 
 a third called Conceptualists, an intermediate doctrine 
 between the two. So very metaphysical were these 
 
 * Thirteenth century.
 
 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 245 
 
 points of controversy that we shall merely hint at the 
 existence of the controversy and some of its conse- 
 quences, without attempting definition. 
 
 Some maintained that general ideas are things that 
 have real existence. These supported their opinions 
 by Plato and Boethius, and were called Realists. 
 Nominalists, on the contrary, asserted that general ideas 
 are nothing more than words or names. These quoted 
 the authority of Aristotle. Its origin, says Mosheim, 
 some trace back to the controversy with Berengarius 
 on the Lord's Supper, because the opinions of the 
 Nominalists might be used very conveniently in defend- 
 ing the doctrine of Berengarius respecting that sacra- 
 ment. The germ of this scholastic controversy is 
 doubtless to be found in the opposition of Plato and 
 Aristotle concerning the nature of ideas. The elo- 
 quent Abelard * was a Nominalist. 
 
 Albert Magnus and his disciple, the famous Thomas 
 Aquinas, were Realists. Roscellinus, in the eleventh 
 century, in applying his Nominalist doctrines to theol- 
 ogy, was accused of trithcism, since by denying the 
 validity of abstract ideas he could respresent the Trin- 
 ity as only a nominal and unreal unity. He was con- 
 demned by the synod of Soissons in 1092, and obliged 
 to retract his assertions. Nominalism from this time 
 fell under the suspicion of the church. Anselm, Arch- 
 bishop of Canterbury, was its chief opponent. ' ' John, 
 of Salisbury, wrote that there had been more time con- 
 sumed in the discussion of these metaphysical points than 
 
 * Abelard has been accused of heresy in doctrine. He was prob- 
 ably a heretic in morals. 
 
 t Nominalists claimed that there was no such thing as an abstract 
 animal or tree in general, but individual objects.
 
 246 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 the Caesars had employed in the conquest of the world ; 
 that the riches of Croesus had been exhausted upon it, 
 and that the contending parties, having spent their 
 whole lives upon this point, could not determine it to 
 their satisfaction, nor could they find in the labyrinths 
 of science, where they so long groped, that it was 
 worth the pains they had taken." 
 
 So shadowy, so intangible and unsubstantial was 
 this question of dialectics ! Yet in this long quest 
 these learned, ingenious intellects doubtless found 
 many grains of golden truth, amid the depths of dross 
 they attempted to sound. 
 
 The era of schoolmen and mystics was a remarka- 
 ble era in medieval times. Bonaventura, a Franciscan 
 of Lyons, in France, vvas a remarkable man. He, 
 like Aquinas, was a celebrated lecturer. The thirteenth 
 century boasted of many men of inquisitive minds, 
 acute understanding, and uncommon penetration in 
 regard to abstruse and difficult subjects, though they 
 assented to various things that have since been proved 
 incorrect. The great mistake some of these learned 
 doctors made was an attempt to examine religious sub- 
 jects by the powers of reason and human sagacity, 
 rather than by the Scriptures. Some pious men warned 
 the theologians of Paris to avoid the subtleties of phil- 
 osophy, and to teach the doctrines of Christ by his 
 word.
 
 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 247 
 
 CHAPTER XXVI. 
 
 " Sir, didst not thou sow good seed, in thy field ? Whence then 
 hath it tares ? And he said, An enemy hath done this " (Matt. xiii. 27). 
 
 It is not remarkable that after transubstanfiation 
 began to be received by the Church (though with many 
 dissentients * ), that the consecrated bread of the 
 Eucharist should receive divine honors. Splendid cas- 
 kets containing this bread, or the host, as it was called, 
 were carried from house to house. 
 
 This superstition reached its zenith, when the festi- 
 val of the body of Christ was instituted. A nun of 
 Liege declared that she had been instructed that an 
 annual festival should be kept in honor of the Holy 
 Supper, or rather of the body of Christ. Few persons 
 believed in her vision. Yet such was the superstition 
 of the 'time, and the power of the hierarchy, that 
 Robert, a bishop of Liege, affecting to believe in this 
 vision, ordered this new festal day in 1246. But it was 
 not generally observed until Urban IV., in 1264, im- 
 posed the festival of Corpus Christi on the whole 
 church. Clement V., in 1311, confirmed the edict of 
 Urban at the council of Vienna. 
 
 We suppose the observance of this festival of Cor- 
 pus Christi has done no special harm, but we are 
 simply attempting to relate how many superstitious 
 ceremonies crept into the Church without any authority 
 
 * Scotus strongly opposed this doctrine in the ninth century, and 
 the famous Beranger of Tours in the eleventh century.
 
 248 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 from the Chart,* by which they professed to be guided, 
 and without the tradition or example of the primitive 
 Church. 
 
 Boniface VIII. added the year of Jubilee to the 
 ceremonies of the Church in the fourteenth century. 
 This pontiff declared to all Christendom that all who 
 should visit the temples of Peter and Paul at Rome, 
 at the close of each centennial year,f should have 
 plenary forgiveness of their sins. When his successors 
 found that it brought much gain to the Church of 
 Rome, they shortened the period, first to half a cen- 
 tury, then to thirty-three years, and lastly to twenty- 
 five years, continuing, as we believe, to the present 
 time. 
 
 A humiliating succession of false doctrines had now 
 been brought in the Church Mariolatry ; the invoca- 
 tion of saints ; the great value of virginity ; the work- 
 ing of miracles by relics ; the satisfaction of sins by 
 gifts to the clergy ; transubstantiation ; the virtue of 
 pilgrimages ; the forbidding of the Bible to the laity. 
 
 In speaking of the false tenets that had been 
 adopted by the Church, or at least by many of its 
 teachers, during the dark ages, an ingenious writer \ 
 supposes that it was due to a deterioration of race. 
 " The old Roman element," he says, " had been elim- 
 inated through the republican and imperial wars, and 
 also through the slave system. The half-breeds, of 
 which the Peninsula was full, degenerated more and 
 more. Blood degeneration implies thought degenera- 
 tion. The early bishops of Rome were men of Roman 
 blood and Roman heroism, but the later pontiffs, whose 
 
 * The New Testament. f A centennial year was approaching. 
 
 + Mr. Draper.
 
 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 249 
 
 lives were so infamous, and thoughts so base, were 
 engendered of half-breeds. Ideas and dogmas, that 
 would not have been tolerated in the old Roman race, 
 found acceptance in the festering mass of the new 
 Italian population." 
 
 This is indeed a subtle question ; the physiological 
 state, has, as he suggests, doubtless some connection 
 with the ethnical element, but when it is remembered, 
 that the old Roman race previous to Christianity em- 
 braced the most absurd superstitions, we must look to 
 a more obvious cause for this adulteration of doctrine. 
 The false views of religion that crept into the Church 
 were mainly due to the ignorance of the people of the 
 written word of God, and also to the great power and 
 wealth that were lodged in the hands of fallible men. 
 Sow of these men, aspiring to be "Lords over God's 
 heritage," brought evil of every kind into the Church 
 that Christ and His apostles had established. With 
 many attendant evils, however, there was Christian 
 truth at the foundation that could not pass away, 
 giving rise to many blessings, in spite of the degrada- 
 tion and wickedness of man. The civil law had been 
 greatly improved by Christianity. The idea of personal 
 moral accountibility was more precise than formerly. 
 The sentiment of charity was exemplified not only in 
 individual acts, but in permanent establishments for the 
 relief of affliction, and the spread of knowledge and 
 truth as they held it. Some of the ecclesiastics who 
 had risen from the humblest ranks, true to their demo- 
 cratic instincts, were inflexible- supporters of right 
 against might. 
 
 Rome, from her central seat, aspired to be all-seeing 
 and take in a hemisphere at a glance. Her influence
 
 25O ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 touched the king in his palace and the beggar at the 
 monastery gate. Every one received their names at 
 her altar ; her bells chimed at the marriage or tolled at 
 the funeral. Her prayers claimed a power to give repose 
 to the souls of the dead. Thus did a'chain of sweet 
 influences bind the sons and daughters of the Church. 
 
 Christian funerals were sometimes celebrated with 
 magnificence as early as the fourth century. Jerome 
 speaks of the funeral of Fabiola as comparing in splen- 
 dor with the triumphs of Roman generals. This Roman 
 lady had spent a large fortune in alms- giving, and had 
 founded the first hospital at Rome. 
 
 As regards the sacred and consoling services of the 
 Church at the baptism, the bridal, or the tomb, these 
 things are as true of Protestant Christianity as they ever 
 were or are of Roman Christianity. But we must 
 say of the Church of the Dark Ages (as it is called), 
 that while it was often oppressive and exacting to the 
 rich and powerful, to the poor and penitent it was 
 usually ' ' as the shadow of a great rock in a weary land. " 
 
 In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries the pon- 
 tiffs had fierce conflicts with heretics, as the Romish 
 Church called those who questioned their authority, or 
 who rejected their dogmas dogmas or opinions not 
 taught in Scripture, but imposed on their consciences 
 by the arbritrary power of some of the popes. 
 
 The Albigenses, the Waldenses and other sectaries, 
 had. spread themselves over the valleys among the 
 Alps, Southern France, Germany and portions of 
 Spain, threatening danger to the Roman domination. 
 These people were remarkable for their spirited preach- 
 ing. Preaching among the regular clergy had become 
 almost obsolete until the rise of the Dominican and
 
 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 2$ I 
 
 Franciscan clergy, who, seeing the success of the 
 Albigenses, became zealous preachers from country to 
 country. 
 
 The monks had kept through very troubled times 
 of social life the best pattern of religious devotion ; 
 they had executed wonders in illuminating and preserv- 
 ing manuscripts ; but there came a time,* especially in 
 England, when their rules fell into neglect and disuse. 
 In the time of Wyckliffe the mendicant monks had 
 become objects of ridicule and scorn. 
 
 Eyery reader of Church history must feel, as he 
 comes down the ages, that, despite the corruption of 
 the clergy and the ignorance of the laity, there were 
 some loving and true hearts that burned with a desire 
 to open the Scriptures, and to enlighten the people as 
 to the true teaching of the Word of God. As in the 
 days of Elijah the prophet there were seven thousand 
 who had never bowed the knee to Baal, though the 
 prophet blindly supposed he was the only true wor- 
 shiper in the land of Israel, so in Christian Europe, in 
 the fourteenth century, there were many who turned 
 their faces heavenward, and who sought the lips of the 
 Priest that kept knowledge. 
 
 The power at Rome did sometimes repress an 
 injustice, but in calling so many cases to Rome for 
 decision, she deprived in this way the national churches 
 and States of their rights of self-government. The 
 monasteries sometimes desired exemption from the 
 bishops of their dioceses, and were willing to pay the 
 papal court to decide for them according to their 
 wishes. The papacy became the seat during the four- 
 
 * In the fourteenth century.
 
 252 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 teenth and fifteenth centuries of enormous simony, 
 ' from the decision of causes, from indulgences, and 
 from selling the offices of the Church. The papacy 
 sunk into a slough so deep, that she could not of herself 
 abate them some futile efforts were made. The riches 
 of the papal court were to many as the breath of life. 
 Some of the popes saw and felt the need of reform, but 
 during the few years they sat in the papal chair, they 
 were unable to cope with the tremendous issues. 
 
 The scholar arid the mystic were united in some of 
 the great characters of this period. Eckart, a Domini- 
 can, was a leader among the mystics. As scholasticism 
 declined, mysticism increased. Thomas a Kempis, 
 whose writings are well known in modern days, was a 
 famous mystic. In 1324 the terrible disease black 
 death stalked abroad, in seven years sweeping away 
 two-thirds of the population. There was something in 
 mysticism that seemed adapted to such awful periods. 
 There was, too, at this time a great conflict between 
 Church and Empire. 
 
 But religion, as we have already said, found a 
 sanctuary in some devout hearts. In the darkest 
 periods, our Lord has had a Church upon earth, an 
 invisible within the visible. There were many names, 
 doubtless, written in the Lamb's Book of Life that were 
 not registered or canonized upon earth. The great 
 head of the church, though not so manifestly, was car- 
 rying forward then, as now, a work of grace and power 
 in the hearts of his people. 
 
 The first teacher who shook with lasting effect the 
 power of the hierarchy, was John Wycliffe, of Lutter- 
 worth, England, in 1348. The Teutonic constitution 
 of England, as we have said in another place, had not
 
 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 253 
 
 only restrained the Norman power of the crown, but 
 the Latin despotism of the papacy. In the days of 
 Becket, the clergy had striven to escape trial for crimes 
 in the civil courts, but in the time of Wycliffe, a cen- 
 tury and a half later, the hand of the civil law did not 
 scruple to arrest an ecclesiastic accused of crime. In the 
 reign of the feeble Edward II., Clement V. commanded 
 the persecution and ruin of the Templars. With some 
 opposition the mandate was ultimately obeyed. The 
 papal power exercised in England varied with the abil- 
 ity of the monarch ; this was manifested in the reign 
 of the cowardly King John, who became a vassal to the 
 pope, A. D. 1215. 
 
 John Wycliffe was born in Yorkshire in 1324, just 
 before the accession of Edward III. to the throne of 
 England. England was at this period a land of schools ; 
 Oxford and Cambridge were in high repute they were 
 then thronged with thousands, instead of the hundreds 
 who now enter their classic halls. Wycliffe became a 
 student at Oxford. These instutions of learning were 
 open to the humble ; this was an element of strength 
 to the Church in the fourteenth century^ as it is a 
 source of strength to the Romanists in the nineteenth 
 century. The most humble were brought through 
 their colleges of learning, to take rank with the highest 
 in the realm. Arms, and the Church, were then the 
 only two professions. The lawyers and physicians of 
 this day were ecclesiastics. 
 
 John Wycliffe was admitted to Queen's College, 
 Oxford. This college had just been founded by Phil- 
 ippa, the noble wife of Edward III. In the latter part 
 of the thirteenth century Roger Bacon had been a 
 lecturer at Oxford. Bacon was esteemed the father of
 
 254 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 English science. His researches opened the way for 
 many modern discoveries, especially the use of gun- 
 powder, which he is said first to have made. 
 
 NOTE. From the days of Caedmon in the seventh century, portions 
 of Scripture had been translated into the vulgar tongue, but they were 
 fragmentary and had fallen out of use. Wycliffe determined to trans- 
 late the whole Bible, and send it through the land. Like the apostles, 
 he put the ministry of the Word, not the Sacraments, in front. In the 
 Eucharist, the reformers of Wycliffe's day saw unchanged the bread and 
 wine, but they believed Christ's body and blood were truly present.
 
 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 255 
 
 CHAPTER XXVII. 
 
 WYCLIFFE CONTINUED HUSS. 
 
 Wycliffe, shortly after he entered Oxford, removed 
 to Merton, the older, wealthier and more famous of the 
 Oxford foundations. Statesmen and prelates, kings 
 and queens had founded six colleges at Oxford for poor 
 scholars. The university held the supreme authority. 
 There were also some halls where some scholars dwelt 
 and studied under the ordinary academic discipline. 
 There must have been a renaissance or revival of 
 learning in England as well as in Italy in the early part 
 of the fourteenth century. Some great teachers had 
 preceded Wycliffe at Merton, such as William of Ock- 
 ham, whose teachings shattered the foundations of 
 Papal supremacy ; also the learned Bradwardine, who 
 adopted the predestinarian doctrines of Augustin. 
 
 Wycliffe's promotion to offices of high trust prove 
 the extent and depth of his studies. His varied erudi- 
 tion, says Milman, is probably due to his studies at 
 Oxford ; but his mastery over the vernacular English, 
 the high supremacy which he vindicated for the Script- 
 ures, which, by great toil, he promulgated in the vulgar 
 tongue, these were his own, to be learned in no 
 school. These were to be attained by none of the or- 
 dinary courses of study. As Chaucer, his contempo- 
 rary, was the father of English poetry, so was Wycliffe 
 the father of English prose. 
 
 When Wyccliffe was first summoned to appear at
 
 256 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 St. Paul's, before the Archbishop of Canterbury, he 
 was s accompanied by the Duke of Lancaster, John of 
 Gaunt, as he was usually called, the son of Edward III. 
 Nothing is known of the specific charges made against 
 Wycliffe at this examination. About this time the 
 king's ministers were anxious to procure a sum of 
 money which was in the hands of the Pope's bankers. 
 They applied to the University of Oxford for legal 
 sanction to obtain this money. Wycliffe was employed 
 by these ministers to give his opinion as to the right of 
 possession. Wycliffe declared boldly that the necessi- 
 ties of the nation have the fitst claim to all moneys 
 raised within the realm. Wycliffe quoted the venerated 
 name of St. Bernard as authority. Meanwhile informa- 
 tion of the opinions of Wycliffe and his bold advocacy 
 of them reached the Papal Court at Avignon. Gregory 
 XI. dispatched three bulls to Canterbury. The Pope 
 demanded that his opinions should be examined, and if 
 erroneous, that he should be imprisoned or cited to 
 appear before him (the Pope) at Avignon. His man- 
 dates were coldly received. The opinions at first that 
 were censured as wrong, entirely related to the ecclesi- 
 astical power. His creed was not as yet charged with 
 heresy. 
 
 A second trial came. He is not now attended by 
 the nobles, but by the common people. They forced 
 their way into the chapel, and by violent menaces and 
 gestures, alarmed the prelates. In the midst of this 
 tumult a nobleman entered, and in the name of the 
 Princess of Wales, now at the head of the administra- 
 tion, forbade further proceedings. 
 
 Wycliffe drew up replies to some of the charges re- 
 lating to political disputes between the ecclesiastics and
 
 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 257 
 
 the State. He boldly declared that church property 
 was not inalienable if not applied to a proper use. It 
 may be forfeited, and under certain circumstances the 
 temporal power can enforce the forfeiture. He taught 
 that the spiritual power of excommunication and abso- 
 lution depend for their validity on strict conformity to 
 the law of God. Wycliffe declares himself a sincere 
 churchman, and by no means denies the jurisdiction of 
 the Church. His opinions have been formed from 
 Holy Scripture,* and he is ready to defend them to the 
 death. 
 
 The death of Gregory XI. stops for a time the 
 prosecution of Wycliffe. A schism follows in the 
 Papacy. Wycliffe became more and more the antag- 
 onist of the hierarchy. The lower clergy reverenced 
 him. Oxford did not repudiate him. He organizes 
 an order, who travel through the land, preaching some* 
 times in the churches and sometimes in the highways 
 and market-places. These itinerant teachers supplanted 
 the mendicant orders in popularity, who had now 
 fallen from their high estate. The gross c orruption of 
 the begging friars in the days of Wcycliffe drew him 
 into a controversy with them. In their early history 
 these Friars had been estimable and devout. They 
 had sunk at this time into the worst repute. The itin- 
 erants sent out by Wycliffe, with the English Bible in 
 their hands, presented the foundation truths of the 
 New Testament with such power, that the depths of 
 the soul were stirred and thrilled. Many of these 
 hearers had had only the symbolic teaching of the rit- 
 ual. Others were without any instruction. 
 
 * And the teachings of holy doctors.
 
 258 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 But under the preaching of Wycliffe and his follow- 
 ers "the dry bones of unbelief and ignorance" were 
 breathed upon by the Spirit of God, as in the days of 
 the prophets. He sent out the portions of the English 
 version to the people as he finished them. It was the 
 bitter complaint of one of Wycliffe's adversaries that 
 laymen and women who could read were better ac- 
 quainted with the Scriptures than some of the lettered 
 clergy. 
 
 As Wycliffe advanced Jn his studies he began to 
 question not only the power of the Pope, but some of 
 the doctrines of the Church. He now rejects unequiv- 
 ocally the materialism of transubstantiation. The 
 Eucharist, he declares, is Christ's body and blood, 
 spiritually, sacramentally ; but the bread and wine are 
 not changed. They co-exist in the mind of the be- 
 liever. Wycliffe was summoned to appear at Grey 
 Friars before Courtenay. The meek and moderate 
 Sudbury, the predecessor of Courtenay, had been mur- 
 dered by a mob. This synod was called together to 
 examine for the third time into the doctrines of the 
 great preacher. This assembly cunningly tried to 
 prove Wycliffe an enemy to temporal as well as eccle- 
 siastical authority. Unfortunately about the time of 
 this trial there was some insurrection and disturbances, 
 which had not any connection with the teaching of 
 Wycliffe's disciples. These troubles evidently arose 
 from excessive taxation. 
 
 The famous seditions of Wat Tyler, Jack Straw 
 
 NOTE. The jCouncil at Constance condemned the books of Wy- 
 cliffe to be burned. His bones were dug up after his honored remains 
 had laid under the choir at Lutterworth forty-eight years. His ashes 
 were thrown into the nearest river. GEIKE.
 
 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 259 
 
 and others occurred about this time. The wars of 
 Edward III., and the minority of Richard II., caused 
 much pecuniary pressure and financial disturbance. 
 The wily enemies of Wycliffe tried to connect the new 
 doctrines with the disturbed state of the country, 
 which was obviously the result of odious and unwise 
 taxation. Twenty-four articles of Wycliffe were ar- 
 raigned ; ten were condemned. Among these was the 
 denial of transubstantiation. An act was passed by 
 the lords and promulgated by the king, that all the 
 preachers of Wycliffe, as his disciples were called, 
 should be imprisoned, that they might answer in the 
 bishop's court. This was the first statute of heresy 
 ever passed in the realm of England. It is well known 
 that the opinions of all reformers are liable to exagger- 
 ation. The grand courage of Wycliffe enabled him to 
 sustain the odium, strengthened as he was by the sublime 
 desire of enlightening and converting the souls of his 
 fellow-men Oxford continued to be the centre of his 
 influence. Scholars crowded around the university 
 pulpit, while the Carmelites, who also preached at Ox- 
 ford were compelled to declaim to empty churches. 
 Wycliffe, when summoned to appear for the last time, 
 declined to appear. No special notice was taken of his 
 contumacy. He may have been suffering from sick- 
 ness. He cast back upon the council of the Grey 
 Friars the calumnious aspersions with which they had 
 assaulted him. * Wycliffe, at his home in Lutterworth, 
 and in the villages around it, was a bold preacher in 
 the vernacular or vulgar tongue, understood by the 
 people ; but at Oxford, before the convocation, his 
 
 * Milman's Christianity.
 
 26<D ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 speech was full of acuteness and subtility and logical 
 versatility ; the most experienced master in the univer- 
 sity. 
 
 The Augustinian monks publicly promulgated his 
 condemnation on the subject of the Eucharist. He 
 was unyielding on this point. When he received his 
 censure he was sitting in the professor's chair. With 
 calm pertinacity he said, " On this point all have erred 
 but * Berengarius. " 
 
 Wycliffe retired unmolested to Lutterworth. There 
 was as yet no statute in England for the burning of 
 heretics. No officer in England would have obeyed 
 the mandate of the church without legal warrant. 
 Wycliffe died in 1384. The austere life of Wycliffe 
 has defied calumny. He was exemplary in his whole 
 conduct, f 
 
 Chaucer's sympathy with Wycliffe is expressed in 
 his praise of the poor parson, who followed Christ's 
 love and his apostles, before he taught it to his flock. . 
 His industry was wonderful. The number of his tracts 
 almost baffles calculation. His translation of the 
 Scriptures, in parts, was a prodigious achievement. 
 His ideal was the restoration of the pure, moral and 
 religious supremacy in religion refusing to separate 
 the weighty matters of the law from the anise and 
 cumin. 
 
 In Wycliffe's translation of the Scriptures is laid 
 
 * Berengarius lived in the eleventh century. He appeared before 
 Hildebrand to be examined on his views. He was not condemned by 
 Gregory VII. In his controversies with Lanjranc he certainly denied 
 transubstantiation ; but it is difficult to arrive at his precise views, as he 
 used ambiguous phrases. 
 
 tThalheimer.
 
 ANNAtS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 26l 
 
 the foundation of Protestantism ; but he built no edi- 
 fice, nor created any new sect, but (like the English 
 reformers in the sixteenth centuy) he brushed away 
 many of the webs of superstition wherein had been 
 hatched dangerous and false doctrines. He sought to 
 wipe out from the minds of his disciples many of the 
 tenets that had made a lodgment in the church in dark, 
 medieval times, such as pardons, pilgrimages, indul- 
 gences, absolutions, excommunications. 
 
 "Teutonic Christianity," says Milman, "waited 
 more than two centuries for a finished creed, such as the 
 thirty-nine articles of the Church of England, or the 
 Augsburg Confession. His doctrines (Wycliffe's), 
 drawn from the fountain of truth, sank into the hearts 
 of multitudes. They spread into Bohemia and kindled 
 fires of martyrdom. Wycliffe's personal influence had 
 affected the most distinguished personages of the land. 
 John of Gaunt, and the widow of the Black Prince, 
 and especially Anne, of Bohemia, the wife of Richard 
 II., were his disciples and friends. This Bohemian 
 princess was called the good Queen Anne, and seems 
 to have been truly religious. She had the gospels in 
 Bohemian, English and Latin. It was through the at- 
 tendants of the Queen that an intimate religious con- 
 nection grew up between Bohemia and England. 
 Wycliffe was the morning star of the reformation for 
 Bohemia as well as England. 
 
 Many knights of property became disciples of 
 Wycliffe. Sir John Oldcastle, Lord Cobham, was their 
 head. His whole soul was devoted to religion. His 
 enemies accuse him of treasonable designs against the 
 government. Henry IV., in order to strengthen his 
 usurped power, became subservient to the hierarchy.
 
 262 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF ClTRIST. 
 
 The king and parliament now, for the first time in 
 England, enacted a statute for the burning of heretics. 
 About thirty years after the death of Wycliffe Lord 
 Cobham was put to death, on the double charge of 
 treason and heresy. He published a confession of his 
 belief, calm, guarded and conciliatory ; but his enemies 
 were determined to crush him. Insurrections of the 
 lower classes of the people who loved Richard II. gave 
 color to the false charge of Cobham's enemies. "To 
 you as my king," addressing Henry IV., " I owe under 
 God my obedience ; but to the Pope of Rome, I owe 
 neither suit or service. " He said to the Primate and 
 other bishops, "Many have been my sins. I have 
 broken in times past God's commandments ; but for 
 these transgressions you have never rebuked me ; but 
 for neglecting your traditions and your laws I and others 
 are thus cruelly treated." When told to confess his 
 sins, he knelt with deep devotion on the stone pave- 
 ment, saying: "I shrive me to thee, Almighty God, 
 through the Lord Jesus, who alone can give me for- 
 giveness." He addressed the multitudes who sur- 
 rounded his funeral pile, begging them to obey the 
 Scriptures, and reject all evil in their lives. His last 
 words were ascriptions of praise, but they became in- 
 audible from the crackling thorns. ' 
 
 The persecution of this noble man was probably 
 attributable more to his political than to his religious 
 faith. He was opposed to the Lancastrians.* Some 
 wild schemes may have been formed by some of the 
 Lollards, as the disciples of Wycliffe were called, but 
 Cobham was probably ignorant and innocent of any 
 
 ll'-nry IV. was a Lancastrian.
 
 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 263 
 
 treasonable designs. The fears of the government were 
 evidently much aroused. It was reported that the dis- 
 affected in the realm desired to make Cobham regent of 
 the realm. It is still a question for what cause these 
 fears were grounded. 
 
 Before Henry V. came to the throne, two 01 three 
 humble men were burned for their heretical opinions. 
 The prince rode around the pile, prepared for the mar- 
 tyrs, begging them to recant. He was in great distress 
 to see the holocaust, but had not the courage to forbid 
 the sacrifice. When he became king he enterd into 
 close alliance with the most powerful of the church 
 that he might get subsidies to carry on war with 
 France.
 
 264 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 CHAPTER XXVIII. 
 
 In the beginning of the fifteenth century (1400), the 
 Latin Church had two pontiffs, Boniface IX., resident 
 at Rome, and Benedict XIII., at Avignon. On the 
 death of Boniface, the cardinals of his party elected 
 (1404) Innocent VII.; he soon died. His place was 
 filled by Gregory XII. 
 
 Both of these popes promised, under oath, that they 
 would resign the pontificate whenever the interests of 
 the Church seemed to require it ; but they violated 
 their promise. Benedict, when beseiged by the king of 
 France at Avignon, fled to Catalonia. A council of 
 nine cardinals met at Pisa, in order to put an end to 
 the protracted schism in the papacy. This council de- 
 clared both Benedict and Gregory unworthy of their 
 position ; they then excommunicated them, and ap- 
 pointed a new pope, who assumed the name of Alex- 
 ander V.; he died in 1410. John XXIII. was appointed 
 in his place by sixteen cardinals. This man proved to 
 be destitute of moral principle and piety. 
 
 Sigismund, emperor of Germany, the king of 
 France and other princes of Europe, seeing the vast 
 evils incident to the distracted condition both in Church 
 and State, resolved upon a general council. This coun- 
 cil met at Constance. Sigismund, with many princes 
 of Germany, was present. The principal object of this 
 great council was to extinguish the discord among the 
 pontiffs. This point was accomplished. John XX1I1. 
 was removed, on account of criminal offenses. Gregory
 
 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 265 
 
 XII. resigned, and Benedict in 1417 was deprived of 
 his office by a solemn decree of this council. He con- 
 tinued to claim his apostolical rights until his death, but 
 he was disregarded. 
 
 Martin V. became sole pontiff in 1417, by the unani- 
 mous suffrages of the cardinals. Sigismund, the emperor 
 of Germany, stood higher than any successor of Charle- 
 magne since the days of the Othos, the Fredericks, or 
 Rudolph of Hapsburg. 
 
 The crowned heads, together with the contestants 
 for the Tiara, did not create in that famous assembly at 
 Constance so much excitement and interest as did the 
 presence of John Huss. He was escorted by three 
 nobles of his country, with a great troop of other 
 followers. Huss had a special safe-conduct from Sigis- 
 mund for his safe arrival and departure from Constance. 
 He was a pale, thin man, in mean attire. One of the 
 professed objects of this council was the reformation of 
 the Church, not only in its head but in its members. 
 This wise council deemed that one mode of purgation 
 from the many vices and corruptions that stained the 
 purity of the Church, would be to extirpate heretical 
 doctrines. John Huss was summoned to appear at this 
 dignified council as a heresiarch. 
 
 The opinions of Wycliffe had been received in the 
 Sclavonic country of Bohemia with eager zeal ; scholars 
 from Bohemia had sat at the feet of the bold professor 
 of theology at Oxford. Prague, the capital of Bohe- 
 mia, had received and disseminated Wycliffe's writings. 
 The kings of this country, even before the time of the 
 English reformer, had not discouraged their preachers 
 in inveighing against the vices of the Roman court and 
 the many abuses that had become so rife in the Church
 
 266 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 at this period. The schism in the papacy, the residence 
 of the popes at Avignon, controlled as most of them 
 were by the kings of France, had shaken the awe of the 
 hierarchy to its very base. The popes that had been 
 set aside by the Pisan council still claimed power; John 
 was dispised for his immoralities. 
 
 John Huss was a preacher in the University chapel 
 at Prague and the confessor of Queen Sophia. He was 
 learned and eloquent; he was a man of severe morals, 
 but gentle, friendly and accessible to all. He had come 
 to Constance to be judged, far removed from his home, 
 but surrounded by friends who appreciated his great 
 worth. It is said that John Huss examined with great 
 deliberation the works of Wycliffe, but his doctrine 
 worked by slow degrees into his mind. His preaching 
 at first was not doctrinal, but directed chiefly against 
 the vices of the time. The clergy at first admired his 
 eloquence, but when he began to point out the abuses 
 of the Church, condemning the luxury and immorality 
 that prevailed, the clergy became his persecutors. 
 
 Huss was protected by the court, but, alas ! the 
 friendship of the king of Bohemia, with the nobles, 
 availed him little at the council of Constance. Though 
 half of Bohemia espoused his doctrines, he was burned 
 at the stake in a strange city. 
 
 Gerson, chancellor of the University of Paris, was 
 at the council of Constance. He tried hard to reform 
 the abuses of the Church. He reasoned powerfully 
 against the infallibility of the pope. " Who has made," 
 he inquires, " the pope a saint ? Not the Holy Ghost, 
 for high station can not bring the influence of the Holy 
 Ghost, but the grace of God." Under the influence of Ger- 
 son, the council declared their decisions above the pope.
 
 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 26/ 
 
 The Nominalists and Realists were furious in their 
 controversies about this time. Mosheim supposes 
 that Huss, a Realist, was a martyr to the violence of 
 the Nominalists, who were most numerous at the coun- 
 cil of Constance. Milman says, he was a martyr to the 
 hierarchy. He held all the great truths of Christianity ; 
 also some tenets that were afterwards rejected by 
 English and German Reformers. 
 
 Jerome of Prague, his devoted disciple, also suffered 
 death. Huss had implored Jerome not to come to 
 the council, fearing that his fortitude might yield. 
 Jerome, though not as bold as his master, was devout 
 and sincere, and at the last was unflinching, as the 
 faggots blazed around him. 
 
 The Bohemian reformers were very strenuous with 
 regard to the denial of the cup to the laity. They 
 insisted upon their right to receive it, as our Lord 
 had first administered it. Both symbols were equally 
 precious to them. 
 
 The death of Robert Hallam, bishop of Salisbury, 
 England, in 1416, was a great blow to the liberal party. 
 At the council of Constance he had been the right arm 
 of the emperor, and was the most influential man who 
 had opposed death as the penalty of heresy. The proud, 
 luxurious hierarchy knew that truth and sound argument 
 were on the side of John Huss. This celebrated man 
 was perhaps too dogmatical in his dialectics. The 
 council of Constance threatened to shake the papal 
 supremacy, but in the election of Martin V. the papacy 
 was strengthened for a short time, as Martin was a man 
 of dignity and ability. 
 
 In the next century Italy became a battle-ground 
 for the world, and the Italian wars seemed to quench in
 
 268 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 every part the spirit of religion. Then the popes sunk 
 to the same level they had occupied when Boniface 
 VIII. and others like him had disgraced the tiara. 
 Alexander VI. has been called the Nero of the pontiffs. 
 His name was Roderick Borgia. This shameless man 
 had four illegitimate children, Caesar Borgia being one 
 of them so famous for his vices. Lucretia Borgia was 
 his daughter. Alexander VI. died in 1503. He died 
 of poison which had been prepared for others.* 
 
 While this wicked man ruled at Rome, the noble 
 preacher Savonarola declaimed at Florence with all the 
 zeal and eloquence of a Christian orator against the sin 
 and corruption of the time. As in the time of the 
 prophets of old, he was one of the seven thousand who 
 had not bowed the knee to Baal. Savonarola sum- 
 moned the princes of Europe to convene a council and 
 depose the wicked pope. Alexander replied in excom- 
 municating the good and great Florentine. Savonarola 
 denounced, too, the family of the Medici, who, though 
 lovers of art and magnificence, had robbed the city of 
 Florence of her political rights, while they adorned 
 her with the statues of men who had loved religion and 
 liberty. 
 
 * NOTE ON THE DEATH OF ALEXANDER VI. "This pope was 
 doomed to perish by his own wicked devices. It is said, that in his ap- 
 pointment of his forty-three cardinals, the majority gained their dignity 
 by paying to the pope enormous sums of gold. When these cardinals 
 had again become rich, through their employments in the Church, 
 they were poisoned, that the papal coffers might again be filled by the 
 confiscation of their estates. A similar fate was reserved for the car- 
 dinal of Caneto, who was invited with Caesar Borgia to the Belvedere, a 
 favorite retreat of the pope near the Vatican. A servant was instructed 
 to serve the guest with poisoned wine. By mistake the bottles were in- 
 terchanged and \\iepope partook of the fatal drug." THALHEIMER.
 
 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 269 
 
 This remarkable man, Savonarola, attacked vice and 
 infidelity with great freedom in the pulpit ; he probed 
 the corrupt ulcers of the Church and of the State with 
 an unsparing hand. Though a devout Catholic, he 
 denied the infallibility of the pope, and was filled with 
 horror at the baseness of Alexander VI. When Savon- 
 arola was commanded by this unscrupulous pope to 
 come to Rome, and to quit preaching, he deemed it his 
 duty to disregard these mandates. 
 
 Savonarola w r as a child of Italy ; he was warm and 
 passionate. This temperament led him to think that 
 he saw visions, and that his dreams sometimes were 
 revelations from God. He was holy and spiritual, and 
 possessed a marvellous gift of .oratory which he used to 
 elevate and purify his fellow-men. 
 
 Savonarola's influence in the cities of Italy, especi- 
 ally in Florence, was for a long time very great. His 
 crafty enemies, encouraged by the pope, seized him 
 by force, put him to the rack to extort confessions, 
 and finally burned his body, throwing his ashes into 
 the sea. 
 
 Savonarola denounced the immoral amusements of 
 the Florentines ; their lascivious dances, and their 
 demoralizing theatrical representations. This opposition 
 to their guilty pleasures called down cruel violence 
 upon the devoted head of Savonarola. A biographer 
 of Dante has said, in speaking of the persecutions and 
 exile of the great Florentine patriot and poet, that all 
 who have striven to elevate their race, have been forced 
 to wear "a crown of thorns." This seems to have 
 been especially true for many centuries in the history 
 of Italy; but now, in her national unity, for which 
 patriots so long sighed in vain, there seems to be
 
 2/O ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 a ground of hope for more enlightened liberty and 
 purer religion. We must, however, retrace our steps. 
 Though the council of Constance asserted the right 
 of a council to impose restrictions on the papacy, it 
 remained a barren, abstract proposition. This right of 
 councils to reform the Church and restrict the papal 
 power, was asserted again at the council of Basle. It 
 was futile.
 
 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 2/1 
 
 CHAPTER XXIX. 
 
 ROME RIENZI BOHEMIA. 
 
 Martin V.* after his election to the papacy at the 
 Council of Constance, feared for a time to return to 
 Rome. The state of the Eternal City was deplorable. 
 An inundation of the Tiber had added to the wretched- 
 ness of the people, growing out of anarchy and con- 
 fusion. A new power had now arisen in Italy. The 
 captains of the free companies, as these lawless mili- 
 tary men were called, had possessed themselves of a 
 great part of the papal dominions. Ludovico Sforza 
 was sent against them, but he was defeated. One of 
 these captains, Braccio Montone, received overtures 
 from Pope Martin, and he agreed to cede to him 
 several cities. 
 
 Rome, during the time that her- bishops or popes 
 lived at Avignon, in France, was the theatre of the 
 wildest excesses and revolutions. For the space of 
 seventy years the popes lived at Avignon, subject to 
 the predominant influence of France, especially during 
 the reign of Philip the Fair. The rival houses of 
 Colonna and Ursini had brought much misery upon all 
 classes of the people in Rome. During this time the 
 famous Cola de Rienzi rose to great power. He was 
 first roused to action by the murder of a beloved 
 brother in a broil growing out of the feuds of the 
 
 * This pope became the sole pontiff in 1417 by" the suffrages of all 
 the cardinals.
 
 2/2 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 nobles. His course for a time was as brilliant as a 
 meteor, or as a burning comet athwart the sky of 
 Rome. 
 
 Rienzi appeared about the middle of the fourteenth 
 century. He lived at the same time in Italy when the 
 sober, earnest, practical mind of Wycliffe in England, 
 was engaged in translating the Scriptures, and in 
 resolving high questions connected with our eternal 
 state. 
 
 Rienzi was the cotemporary of Petrarch. Petrarch 
 was, in the days of Rienzi's prosperity, his friend and 
 correspondent. He hoped that this brilliant man 
 would bring back the golden days of Roman law and 
 liberty. Alas ! it was a vision that was soon dispelled. 
 There was no solid foundation in the virtue and intelli- 
 gence of her people, upon which a permanent and pure 
 structure could rest. But it was gorgeous and brilliant 
 while it lasted. 
 
 The parents of Rienzi afforded him a liberal educa- 
 tion. His enthusiastic mind perused with great dili- 
 gence the manuscripts and marbles of antiquity. He 
 studied history and eloquence in the pages of Cicero, 
 Livy, Caesar, Seneca. He fondly hoped to be a restorer 
 of Roman liberty. "Like Crescentius and Arnold of 
 Brescia, " says Madame de Stael, "Rienzi has taken 
 memories for hopes." 
 
 We now quote from Gibbon: "Never, perhaps, 
 has the energy and effect of a single mind been 
 more remarkably felt than in the sudden reforma- 
 tion of Rome by the tribune Rienzi. A den of rob- 
 bers was converted to the discipline of a camp or 
 convent. He was patient to hear, swift to .redress, 
 inexorable to punish ; his tribunal was always accessible
 
 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 2/3 
 
 to the poor, and to the stranger ; nor could birth or 
 dignity, or the immunities of the Church, protect the 
 offender or his accomplices. The privileged houses, 
 the private sanctuaries in Rome on which no officer of 
 justice would presume to trespass, were abolished ; and 
 Rienzi applied the timber and iron of their barricades 
 to the fortifications of the capitol." 
 
 When an embassy was sent to the Papal court at 
 Avignon, Rienzi was selected as one of the thirteen 
 deputies of the Commons to recommend their cause 
 by his spirit and eloquence. He had the honor of 
 haranguing Clement VI., and the satisfaction of con- 
 versing with Petrarch, a congenial mind. He was 
 then poor, but the employment of an apostolic 
 notary gave him five florins of gold ; this daily stipend 
 enabled him to appear more respectably, for it is 
 said, when he entered Avignon he had but a single 
 garment. His persuasive eloquence commended him 
 to all. 
 
 Rienzi attributed, in a great degree, the evils that 
 preyed upon the vitals of Rome, to the absence of 
 the chief shepherd. His oratory was constantly used 
 to persuade the pope to leave the banks of the Rhone 
 and return to Rome. The religion of Rienzi was 
 deeply tinctured with the superstition of the times ; but 
 he applied, without fear of sacrilege, the revenues of 
 the apostolic chamber, to widows and orphans, and to 
 indigent convents. After unparalleled success, in re- 
 storing order and law in Rome, he became the chief 
 actor in the most extravagant theatrical pageants and 
 he who had conferred so many blessings on his city 
 became the victim of personal vanity, and of reckless 
 extravagance in living. He grieved and disgusted his
 
 2/4 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 warmest admirers by his presumption, and yet more by 
 the jealousy and hatred of the nobles. He abdicated 
 his high place, retiring from Rome and spending seven 
 years in exile. It must have been to him a grievous 
 banishment. Again he was recalled. His reception was 
 brilliant ; but, after an administration of four months, he 
 was killed in a tumult. In his last contest with 
 the mob, feelings of reverence and compassion still 
 struggled in his favor, but the dagger of a bold assassin 
 was plunged in his breast ; he fell senseless with the 
 first stroke. 
 
 Had this gifted man been true to himself, his 
 career would be beautiful to contemplate. It is said 
 that he disfigured his handsome countenance in his 
 later days by intemperate drinking he did not remain 
 master of himself. His failings and virtues have often 
 been contrasted, and in periods of anarchy and servi- 
 tude the name of Rienzi has been a watchword ; and 
 he has been claimed as the deliverer of his country 
 and "the last of the Roman tribunes." The most 
 exalted virtue, alas ! can not always turn aside the 
 dagger or the pistol of a fanatical assassin in times 
 of revolution. 
 
 We must now return to the acts of the Council of 
 Constance. Bohemia seemed to rise with' one impulse 
 of grief and indignation when she heard of the martyr- 
 dom of Huss, followed by that of Jerome of Prague. 
 Her king, Wenzel denounced the treachery of Sigis- 
 mund the emperor, and the barbarous injustice of the 
 Council of Constance. As the Council closed, the 
 Hussite War commenced. It lasted during the whole 
 pontificate of Martin V. This pope seems to have 
 been so busy with the regulation of affairs at Rome, as
 
 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 2/5 
 
 to give no heed to the misery of Bohemia. Rome rose 
 from her ruins under his diligent administration as from 
 a master's hand. It became populous and prosperous, 
 and was again the capital of the Christian world. 
 "Safe in Rome, Martin heard at a distance the roll 
 of Ziska's chariots, the shrieks of cities stormed, 
 the wail of armies mowed down by the scythe." This 
 Bohemian war was still ragin^ when the Pope Martin 
 closed -his earthly career, and opened a way for 
 Eugenius IV. 
 
 While King Wenzel lived, the Hussite War was re- 
 strained in its fierceness, but at his death, Sigismund 
 was the next heir to the throne. To receive this 
 traitor as their king was more than Bohemia would 
 bear the torch of sedition had first been kindled in 
 consequence of the betrayal by Sigismund of the safe- 
 conduct of Huss. A wronged people now called the 
 wonderful military talents of Procopius and Ziska to 
 their aid. The emperor tried to awe the people into 
 obedience. No war was ever more remorselessly cruel 
 than this war Sigismund burned without scruple all 
 heretics who fell into his hands. The reprisals of the 
 Bohemians were terrible, the voice of religion was no 
 longer heard ; it was political and national indignation 
 lashed to fury by injustice and cruelty. 
 
 This dreadful strife commenced in an honest differ- 
 ence of religious opinions, together with a desire to 
 repress or lessen the power of the hierarchy. The 
 pope's legate now published a bull for a crusade against 
 Bohemia. The famous Ziska had become almost irre- 
 sistible ; he had produced a panic among the Germans, 
 and revenged upon them the unspeakable barbarities 
 practiced on his countrymen. When, in the third year
 
 2/6 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 of the war, Sigismund entered Moravia at the head of 
 Hungarian forces they, too, fled from the war chariots 
 of Ziska. 
 
 The Council of Basle, 1433, attempted to put an 
 end to this war in Bohemia. Envoys from that country 
 appeared at Basle. But little was accomplished, until 
 Eneas Sylvius went into Bohemia ; he was sent by the 
 council, and he managed matters with some success. 
 The four articles that the Bohemians specially desired 
 were granted : The Eucharist must be given to the 
 clergy and laity in both kinds ; the clergy must not 
 possess temporal power ; the Word of God should be 
 free to all ; public crimes must be punished. 
 
 We have merely alluded to the residence of the 
 popes at Avignon. Five popes, from Clement V. to 
 Gregory XL, made their residence on the Rhone at 
 Avignon, from the years 1308 to 1376. This period of 
 seventy years the Italians called the Babylonian captiv- 
 ity. The residence of the pontiffs at Avignon tended 
 greatly to weaken the authority of the Romish see. 
 Gregory XI. in the year 1376 transferred his residence 
 from Avignon to Rome. 
 
 This residence at Avignon must not be confounded 
 with the great schism of the West, which lasted fifty 
 years, and took place shortly after the death of Greg- 
 ory XI. The cardinals hastened to elect a successor 
 to Gregory, fearing that a Frenchman might be elected. 
 The Roman people demanded that an Italian should be 
 placed at the head of the Church. The cardinals, ter- 
 rified by the Roman clamor, elected hastily a pontiff 
 under the name of Urban VI. This pontiff soon alien- 
 ated the minds of the cardinals by his coarse and 
 haughty conduct. The cardinals withdrew to the king-
 
 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 2/7 
 
 dom of Naples, and there appointed another head, who 
 took the name of Clement VII. Urban lived at Rome, 
 while Clement removed to Avignon. From 1378 to 
 1418 one of the rival popes lived at Avignon. 
 
 In this way the unity of the Latin Church was 
 destroyed for a time, as existing under one head. This 
 disunion continued for fifty years, and is called the 
 great schism of the West. France, Spain, Scotland, 
 Sicily, Cyprus, espoused the cause of Clement; while 
 England, with other countries, thought Urban was the 
 true pope. 
 
 This schism, as we have already said, was healed at 
 the Council of Constance ; it was there determined that 
 a pontiff is subject to a council of the whole Church. 
 Eugenius IV. succeeded Martin V. 
 
 A council at Basle was held soon after his accession. 
 The two objects of this assembly were, first, an union 
 between the Greeks and Latins, and secondly, a reform- 
 ation of. the Church, both in its head and members. 
 Though all the serious minded of the Church had 
 grieved over the general corruption, both in doctrine 
 and practice, nothing was done towards its reforma- 
 tion. Eugenius the pontiff fearing that the reformers 
 in the council (of Basle) would do some earnest work, 
 threatened to dissolve it. 
 
 The Greek emperor, John Paleologus, came to this 
 council, together with the patriarch and the principal 
 bishops of Constantinople, hoping to form an union 
 with the Latin Church. The Greeks were now reduced 
 to great extremities with the Turks, and anxiously 
 sought to be reconciled to the pope, hoping in this way 
 to gain succor and sympathy from the Latins. Bessar- 
 ion, a learned man among the Greeks, exerted his
 
 2/8 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 influence to induce the other Greeks to consent to 
 acknowledge that the Holy Spirit did proceed from the 
 Son, and that departed souls undergo purgation by fire 
 before they can have a vision of God. Some of the 
 Greeks yielded, and a peace was extorted, but it was 
 not permanent. Bessarion was made a cardinal, in 
 consequence of his concessions. 
 
 Eugenius IV. by his conduct at the council disaf- 
 fected the fathers at Basle, and they threatened to 
 deprive him of the pontificate. They, in 1439, elected 
 a new pontiff, who lived in retirement on Lake Leman. 
 He assumed the name of Felix V. This schism was of 
 short duration, as Eugenius died in 1447. Felix two 
 years after resigned his supremacy. 
 
 By the efforts of the kings and princes of Europe, 
 especially of the king of France, tranquillity was once 
 more restored to the Church. Nicholas V. was now 
 made pope, a man of learning and moderation, and a 
 preat patron of literature. His election to .the pope- 
 dom took place before the abdication of Felix. Nicho- 
 las was assisted in literary work by means of the 
 Greeks who came from Constantinople. . Nicholas died 
 on the 24th of March, 1455, principally from grief at 
 the capture of Constantinople by the Turks. 
 
 Calixtus III., his successor, was chiefly remarkable 
 in urging Christian princes to fight against the 
 Turks. 
 
 Eneas Sylvius Peccolemini, bishop of Sienna, was 
 made pope in 1458. He took the name of Pius II. He 
 was a man renowned for his writings and other achieve- 
 ments. Posterity would have accounted him a much 
 greater man, if he had not been guilty of the inconsis- 
 tency of defending the rights of councils against the
 
 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 2/9 
 
 pontiffs when he was Eneas Sylvius, and, after he 
 was made pope, denying that a council is superior to a 
 pontiff. In 1461 he obtained from Louis XL, king of 
 France, the abrogation of the Pragmatic Sanction, 
 which had been passed by the good Louis IX. in 
 behalf of liberty.
 
 28O ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 CHAPTER XXX. 
 
 In the early part of the fifteenth century Chris- 
 tianity suffered much from the inroads of the Turks 
 and Tartars, until the final overthrow of the Greek 
 Empire in 1455 by the taking of Constantinople. In 
 Asiatic Tartary, among the Mongols and adjacent 
 nations, the ground which had been so long occupied 
 by the religion of Christ had become the seat of gross 
 superstition. Mosheim says that as late as the begin- 
 ning of the fifteenth century the Nestorian patriarch 
 sent certain men to Cathay and China to preside as 
 bishops in the churches existing in those countries and 
 their remote provinces. Nestorian Christian light still 
 glimmered amid surrounding darkness. Nestorianism 
 is still found, in the nineteenth century, in Armenia, 
 and will doubtless increase and shine when brought 
 more in contact with the enlightening influences of the 
 present age. 
 
 To return, one part of Constantinople was taken by 
 storm, the other part surrendered on terms of capitu- 
 lation. The outward form of the Christian Church was 
 left untouched until the time of Selim I. He deprived 
 them of their temples and interfered with their worship 
 and Christian usages. The grand church of St. Sophia 
 was converted into a Mahometan mosque. The tyranny 
 of the Turks almost silenced for a time the Grecian and 
 Oriental muses. But the loss of the East was the gain 
 of the West. Many scholars found a home in Italy, 
 which greatly contributed to the Renaissance, in stirring
 
 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 28 1 
 
 up the minds of Dante, Petrarch, and others, and in 
 recovering from the dust of ages Greek and Latin 
 books of the Augustan age. 
 
 Two schools of philosophy Aristotelian and 
 Platonic contended with each other which of the 
 two should have the preeminence. This controversy 
 was probably of little advantage to the school of Christ. 
 It was not in Italy that the wave of the Reformation 
 was lifted, notwithstanding the noble struggles of Sa- 
 vonarola to purify the current of ecclesiastical affairs. 
 The Scholastics, who were the disciples of the loved 
 and learned Thomas Aquinas, Duns Scotus, and others, 
 had long been losing ground, because their disquisitions 
 and essays were loaded with dialectics and with terms 
 unmeaning to the people, instead of demonstrating the 
 plain declarations of the sacred volume. As the Scho- 
 lastics declined in popularity, the Mystics gained 
 strength. There were many differences of opinion 
 among the Mystics. One characteristic seems to have 
 been to ascribe little efficacy to the external rites of 
 religion. Religion, the Mystic said, consisted chiefly in 
 the contemplation of God ; and at the same time they 
 attempted to reason about the Trinity and of the soul 
 of man with a subtlety that the capacity of that age 
 could not comprehend. Among the Mystics there 
 were excellent men ; Thomas a Kempis is a shining 
 example of these. The author of the treatise, on the 
 Imitation of Christ was born in the diocese of Cologne. 
 He assumed the habit of a monk in 1406. He lived to 
 the age of ninety-two. 
 
 We doubt not that among the Fratricelli there were 
 some true Christians. These people were Franciscan 
 monks, who insisted upon observing strictly the rules
 
 282 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 of their order. They were sometimes found in opposi- 
 tion to the pontiffs, and were persecuted as heretics. 
 One of these, Celestine V., was made Pope, but he 
 soon resigned the papal chair. 
 
 John Wesselius was a contemporary of Savonarola, 
 but of another clime and country. When Martin 
 Luther read the works of Wesselius, he said : " Had I 
 previously read these books, it might have been said 
 that Luther derived all his views from Wesselius, so 
 perfectly accordant are they in spirit. This increases 
 my joy and confidence in the correctness of my own 
 opinions, since with such uniform agreement, nearly in 
 the same words, though at a different period, and in 
 another country, he harmonizes with me throughout." 
 
 Thus, we see, all down the ages, amid darkness that 
 could be felt and shadows that obscured the sacred 
 page, there were witnesses for Christ that lived, suffered 
 and died for Him. Though the wise and good saw the 
 necessity of diminishing ceremonies and festal days, 
 some in the fifteenth century desired to add to them. 
 Sixtus IV. ordered the festival of the Transfiguration of 
 Christ. He also promised remission of sins to all who 
 would keep, from year to year, the memorial of the 
 immaculate conception of the Blessed Virgin. 
 
 Of all the religious fraternities that were prominent 
 in the fifteenth century, none was more distinguished 
 than "the Brethren or Clerks of the Common Life," 
 under the rule of St. Augustine. In these schools 
 were trained nearly all the restorers of polite learning 
 in Germany and in Holland. 
 
 Erasmus of Rotterdam was trained in one of these 
 schools he who was so celebrated as a teacher of 
 Greek in Oxford, England.
 
 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 283 
 
 While the Turks were darkening counsel and exer- 
 cising dreadful tyrannies on the eastern side of Europe, 
 a people of the same religion, but of a different race, 
 lived harmoniously in the southwest of Europe we 
 mean the Spanish Arabs. They were called Saracens 
 as the followers of Mahomet, but in Spain they were 
 called Moors (afterwards Moriscoes). This people 
 came into Spain in the beginning of the eighth century, 
 while all the states of Europe were in a condition of 
 unrest or disintegration. It was nearly three centuries 
 before the Norman conquest (1066). It was long before 
 Rome acquired temporal power. 
 
 The Latin and Greek Churches were, at that time, 
 in the midst of the iconoclastic controversy. The 
 Lombards had entered Italy. The Danes and the 
 Normans were intruding on the courts of England and 
 France. 
 
 It was the grandfather of Charlemagne, Charles 
 Martel, who, by his great victory at Tours, France, 
 drove back the first Moslem army that threatened to 
 overrun Christian Europe. It was about one hundred 
 years after the death of Mahomet that a dynasty allied 
 to or descended from Mahomet, called the Abassides, 
 took up their residence in Andalusia, the most fertile 
 and beautiful portion of Spain. They gained this 
 country by overcoming in battle Roderic, the last of 
 the Goths. Here they lived for nearly eight centuries. 
 
 After the memorable defeat at Tours, the energies 
 of the Spanish Arabs were no longer expended in the 
 career of conquest. They became the most literary 
 people in Europe. After the conquest, such of the 
 Christians as chose were permitted to remain in the
 
 284 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 conquered territory. They were permitted to worship 
 in their own way.* 
 
 The Spanish caliphs supported a large military 
 force. The flower of these forces was a body-guard of 
 twelve thousand men, one-third of whom were Chris- 
 tians. They made Cordova the capital of their empire. 
 A glowing picture has been drawn by historians of the 
 great progress made by the Saracenic Moors, in knowl- 
 edge and in all the elegant arts of life. 
 
 A period of brilliant illumination with the Saracens 
 corresponds with the deepest barbarism in Europe. 
 Some notion may be formed of the taste and magnifi- 
 cence of this era, from the remains of the far-famed 
 mosque of Cordova. Most of its ancient glories have 
 departed, but its thousand columns of variegated marble 
 still remain. 
 
 The French Pope Sylvester II. is said to have drawn 
 much of his knowledge f from the schools of the 
 Spanish Arabs. The beautiful frescoes still to be seen 
 on the walls of the Alhambra (the palace so beautifully 
 described by Irving) are corroborative of the wonderful 
 excellence of the Saracenic Moors in art. Their fond- 
 ness for luxury and letters was derived, it is said, from 
 their intercourse and correspondence with Bagdad and 
 other cities of the East, after their conquest of Granada. 
 
 The Koran does not contain, says Prescott, a single 
 precept in favor of the cultivation of science. The 
 climate and soil of Spain were eminently propitious to 
 growth and progress. 
 
 * Prescott. 
 
 t it has often been said that the Saracens derived their early learn- 
 ing from Christians in the East.
 
 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 28$ 
 
 Algebra and the higher mathematics were taught in 
 the Saracenic schools of Spain, and in this way were 
 diffused over Europe. Manuscripts of cotton paper as 
 early as 1009 have been found in the Escurial, and in 
 1 106 manuscripts of linen paper. The application of 
 gunpowder to military science was learned through the 
 same channel.* They introduced into Europe a vari- 
 ety of salutary elixirs, but their medical prescriptions 
 were regulated by the aspect of the stars. Their 
 physics was debased by magic, their chemistry degen- 
 erated into alchemy, their astronomy into astrology. 
 They were the subjects of a despotic government, and 
 'the disciples of fatalism. Man appeared to them in 
 the contrasted aspects of master and slave. There was 
 no such precept in Mahomet's Bible as "Do unto 
 others as you would have them do to you." But 
 their sway over their subjects, whether Moslem or 
 Christian, was mild and considerate. 
 
 * Prescott.
 
 286 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXI. 
 
 THE INQUISITION. 
 
 For centuries after the great Saracenic invasion, 
 Spain consisted of small independent states, often at war 
 with each other. This is, doubtless, the reason why 
 the Moors were so long permitted an undisturbed resi- 
 dence in the fairest parts of Spain. About the middle 
 of the ninth century the Spaniards had reached the 
 Douro and the Ebro. In the eleventh century, under 
 the banner of the Cid,* the Spaniards extended their 
 line of conquest to the Tagus. The poem of the Cid, 
 written a century afterwards, is supposed to have en- 
 gendered, or aroused, a patriotic desire to reconquer 
 their country from the Moslem. By the middle of 
 the thirteenth century the dominion of the Moors 
 was restricted to the province of Granada. This little 
 kingdom resisted for a long time the united forces of 
 the Spanish monarchies. 
 
 Ferdinand and Isabella began to reign over the 
 kingdoms of Arragon, Castile and Leon in 1474. His- 
 torians have cast a beautiful halo over the name and 
 character of Isabella, both as a woman and as a queen. 
 We think of her as the sympathizing, intelligent pat- 
 roness who befriended Columbus, who found for us a 
 home in this new world. Yet it was in her reign that 
 one of the greatest abuses of power that ever disgraced 
 
 * The Cid was a famous champion of Christianity in the eleventh 
 century. He has been a great favorite of poets and historians.
 
 AXXALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 287 
 
 humanity, received the royal sanction. We mean the 
 Inquisition; and it is to introduce this monster of 
 iniquity that we have made this digression into Spanish 
 history. 
 
 We do not understand that the tribunal of confes- 
 sion, or the confessional, is necessarily a device to 
 cheat unwary souls ; but, the reader of Church history 
 must discover that, in times of ignorance, and in the 
 hands of fanatical, designing men, the confessional may 
 become a terrible engine of tyranny. This truth is 
 fully exemplified in the life of Isabella. Her earliest 
 confessor was a wicked fanatic, whose name, Torque- 
 mada, became afterwards so famous in his active work 
 in the Inquisition. 
 
 The Jews for centuries had been very numerous in 
 Spain ; they had frequently occupied positions of high 
 trust in the government. They were at this time very 
 rich ; and, in order to evade legislative enactments, 
 which were very severe upon them, some thousands 
 professed conversion to Christianity. The situation of 
 these new converts, after they had intermarried in 
 noble Christian families, suddenly became very insecure. 
 The Dominicans, who were very watchful for heresy, 
 discovered their indifference to Christian rites ; they 
 sounded the alarm, and insisted that "the Holy Office 
 of the Inquisition " should be introduced into Castile. 
 It had existed for a time in southern France, an inquisi- 
 torial office being established there for the punishment 
 of the Albigenses. 
 
 When the cruel scheme was mentioned to Ferdi- 
 nand, he listened with complacency ; but it was not an 
 easy matter to vanquish the repugnance of Isabella to a 
 scheme so .contrary to her natural benevolence and
 
 288 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 magnanimity. This scheme promised an ample source 
 of revenue in the confiscations it involved. We may 
 readily believe in the sincere opposition the queen made 
 to the introduction of the Inquisition, when we remem- 
 ber the controversies she afterwards had with the able 
 Ximenes in regard to his interference with the religion 
 of the Moors. The objections of the queen of Castile 
 at length yielded to the arguments of wicked advocates 
 when she called to mind the injunctions of Torquemada 
 with regard to her duty of extirpating heresy. She 
 probably never knew the horrible details that were con- 
 nected with its practical use. The abuses of it were 
 greater after her death.* 
 
 Llorente, the historian of the Inquisition, computes 
 that during the administration of Torquemada in 
 eighteen years, there were upwards of ten thousand 
 burnt, together with six thousand who were condemned 
 and burnt in effigy ninety-seven thousand reconciled 
 by various penances. 
 
 The persecutions under Torquemada were confined 
 almost wholly to the Jews. "The fires of the Inquisi- 
 tion," says Prescott, "which were lighted for the Jews, 
 were destined eventually to consume their oppressors. 
 They were still more deeply avenged in the moral influence 
 of this tribunal, which, eating like a canker into the 
 heart of the monarchy, at the very time it exhibited 
 such goodly promise, left it, at length, a bare and 
 sapless trunk." 
 
 Sixtus IV. at one time rebuked the intemperate 
 zeal of the inquisitors, but afterwards we find him seek- 
 ing to quiet the scruples of the queen respecting the 
 
 * It is quite certain that Isabella was ignorant of the cruel details. 
 Witness her tenderness and humanity to the Indians.
 
 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 289 
 
 appropriation of the confiscated property; he also ex- 
 horts the monarchs of Castile and Arragon to proceed 
 with the work of purification. 
 
 In the same year that this iniquitous court com- 
 menced its operations, a plague desolated Seville which 
 swept off fifteen thousand of the inhabitants. 
 
 "Let me not fall into the hands of man," says 
 David, when a choice of evils was presented to him. 
 The history of the Inquisition proves that fanaticism, 
 armed with power, is the most dreadful evil that can 
 befall a nation. *The odium excited by Torquemada's 
 cruelty was so great, that he thrice sent an agent to 
 Rome to defend his cause before the infamous pontiff 
 Alexander VI. The sufferings entailed upon those 
 accused of heresy by the Inquisition were terrible, f 
 Many of the accessories of this Satanic ceremony 
 were not used or practiced until after the demise 
 of Isabella. It is the tendency of all evil institutions 
 to grow worse, until the wrath of man, under the 
 mighty power of God, rises in majesty and blots them 
 out forever. 
 
 The influence that first kindled the fires of the 
 Spanish Inquisition, was the mean impulse of greed, or 
 covetousness. The extortion of money from the rich 
 Jews, was the first thought ; but hypocrisy called to 
 her aid fanaticism, a bird of evil omen with fierce 
 talons and hungry beak how unlike the symbol of 
 holy influences, the gentle dove. 
 
 * Prescott. 
 
 t The sentence pronounced by the Inquisitors, just be'fore the exe- 
 cution by burning, was called Auto-da-fe. Except the last act of burn- 
 ing, the proudest grandees of the land sometimes witnessed the dismal 
 tragedy.
 
 2QO ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 We can comprehend how the heathen, in the age of 
 Nero, could fancy that they might be doing God service 
 in their persecution of the primitive Christians, sup- 
 posing, in their deep ignorance, that blood was propiti- 
 atory ; but how one bearing the name of Christ can be 
 a persecutor, presents a problem in human history very 
 difficult to solve. The truth of history declares, how- 
 ever, that the murderous engine called the Inquisition 
 existed nearly three centuries in Christian Spain ; a 
 country that had been free, but in the reigns of Ferdi- 
 nand, Charles V., and especially under Philip II., the 
 government became a grinding despotism. The Inqui- 
 sition was not entirely suppressed until 1808. 
 
 This Holy Office was chiefly in the hands of Domin- 
 icans ; but it is not true, as has been sometimes imputed 
 to him, that St. Dominic was the founder. His char- 
 acter, if there is truth in history, or symmetry in the 
 qualities of the heart and mind, falsifies this idea. 
 
 It is somewhat refreshing to know that even in this 
 age (we mean the latter part of the fifteenth, and in the 
 sixteenth century), there were some consistent and 
 beautiful characters. Among these we can not reckon 
 Isabella's prime minister, Ximenes, because he did not 
 possess charity, which the apostle declares is greater 
 than faith and hope. 
 
 Ximenes was intellectually great ; he was a great 
 statesman, and severely punished every offense against 
 his state ; as a churchman he identified himself with 
 the interests of his religion, and punished delinquents 
 with severity. He freely forgave, it is said, every per- 
 sonal injury ; this is admirable. He built up no family; 
 he dispensed his large revenues on great public objects 
 and upon the poor. His condition in early life was
 
 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 2g\ 
 
 lowly ; he was not ashamed of it. He was not destitute 
 of sensibility, as is evident ffom kind acts to his early 
 humble friends.' He was irreproachable in his morals. 
 This proves his strength of character, and his fear of 
 God, as he lived in a very corrupt time. 
 
 When he entered on the duties of his office as 
 archbishop of Toledo, he devoted his energies to 
 schemes of reform ; in this his royal mistress was also 
 much interested. The clergy had widely departed 
 from the rule of St. Augustine, by which they were 
 bound. Noth\vithstanding much opposition, he effected 
 thorough outward reform. The monasteries, too, were 
 in great need of review and renovation. A great 
 clamor was raised against him, but Ximenes was stead- 
 fast and inexorable in his proceedings to work a reform. 
 The general of the Franciscans came from Rome to 
 Spain to compel him to desist in his inquisitorial pro- 
 ceedings, but, sustained by the queen, he persevered 
 under all opposition. The Spanish clergy had been 
 noted for their dissolute way of life, and the beneficial 
 changes wrought by the example, discipline and teach- 
 ing of Ximenes and the queen, are the subject of great 
 praise with their contemporaries. 
 
 The moral energy and brilliant talents of Ximenes, 
 stimulated as they were by patriotism and religion, 
 entitle him to be considered the leading man in the 
 momentous reign of Ferdinand and Isabella. He was 
 the centre of influence and action, from the high posi- 
 tions of trust he occupied. Several remarkable men 
 belong to this age, some, perhaps, better and nobler 
 than he ; but their position did not permit them to 
 wield at the time so great an influence. The great and 
 good Columbus, as all know, belongs to this era. The
 
 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 venerable and benevolent Las Casas was also a con- 
 temporary. Las Casas demoted his energies to the im- 
 provement of the condition of the Indians in the newly 
 discovered islands, who were most cruelly treated by 
 those Spaniards who were intent on enriching them- 
 selves. This good man, Las Casas, refused a rich bish- 
 opric in Cuzco and afterwards accepted, in Mexico, the 
 bishopric of Chiapa, that he might convert and instruct 
 the heathen. His was a soul of love and gentleness. 
 
 But to return to Ximenes and the policy he pursued 
 in Granada. This country had been admirably governed 
 for eight years after its conquest. Fernando de Tala- 
 vera, a mild and moderate man, had been made bishop 
 of the see of Granada. The conversion of the Moors 
 to Christianity was his great anxiety. He regarded 
 them with tenderness and charity, and with a very 
 different spirit from most of his brethren.* Though 
 late in life, he determined to learn Arabic, that he 
 might commune with the Arabs in their own language. 
 He caused vocabularies, grammars and catechisms to 
 be compiled ; also some selections from the Gospels. 
 He unsealed the sacred oracles which had been shut 
 out from their sight he opened to them the only true 
 source of Christian knowledge, "the ministration of 
 the Word." His wise, benevolent measures and ex- 
 emplary manners gave him great authority among the 
 Moors. His progress was necessarily slow, but it 
 would have been effective, had it not been for the in- 
 terference of zealots, without knowledge, who thought 
 more active measures ought to be pursued. 
 
 Ximenes in 1499 communicated with Talavera upon 
 this subject, and requested leave to participate with 
 
 * Prescott.
 
 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 293 
 
 him in this labor of love. The sovereigns, understand- 
 ing the disposition of Ximenes, enjoined upon him and 
 other prelates to observe the temperate and wise policy 
 hitherto pursued, and to beware of giving the Moors 
 any cause of discontent. 
 
 Ximenes was not of the temper to follow the pacific 
 Christian practice of Talavera. 
 
 Ximenes summoned a conference of leading men, 
 and expounded with all the eloquence and learning at 
 his command the true foundations of the Christian 
 faith, and the errors of Mahometanism. He enforced 
 his arguments by rich and costly presents, consisting 
 chiefly of elegant dresses, of which the Moors were 
 very fond. Whether arguments, or gifts, availed most, 
 is not known ; but many of these learned men soon 
 expressed their willingness to be baptized. They were 
 followed by illiterate disciples, so that, in one day, four 
 thousand are said to have offered themselves for bap- 
 tism. Ximenes, unable to baptize them individually, 
 adopted the expedient of baptizing them by aspersion 
 he scattered the holy water from a mop or hyssop, and 
 threw it upon the heads of the multitude. 
 
 Some opposers soon rose up against the work of 
 Ximenes ; they declared he was violating the treaty 
 made at the conquest. This opposition'seemed to stim- 
 ulate the arbitrary Ximenes, who began to use some 
 violent measures. This led to an insurrection, and 
 the sovereigns to their dismay perceived that the zeal 
 of the propagandist Ximenes would lead to a fearful 
 war. Meanwhile, Ximenes had caused all the Arabic 
 manuscripts he could procure to be heaped together in 
 one of the great squares of the city of Granada, and 
 burned ! The largest part were copies of the" Koran, or
 
 294 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 books of Moslem theology but they were beautifully 
 executed, sumptuously bound and decorated ; for in 
 these things the Spanish Arabs exceeded every people 
 in Europe. He reserved for his University of Alcala, 
 of which he was the founder, three hundred volumes 
 relating to medical science. When Ximenes was after- 
 wards attacked by an enraged populace in his own 
 palace, he was as intrepid in facing danger as he had 
 been remorseless in burning the Arabian libraries. 
 Talavera by his personal influence quieted them for 
 a time 
 
 Many of the people from this time migrated to 
 Barbary, and the remainder of the population abjured 
 Mahometanism and consented to receive baptism. 
 
 The whole blame of the disturbances at Granada 
 were rightly imputed to Ximenes ; but afterwards, 
 when they saw how many converts were made, they 
 declared the triumphs of Ximenes were great.
 
 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 295 
 
 CHAPTER XXXII. 
 
 In the two foregoing chapters we have written some- 
 what of the history of Spain, both in Church and State. 
 We have seen, not only in Spain, but in all the coun- 
 tries of Europe, the great need of reform. Licentious- 
 ness stalked abroad, not only in the persons of the in- 
 ferior clergy, but in those who claimed to be at the 
 head of spiritual affairs. 
 
 A truly interesting era had now arrived. Printing 
 had been introduced in all the countries of Europe. 
 Much of the indifference and immorality among the 
 clergy and people was doubtless due to the ignorance 
 of the New Testament. Not only were the manuscripts 
 of the gospels and epistles rare and expensive, but 
 they were written in languages not generally understood 
 by the people. Wycliffe, as we have said, one hundred 
 and fifty years before this time had sent abroad the 
 Word of God, written in a vulgar tongue, and a few 
 other reformers had 'made efforts of enlightenment in 
 other countries ; but at the dawn of the sixteenth cen- 
 tury most of these translations had died out. But about 
 this time a great revival of learning took place, com- 
 mencing in Italy ; this revival extended to Holland, Ger- 
 many, France and England. Many things marvellous 
 and strange had been revealed a new continent had 
 been discovered ; the Pacific Ocean had been seen by 
 Balboa, from the hills of Panama ; the dusky savages 
 of the Indies, together with other unexpected wonders, 
 led to credulity in the people which induced them to
 
 296 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 receive as truths monstrous fables, recited by designing 
 adventurers. The world was awakened from the sleep 
 of ages. 
 
 . Nicholas V. aspired to make Italy the domicile and 
 Rome the capital of letters and art. His death was 
 hastened by the" taking of Constantinople. In 1458 
 Eneas Sylvius Piccolimini became Pius II. He was a 
 man of consummate ability. Pius II. was the only 
 pope who risked his life in a crusade against the 
 Turks. Nicholas V. built the Vatican. Julius II. and 
 Leo X. did but accomplish, says Milman, that which 
 had dawned upon the mind of Nicholas V. We mean 
 the Cathedral of the Apostle of St. Peter. In Nicholas 
 V. closed one great age of the papacy. 
 
 The revival of learning in Italy seemed to do little 
 for true religion in closely uniting the moral and holy 
 with the ritual. But in England and Germany the re- 
 sults were different. The principal chairs of the universi- 
 ties had been long held by men unfit for these places ; 
 some of these were filled by mendicant monks, others 
 by men who pretended to teach the philosophy of 
 Aristotle. There were a few of them who taught with 
 ability and earnestness the doctrines of the Bible. The 
 little piety that remained at this time, seemed to be 
 with the Mystics. This people tried to demonstrate 
 the vanity of external worship without holiness of 
 heart and life. When Luther arose in the University 
 of Paris to dispute with her learned sons, out of the 
 Scriptures, there was not one competent to discuss 
 with him. 
 
 Under the popes Nicholas V. and Pius II. Italy 
 became the great school of Christendom. Multitudes 
 resorted thither to learn the ancient languages, and
 
 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 297 
 
 buy the manuscripts of the classics. Nicholas V. did 
 not forsee that this great patronage of learning would 
 be a foremost cause of the ruin of medieval religion. 
 The dominion of Latin Christianity was drawing to a 
 close. 
 
 Erasmus in 1498 met at Oxford, in England, 
 some learned men who had studied in Italy. Of 
 Dean Colet he says, "when I hear him it seems that 
 I am listening to Plato himself." At Oxford Erasmus 
 prepared himself to publish the New Testament in 
 Greek, which was of inestimable value in the work of 
 the Reformation. This work appeared at Basle, in 
 1516. The " Colloquies " of Erasmus ridiculed and 
 condemned the superstitions of the day the indulgen- 
 ces ; the lying miracles ; the idolatry of images and 
 saints which prevailed. 
 
 Though Erasmus did so much good work for the 
 Reformation causing the pure stream of Christian 
 truth to flow over the land by the translation of the 
 New Testament, yet it has been said he was half- 
 hearted in the love of Christian truth. Yet Eras- 
 mus said, " I wish that all .men and all women might 
 read the gospels and epistles of St. Paul. I long for 
 the day when the husbandman * shall sing parts of them 
 to himself as he follows the plow, and the weaver shall 
 hum them to the shuttle, and the traveller shall while 
 away the reveries of his journey, with their stories." 
 Erasmus did not relish the heat of controversy, but 
 he diffused so much light over the path of the inquiring 
 Christian, that we do not think his hearty love of 
 
 * We think such sentiments show love and heartiness for the Word 
 of God and for the souls of men. Is not this religion ?
 
 298 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 Christian truth, as understood by the great reformers 
 of the sixteenth century, should be questioned. 
 
 The disciples of the "new learning" on the eve of 
 the Reformation were called "Humanists." Sir Thom- 
 as Moore was one of these. At first tolerant in his 
 opinions, and seeing clearly the necessity of Church 
 reformation, yet, when he read the attacks of Luther 
 on the Church, he was greatly excited ; this man, so 
 much admired in the flower of his days by all parties, 
 became a persecutor. He was made Lord Chancellor 
 after Wolsey's fall, and this was a signal for the fires 
 of Smithfield to be lighted. 
 
 Wolsey, with all his faults, was not a persecutor. 
 " I hear no widows' sighs, nor see any orphans' tears, 
 says Thomas Fuller, "caused by him." Wolsey 
 was a many - sided man ; he loved pageantry, 
 place and preferment ; and in these things no 
 man was ever more largely gratified. Honors fol- 
 lowed one another in rapid succession. He was dean 
 of Lincoln, archbishop of York, cardinal, priest ; then 
 Lord Chancellor of England. Having been in early life 
 chaplain to Henry VII., he became counselor and 
 companion to his son, Henry VIII. Wolsey is charged 
 with the great crime of permitting young Henry to 
 play the profligate without restraint, so that he might 
 hold the reigns of government unchecked. Henry 
 VIII. had a strong will, but singularly subject to whom 
 he loved, and in whom he had confidence. "The best 
 eulogy on Wolsey's character," says Lingard, "is to 
 be found in the contrast between the conduct of Henry 
 before and after Wolsey's fall. 1 ' 
 
 Wolsey had more ambition than faith. His life was 
 not regulated by the Word of God ; his morals were
 
 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 299 
 
 not pure. In this respect he unfavorably compares 
 with Ximenes ; and in his self-seeking, he reminds us 
 of Richelieu. 
 
 One crime of this age, and for long ages before, was 
 the custom of permitting one man to hold many offices 
 at a time. Some of the clergy of the fourteenth century 
 held as many as twenty benefices. By this shameful 
 system the popes rewarded their officials and enriched 
 themselves. 
 
 This custom lasted in a modified form for a long 
 time after the Reformation. Simony prevailed in Wol- 
 sey's time to a very great degree ; and no one availed 
 himself more of this bribery than Wolsey. He knew 
 that reform was needed in every department of the 
 ecclesiastical state, but he seemed not to know how 
 much he himself needed reformation, until he was 
 despoiled of his earthly dignities, and was about to die. 
 Shakespeare has given him a magnificent place on the 
 canvas of history. His words, we will quote a few 
 of them, will help us to form a rue conception of 
 his character : 
 
 " He was a man of an unbounded stomach, ever ranking 
 Himself with princes ; one, that by suggestion, 
 Tied all the kingdom ; simony was fair play ; 
 His own opinion was his law : i' the presence 
 He would say untruths : and be ever double, 
 Both in his words and meaning 
 Of his own body he was ill, and gave 
 The clergy ill example. 
 
 This Cardinal, though from 
 
 An humble stock, was fashioned to much honor 
 From his cradle. He was a scholar ; a ripe and good one ; 
 Exceeding wise, fair spoken and persuading : 
 Lofty and sour to them that loved him not ; 
 But to those men that sought him, sweet as summer.
 
 3OO ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 And though he were unsatisfied in getting, 
 
 Which was a sin, yet in bestowing 
 
 He was most princely : ever witness for him 
 
 Those twins of learning Ipswich and Oxford ! 
 
 One of which fell with him, unwilling to outlive the good 
 
 that did it ; 
 
 The other though unfinished, yet so famous, 
 So excellent in art, and still so rising, 
 That Christendom shall ever speak his virtue. 
 His overthrow heaped happiness upon him ; 
 For then, and not till then, he felt himself, 
 And found the blessedness of being little : 
 And, to add greater honors to his age, 
 Than man could give him, he died fearing God. 
 
 B 
 
 Archbishop Warham, of Canterbury, was a great 
 and good man. He saw the necessity of reform, but 
 shrank from the steps necessary to accomplish it, and 
 from any thought of secession from the existing state 
 of things. Erasmus speaks of him as a favorer of the 
 new learning, and of his kindness and generosity to 
 himself. Warham resigned the office of Lord Chancellor 
 in 1515. Wolsey succeded him. 
 
 Dean Colet was one of the most fearless and inde- 
 pendent men of his time. In 1511 he preached before 
 the Convocation of Canterbury. He denounced the 
 sin of his brethren ; both priests and bishops, he said, 
 were too much engaged with secular concerns ; this 
 brought dishonor on the priesthood and confounded 
 it with the laity ; reformation, he cried, must begin 
 with the bishops. This sermon of Colet's, says Mr. 
 Geike, in his work on the Reformation, was the first 
 trumpet blast of coming events. 
 
 Colet endowed St. Paul's school for the free educa- 
 tion of children in the new learning ; he had also dared 
 to translate into English the Lord's Prayer, with com-
 
 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. $01 
 
 ments. He condemned images, auricular confession, 
 and purgatory. He was saved from prosecution by the 
 regard of Warham and the friendship of Erasmus. The 
 young king, too, was an admirer of Colet. 
 
 " *At the accession of Henry VIII. the English 
 language was spoken only in England. The people of 
 Wales spoke Welsh, and the people of Cornwall spoke 
 Cornish. Spain was then the greatest European power, 
 and France was nearly her equal. The Holy Roman 
 Empire was the first State in rank, and when united 
 with the Spanish crown under Charles V. , it made the 
 Pope apparently the Dictator of Europe." 
 
 Prussia was then a desert ; Holland under the feet 
 of Spain. 
 
 How grand and impressive is the change that three 
 centuries have made ! England's laws and language 
 compass the world. The great military kingdoms of 
 Prussia and Russia require the other civilized peoples 
 of the earth "to stand to their arms." The Pope is , 
 restricted to his own ecclesiastical domain. Italy, so 
 long the battle-ground, of the nations, is ruled by a 
 lawful monarch in the City of the Caesars, and has her 
 own legislative councils. Some portions of heathen 
 India, China and Africa are reaching out their hands 
 to God. 
 
 We must now return to the sixteenth century. 
 Romanists have said much, and all right-minded people 
 have condemned Henry's divorce from Katharine, his 
 virtuous wife of twenty years ; but it was a union that 
 should never have been sanctioned. Henry's conscien- 
 tious scruples on this subject was a pretense, but the 
 
 * Geike.
 
 3O2 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 iniquity was not all on his side. His marriage with 
 his brother's widow had been forced upon him by the 
 politic monarchs of Spain. They urged the pope 
 Julius II. to grant a bull authorizing a marriage which 
 they believed to be contrary to the Word of God. 
 The pope at first refused his consent, but the powerful 
 influence of Spain induced him to yield. Henry had 
 submitted the matter to the two leading men of his 
 council, Fox, bishop of Manchester, and archbishop 
 Warham. The former took it into consideration, but 
 the latter rejected the proposals at once as abhorrent 
 to religion and directly opposed to the letter of the 
 Old Testament. These doubts and scruples as to the 
 lawfulness of his first marriage must have been remem- 
 bered by him, when he was searching for a pretext to 
 dissolve the union of which he had become tired, and 
 when unbridled passion suggested a marriage with 
 another with Anne Boleyn, the mother of Elizabeth. 
 
 Some historians tell us that Ferdinand would not 
 consent to the marriage of Arthur with his daughter 
 until all other pretenders to the throne of England 
 were removed. To remove every barrier, Edward, earl 
 of Warwick, was beheaded. 
 
 The Lady Katherine said, when she knew of the 
 trouble that awaited her, "that she had not offended, 
 but it was a judgment of God, for that her former mar- 
 riage was made in blood." 
 
 "The king Henry VII.," says Lord Bacon, "did 
 bring a kind of malediction on this marriage." 
 
 Henry VIII. had just reached his eighteenth year 
 when he ascended the throne. No accession ever exci- 
 ted higher expectations among a people than that of 
 Henry VIII. He was distinguished for personal beauty
 
 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 303 
 
 and for vigor and skill in arms. He was the friend of 
 the new learning ; the admirer and protector of Colet 
 and Erasmus. His early years were spent amid tourn- 
 aments and revelry. 
 
 He had some experience in war ; he joined a league 
 of the Italian States to drive out of Italy Charles VIII., 
 king of France. He succeeded in this effort, but it 
 was a fruitless campaign to England. In this war 
 Ferdinand secured Navarre, for the possession of which 
 he had made the war, and then treacherously deserted 
 his son-in-law, leaving him to fight alone. Ferdinand 
 promised the king of England to ratify a marriage 
 between his grandson Charles and Mary, Henry's 
 sister. Soon after, however, Henry learned, to his 
 disgust, that Charles had been promised to a young 
 daughter of the French king. 
 
 Henry's heart seemed now to be turning against 
 everything Spanish. The alliance with Spain was 
 broken off, and Mary, a girl of sixteen, was married to 
 Louis XII. of France, a broken-down man of fifty- 
 three. She early became a widow, and afterwards 
 married the duke of Suffolk, and was the mother of the 
 famous Lady Jane Grey and Catharine Grey. 
 
 Never had pope a more faithful supporter than the 
 king of England at this time. He wrote a book against 
 the so-called heresies of Luther, which so gratified the 
 pope that he styled Henry "the Defender of the 
 Faith." 
 
 Through all the changes of his terrible career, the 
 king's court was the home of letters. Even as a boy 
 his son, Edward VI., was a fair scholar in both the 
 classical languages. His daughter Mary wrote good Latin
 
 304 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 letters. Elizabeth, who spoke French and Italian as 
 fluently as English, began every day with an hour's 
 reading in the Greek Testament, together with the 
 tragedies of Sophocles or the orations of Demosthenes.* 
 Henry's ministers, much as they differed on many sub- 
 jects, all agreed in the protection and encouragement 
 of the culture around them. 
 
 Julius II., who had passed much of his life in 
 camps, died in 1512. Some of his cardinals, relying 
 on the help of Louis, king of France, summoned a 
 council at Pisa to curb the madness of Julius, and 
 to deliberate on measures for a general reformation 
 of the gross corruptions of the Church. Julius called 
 a counter-council at his Lateran palace in 1512 to annul 
 the acts of the council of Pisa. During its session, or 
 shortly thereafter, this pope was called to a higher 
 tribunal. 
 
 He was succeeded by Leo X., who gave a great 
 impulse to the cultivation of letters and the patronage 
 of art. Julius II. had commenced St. Peter's Church 
 at Rome ; Leo now devoted his energies to the prose- 
 cution of this work. With such a coadjutor as Michael 
 Angelo, this crowning work of architecture made ele- 
 gant progress. But money was an important factor in 
 this splendid enterprise. 
 
 This want gave rise to the embassy of Tetzel 
 through Germany to make sale of Indulgences. How 
 this shameful traffic opened the eyes of Luther, and 
 enabled him to probe deeply into the ulcerous con- 
 dition of ecclesiastical affairs, is known to all readers 
 of history. 
 
 * Green's History of the English People.
 
 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 305 
 
 The sale of Indulgences was not a new thing. In 
 what are called the Jubilee years, this lucrative inven- 
 tion had been much used. In 1300, all who came to 
 Rome and spent there fifteen days, were promised the 
 forgiveness of their sins. This brought so much money 
 into Rome, that Jubilees were repeated every twenty- 
 fifth year. 
 
 Julius II. had offered this easy way of remission of 
 sin to all who contributed to St. Peter's. "It was 
 given out that the infinite merits of Christ, and the 
 excess of the good works of the saints, beyond those 
 needed for their own salvation, formed a treasury from 
 which the Church might draw for the benefit of any 
 one on special conditions." Our Lord declared that 
 after we have done all, we are unprofitable servants ; 
 but the church at Rome in the sixteenth century 
 taught another gospel. 
 
 Tetzel and his assistants roused the public indigna- 
 tion by their shameful immorality as well as by their 
 absurd teachings. On the 3ist of October Martin 
 Luther, who was soon to become the great Reformer 
 of the World, then a University professor, nailed to 
 the door of the Church of All Saints, at Wittemberg, 
 a challenge of the whole system of Indulgences. 
 
 When Luther was first sent to Rome, in 1510, by 
 his monastery, his soul was full of reverence * for the 
 
 " Blessed Rome ! he cried, as he entered the gate. Alas! the Rome 
 of reality was far from blessed. The name of religion was there. The 
 thinnest veil was spread over the utter disbelief with which God and 
 Christ were at heart regarded. There was, culture. It was the Rome 
 of Raphael and Michael Angelo; but to the poor German monk 
 who had come there to find relief for his suffering soul, what was 
 culture ? " FROUDE.
 
 3O6 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 city of which St. Paul had spoken. He thought of the 
 martyrs of the early Church. On arriving, he fell on 
 his knees, raised his hands to heaven and exclaimed, 
 " Hail, holy Rome ! " But alas ! he soon perceived 
 that he was in a city of unbelievers. Christianity 
 seemed forgottea in the centre of the Christian world. 
 
 In the year 1517 Martin Luther, a monk of Saxony, 
 of the town of Eisleben, and belonging to the order of 
 Augustinian Eremites, which was one of the four 
 mendicant orders, opposed himself alone to the whole 
 Romish power. He was a professor of theology in the 
 University of Wittemberg, which Frederic the Wise, 
 elector of Saxony, had established a few years before. 
 Leo X. was now at the head of the Church. Maximil- 
 ian I. of Austria governed the German empire, to 
 which Charles V. was soon after elected. Frederic 
 ruled over Saxony. Henry VIII. was king of Eng- 
 land. Francis I. was king of France. All these 
 crowned heads were men of unusual ability ; it was a 
 time, as we have already said, of great enthusiasm in 
 learning and literature. 
 
 Luther was born in 1483, at Eisleben. His father 
 was a miner of Mansfield. His celebrated son attended 
 the schools of Magdeburg and Eisenach ; he studied 
 scholastic philosophy and jurisprudence at Erfurt, and 
 read also the ancient Latin authors. While at Erfurt 
 he was much impressed by the sudden death of an inti- 
 mate friend killed by lightning.
 
 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 307 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIII. 
 
 MELANCHTHON ZUINGLIUS LUTHER. 
 
 Luther was stunned by the electric bolt that killed 
 his friend, and now awakened to a deeper sense of the 
 preciousness of the soul and his duty to his fellow- 
 men. He resolved to devote himself to a religious 
 life. With this view, which was not in accordance 
 with his father's wishes, he joined the rigid order of 
 Augustinian Eremites. His vicar general seeing his 
 ability, sent him to Wittemberg to teach philosophy 
 and theology. He soon discovered the defects of the 
 scholastic system, and began to reject human authori- 
 ties in matters of religion. He was doctor of divinity 
 in 1512, and then applied himself assiduously to He- 
 brew and Greek. John von Stanpitz was his vicar 
 general. He wrote his own language with greater 
 purity, elegance and force than any German author of 
 that age. His translation of the Bible first appeared 
 in 1534. His faults were the faults of a warm, earnest^ 
 nature, and the effects of the education and of the 
 times in which he lived. It is well known that he 
 answered his opposers with too much acrimony, and 
 sometimes with personal abuse. His own soul 
 was deeply penetrated with the truths he em- 
 braced. He had witnessed the working of "the mys- 
 tery of iniquity" at Rome. He knew the fatal influ- 
 ence of falsehood, and this seemed to deprive his im- 
 petuous, sincere mind of the patience and meekness
 
 3O8 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 that so greatly adorn it. In many instances he be- 
 lieved that he was contending with hypocrites or half- 
 hearted Christians. He was, however, the sun of the 
 Reformation, and his defects were spots that could not 
 hide or obscure the warmth and brilliancy of his light. 
 
 We are told by some writers that in the early part 
 of his career in the convent, his remorse for sin 
 was so great that one of his brother monks pointed out 
 to him a cardinal doctrine of the creed, the forgiveness 
 of sins ; also read with him in the Scriptures of justifi- 
 cation by faith, which was to him ever afterwards the 
 central doctrine of his creed. 
 
 Staupitz was probably the monk that enlightened 
 Luther when he was in his great spiritual trouble. It 
 is known that he approved of Luther's theses against 
 the papal indulgences, and that he demanded at Augs- 
 burg that Luther should not be condemned unheard. 
 It is comforting to know that, notwithstanding the cor- 
 ruption and infidelity of this age, there was still "a 
 little flock " that held the truth and practiced it. Had 
 it not been for the great celebrity of Luther, we should 
 probably have never heard of the humble faith of the 
 monks of the Augustinian monastery at Erfurt. 
 
 In Luther's controversy with Tetzel, he was ap- 
 plauded by the best part of Germany ; but there were 
 many sycophants who cried out against him. Leo X. 
 at first seemed to disregard Luther's arguments and 
 opposition, but being informed by the emperor that 
 Germany was much agitated upon this question, he 
 summoned Luther to appear at Rome and take his 
 trial. Frederic of Saxony interposed, and requested 
 that Luther's cause should be heard in Germany. The 
 pontiff yielded and ordered Luther to appear before
 
 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 309 
 
 his legate, Cardinal Cajetan, at Augsburg, and there to 
 defend his doctrines and conduct. Cajetan was a Do- 
 minican. The Dominican order and the Augustinian 
 seem to have been inimical to each other. A more 
 unfit person than Cajetan could not have been selected. 
 The cardinal required Luther to revoke the errors in 
 his theses namely, that there was not any treasury 
 of the merits of the saints at Rome from which the pope 
 could dispense indulgences, and that without faith no 
 forgiveness of sin could be obtained from God. Lu- 
 ther held fast to his opinions. The cardinal, though 
 a learned man, was no biblical scholar, and could not 
 produce any proofs in refutation of Luther's doctrine. 
 When Cajetan threatened him with ecclesiastical cen- 
 sures, Luther appealed from the pontiff ill-informed to 
 the same better informed. 
 
 The Romish court perceived its mistake in the ap- 
 pointment of Cajetan, and appointed another legate to 
 confer with Luther. This legate persuaded Luther to 
 write to the pope, in which he promised that he would 
 be silent if his enemies remained so. 
 
 This was the period, however, of many literary 
 combats. Eckius, a famous papal theologian of this 
 time, disputed with Cardostadt * on the subject of free 
 will, but the disputants accomplished nothing. Luther 
 then engaged with Eckius in a contest respecting the 
 supremacy and authority of the Roman pontiff (a ques- 
 tion far more easy to settle), but the literary combat- 
 ants referred the decision to the universities of Paris 
 and Erfurt. Eckius was forever after the enemy of 
 Luther. But among the witnesses of this dispute was 
 
 * A friend of Luther.
 
 3IO ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 one who became the second reformer, next to Luther, 
 in Germany. This person was Melanchthon. He had 
 studied at Heidelberg, and afterwards became Profes- 
 sor of Greek at Wittemberg. He taught and wrote 
 and debated in furtherance of the same objects with 
 Luther, but with more mildness and gentleness than 
 he. Melanchthon composed the Augsburg Confession, 
 and the apology for it. He was an active but gentle 
 reformer. 
 
 While these controversies were agitating Germany, 
 and shaking the very throne of the pontiff at Rome, a 
 very bold, erudite reformer appeared at Zurich, in 
 Switzerland. Ulrich Zwingle was a canon and priest. 
 Zwingle, it is said, commenced to preach before Lu- 
 ther contended with the pope. He perhaps discovered 
 the corruptions of the church somewhat earlier. He 
 had contended in his courts with an emissary of like 
 kind with Tetzel. Both began gradually without any 
 concert, to cast off from the church "the wood, hay 
 and stubble" that had gathered over the divine and 
 hoary edifice in the flight of ages. Luther had a wider 
 field of action than Zuinglius (as he is sometimes 
 called). The latter moved only in the narrow circle of 
 a single canton in Switzerland. Zwingle was a ripe 
 classical scholar. He studied diligently, too, the emi- 
 nent fathers of the Church, as Ambrose, Augustine, 
 and Chrysostom, and pressed upon x his students the 
 study of Hebrew, but inculcated with force that the 
 Bible was the only standard of religious truth. Luther 
 and his followers had long and severe contests with 
 Zwingle and the reformed,* respecting the corporeal 
 
 *The disciples of Zuinglius.
 
 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 31 1 
 
 presence of Christ in the Eucharist. This difference 
 of opinion caused much alienation and prejudice be- 
 tween the two bodies during the whole of the fifteenth 
 century. 
 
 The Lutherans believing in what Luther called 
 consubstantiation ; he believed in the presence of Christ 
 in the elements, but not in their change or transubstan- 
 tiation. The Zuinglians regarded the Eucharistic sacri- 
 fice or offering simply as a memorial. 
 
 In 1524, the Council of Zurich reformed the public 
 worship according to the advice of Zwingle. He con- 
 tinued to guide his flock until October, 1531, when an 
 army from the popish cantons marched against Zwingle. 
 Zwingle, according to the usage of his country, bore 
 the standard that attempted to repel them. The 
 enemy were victorious ; Zwingle was slain, and his 
 body cut to pieces and burned to ashes. 
 
 Overcome, it is said, by the importunity of the Do- 
 minicans, Leo X. issued the first bull against Luther 
 on the 1 5th of June, 1520. As soon as Luther heard 
 of this first, sentence of the pontiff against him, he ap- 
 pealed to the supreme tribunal of the future council. 
 Believing that his appeal would be disregarded at Rome, 
 he determined to proclaim his secession from the Rom- 
 ish community by a public act. He caused, on the 
 loth of December, 1520, afire to be kindled without 
 the walls of his city, and in the presence of a vast 
 multitude, he committed to the flames the bull issued 
 against him, together with a copy of the pontifical 
 canon law. In this way he publicly signified that he 
 would no longer be a subject of the Roman pontiff". Lu- 
 ther withdrew, however, only from the Romish Church 
 which looks upon the pontiff as infallible; not from
 
 312 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 the church universal, the sentence of which, pronounced 
 in a legitimate and free council, he did not refuse to 
 obey. 
 
 Many Roman Catholics, who were attached to the 
 liberties of Germany, looked upon this bold act of 
 Luther without offense.* In diffusing the principles of 
 the Reformation through Germany, Luther had the 
 aid of other excellent men in various parts of Europe, 
 and especially was he assisted by the doctors of Wit- 
 temberg and the great learning of Melanchthon. Mean- 
 while, in 1519, Maximilian I. died, and his grandson, 
 Charles V., King of Spain, was elected his successor. 
 Leo X. reminded the new emperor of Germany that 
 he had assumed the place of advocate and defender of 
 the Church, and called upon him to inflict punishment 
 upon Martin Luther, a rebellious member of the 
 Church. 
 
 Frederick IX. counseled Charles to proceed with 
 great caution. Charles felt under greater obligations 
 to Frederic than to any other German Prince. In 
 order, therefore, to gratify this friend, and also the 
 pontiff, he determined to summon Luther to appear be- 
 fore the diet, which would assemble at Worms, before 
 the passing of any decree against him. 
 
 Luther appeared at Worms, protected by a safe- 
 conduct from the Emperor, and boldly pleaded his cause 
 before the diet. Some of his friends regarded it f as a 
 perilous undertaking. When his friend Spalatin warned 
 him of his danger, he replied "he would go thither \{ 
 there were as many devils there as there were tiles upon 
 the houses." He was conducted in his monkish dress 
 
 * Mosheim, t His journey to Worms.
 
 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 313 
 
 by Von Pappenheim, the marshal of the empire, to 
 the assembled diet. He was asked two questions 
 namely, whether he was the author of the books laid 
 upon the table before him, and whether he would recall 
 any of the opinions contained in them. To the first 
 question he answed yes. To answer the- second ques- 
 tion, he waited until the next day. He answered by 
 making distinctions. 
 
 Some of his writings, he said, related to a Chris- 
 tian's faith and life; others were directed against the 
 Papacy, and others against private individuals who de- 
 fended the Romish tyranny. He could not renounce 
 the first, because even his enemies agreed they con- 
 tained much good matter; nor could he renounce the 
 second, because that would be lending support to papal 
 tyranny ; as to the third, he acknowledged he had often 
 been too vehement. The official said to him, You must 
 have erred, because you have contradicted the Pope 
 and council. He answered, The Pope and the council 
 have often contradicted themselves. He closed with 
 this declaration : * " Here I stand. I can say no more. 
 God help me. Amen." Neither promises or menaces 
 could move him. When called upon to renounce his 
 opinions, and to become reconciled to the Pope, he 
 said he could never yield, unless convinced of error by 
 proofs from Holy Scripture and sound reason. He ob- 
 tained leave from the emperor to return home unmo- 
 lested, but Prince Frederic, fearing mischief should befall 
 him, caused him to be intercepted near Eisenach by 
 
 *" There on the raised dais stood the sovereign of half the world. 
 On either side were the ministers of state, archbishops, the princes of 
 the empire, gathered together to judge the son of a poor miner, who 
 had made the world ring with his name."
 
 3H ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 persons in disguise, and conducted to the castle of 
 Wartburg ; in that castle, which he called his Patmos, 
 he lay ten months, beguiling the time with writing and 
 study. 
 
 The emperor and Luther never met again. The 
 emperor, many years after the debate at Worms, 
 and after the death of Luther, went to Wittem- 
 berg, at the head of his army. He desired to be 
 conducted to Luther's tomb. When some one sug- 
 gested that the body should be taken up and burned 
 at the stake in the market place, Charles nobly replied : 
 ' ' I war not with the dead. " His body lay in the grave, 
 but there was scarcely any part of Europe where the 
 light of the religious reformation by Luther did not 
 shed its radiance. While Luther remained in the castle 
 of Wartburg (ten months) the monasteries were 
 broken up. The old ecclesiastical institutions of Ger- 
 many were crumbling. 
 
 The Elector of Saxony, the Landgrave of Hesse, 
 and other princes declared for the reformation. The 
 Protestants had a majority in the diet and controlled 
 the force of the empire. During Luther's retirement 
 at Wartburg he translated the Bible. A diet at Spire 
 in 1526 resulted most favorably to the reformers. Fer- 
 dinand, the brother of the Emperor Charles, presided 
 at this diet. The emperor, by his envoys, required 
 that all contentions about religion should cease, but 
 said that the edict at Worms against Luther should be 
 confirmed. Many of the princes declared that a gen- 
 eral council ought to be assembled to take cognizance 
 of this edict. The emperor was at this time so per- 
 plexed with his French, Spanish, and Italian affairs, 
 that he could not give, during several years, much at-
 
 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 315 
 
 tention to the affairs of Germany or to the subject of 
 religion. 
 
 Clement VII., fearing the power of the emperor in 
 Italy, entered into an alliance with Francis I. and the 
 Venetians against the emperor. This so inflamed the 
 resentment of Charles, that he made war upon the 
 Pope in Italy, captured the city of Rome in 1527, by 
 his General Charles, of Bourbon, and shut up the pon- 
 tiff in the castle of St. Angelo. The Lutherans im- 
 proved this opportunity to extend their cause. It was 
 about this time that the Elector of Saxony caused a 
 visitation of the churches throughout his dominions. 
 Luther was the clerical writer for Saxony, and Melanch- 
 thon for Misnia. They were to examine into the con- 
 dition of the parishes, schools, monasteries and cathe- 
 drals, with power to make any changes that were neces- 
 sary to their well-being. Luther, impressed with the 
 ignorance of both clergy and laity, busied himself, 
 after his return home, in writing catechisms for their 
 use. 
 
 How blessed is the work of those who strive to 
 elevate the moral and intellectual condition of their 
 fellow-creatures. This tranquillity was interrupted by 
 the second diet of Spire, in 1529. The emperor wag 
 anxious to make a compromise with the Pontiff, Clem- 
 ent VII. The decree which had been passed three 
 years before, that every prince should regulate religious 
 matters in his own territories as he saw fit, was now 
 rmoked, and all changes declared unlawful until the de- 
 cision of the council should determine what was best 
 to be done. The reformers understood perfectly that 
 a legitimate and free council could not be obtained 
 from the pontiff. They, therefore, at this second diet
 
 3l6 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 at Spire remonstrated and protested against the revo"ca- 
 tion of the decree that each prince should have the 
 liberty to regulate affairs in his own district. The 
 Landgrave of Hesse, the Elector of Saxony, and other 
 patrons of the reformation protested and appealed to the 
 Emperor and a future council. Hence originated the 
 name of Protestants borne from this time onward by all 
 who left the communion of the Roman pontiff. As no 
 good formula of the doctrines professed by the follow- 
 ers of Luther now existed, Luther was requested by 
 John, elector of Saxony, to prepare a brief summary 
 of his doctrines. 
 
 Luther had drawn up, in 1529, seventeen articles 
 which had been agreed to in the convention of Schwa- 
 bach. He exhibited these to the Elector at Torgau, 
 hence they were called the articles of Torgau. From 
 these articles as the basis of the Lutheran formula, 
 Philip Melanchthon was requested by the Protestant 
 German princes (holding consultation with Luther all 
 the time), to draw up that confession of faith which is 
 known as the Augsburg Confession. The greatest hin- 
 drance to a cordial union between the Saxon and Hel 
 vetic, or Swiss, reformers was their disagreement in re- 
 gard to the Lord's Supper. 
 
 Philip, Landgrave of Hesse, appointed a conference 
 between Luther and Zwingle and other learned doctors, 
 to be held at Marburg in 1529. They debated four 
 days together. They agreed satisfactorily together as 
 regarded the divinity of the Saviour, the efficacy of the 
 divine word, original sin, etc. ; but they could not recon- 
 cile their differences with regard to the Last Supper. 
 
 How much wiser now seem to us, on this subject, 
 the reformers of the Church of England? They
 
 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 did not attempt, in this great mystery, to analyze so 
 much as the German reformers. They adopted the 
 words of our Lord and the scriptural teachings con- 
 cerning it, leaving the sense or interpretation of the 
 words to each individual conscience. It plainly teaches, 
 however, that the bread and wine are not changed, but 
 consecrated to a holy purpose. 
 
 As early as 1523 there were multitudes in France 
 opposed to the principles and laws of the Romish 
 Church. Margaret, Queen of Navarre, sister of 
 Francis I., was pleased with the principles of the re- 
 formed religion. She took under her protection pious 
 and learned men, who formed religious societies in dif- 
 ferent places. Le Fevre and Roussel betook them- 
 selves to Navarre, where they did not openly break 
 with the Romish Church, but they taught the doctrines 
 of the reformers. Hut cruel persecutions soon arose. 
 Margaret was forbidden to encourage any innovations. 
 At a convention held in Smalcald, in 1537, another 
 summary of the religious faith of the German reform- 
 ers was drawn up. This writing of Luther is called 
 the articles of Smalcald. They were drawn up in the 
 German language. These articles cover twenty-eight 
 pages. The first part contained four articles, in which 
 the Protestants professed to agree entirely with the Pa- 
 pists. These four were the Trinity, the Incarnation, 
 Passion and Ascension of Christ. 
 
 On other points of doctrine there was great differ- 
 ence between the Papists and Lutherans. When the 
 Protestants signed the articles of Smalcald, " Melanch- 
 thon annexed a reservation to his signature, purporting 
 that he could admit of a Pope provided he would allow 
 the gospel to be preached in its purity, and would give
 
 3l8 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 up his pretensions to a divine right to rule, and would 
 found his claims wholly on expediency and human com- 
 pact. " This is annexed to the articles. A young 
 scholar from Oxford, England, heard of Luther's do- 
 ings at Wittemberg. He soon directed his course to 
 the sacred city of the reformation. Students of all 
 nations were r ' flocking to Wittemberg. Tyndale 
 was the young Oxford student to whom we have alluded. 
 Luther advised him to translate there the gospels and 
 epistles. The press which Tyndale established at Ant- 
 werp, where he was joined by a few students from Cam- 
 bridge, who was soon busy with his versions of the Script- 
 ures, and with reprints of the tracts of Wycliffe and 
 Luther. 
 
 Some one has said that without the Greek Testa- 
 ment of Erasmus the reformation would have been 
 impossible. It is certainly true that Tyndale's English 
 Bibles and Testaments were of inestimable value to the 
 people of England. These volumes of Tyndale were 
 smuggled over to England and circulated among the 
 poorer and trading classes through the agency of an 
 association of "Christian Brethren." They found 
 their way to the universities, where the intellectual im- 
 pulse given by the new learning was quickening relig 
 ious speculation. The rapid diffusion of Tyndale's 
 works roused Wolsey at length to action. 
 
 At Oxford the brethren were seized and put in 
 prison. In London a large number of Testaments 
 were burned. But in spite of the panic of the Prot- 
 estants, who fled in crowds over the sea, but little 
 severity was exercised until after Wolsey's fall, when 
 forbearance was thrown aside.
 
 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 319 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIV. 
 
 It has often been said by the frivolous, who are 
 incapable of tracing effects to causes, that Henry VIII. 
 was the author of the Reformation of the Church of 
 England. The great predisposing cause of the Refor- 
 mation in England, as in other countries, was the 
 corruption of the Church, both in its docrines and in 
 its practice.* Many honest, true men within her fold 
 had felt the need of purification, and the great neces- 
 sity of a return to the primitive source of spiritual life, 
 in the oracles of God. Henry VIII. was not one of 
 these. He was perfectly satisfied with the papacy and 
 all its claims, until it contradicted his will. He was "a 
 Defender of the Faith " as it then existed. All Ger- 
 many and Switzerland were aflame at this time with the 
 teachings of Luther and Zuinglius. Oxford scholars 
 had gone to Wittemberg, they had seen Luther, they 
 had set up printing-presses in Antwerp and in other 
 places, they had returned to England, laden with their 
 versions of the Scriptures, especially with the Gospels 
 and Epistles. Through the agency of associations, the 
 
 * The deliverance of the Church of England from the power of the 
 papacy was effected partly by convocation and parliament. The 
 papacy, in its greed of gold, drained the kingdom annually of large 
 sums of money. Convocation petitioned the king that this drain 
 should he stopped. The extracts from this petition are still extant, 
 says Blunt, in the British Museum. A book put forth in 1537, called 
 " The Institution of a Christian Man," did good work for the Refor- 
 mation. Forty-six of the leading men in England had published it. It 
 explained the creed, sacraments, Ten Commandments, etc.
 
 32O ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 work of these zealous, God-fearing men was spread over 
 the country. They found their way to the universities. 
 Cambridge had already won a name for heresy ; the 
 intellectual impetus given by the new learning was 
 quickening religious thought both here * and at Oxford. 
 Henry cared nothing for religion, as his wicked acts 
 most plainly prove ; but he was fond of learning, fond 
 of theology. He was a pedant, and loved to discuss 
 doctrinal points. He was surrounded by learned men, 
 with reforming views. Latimer (afterwards burned at 
 the stake) was the court preacher, and Cranmer, his 
 private counselor, singularly intent upon the instruction of 
 the people, was watching every opportunity that he might 
 obtain from his tyrannical monarch the privilege of 
 translating portions of the church service into the 
 English tongue. A great literary reform was in prog- 
 ress. Some who were not thirsting to drink at "the 
 fountain of living waters " were yet anxious for intel- 
 lectual advancement. 
 
 More, Colet and Erasmus were styled the three 
 Oxford reformers. Colet was a doctrinal reformer, as 
 well as a literary one. He was taken off by death 
 before the time came that tried men's souls, and some- 
 times burned their bodies. There were many men also 
 of low estate and position, who dearly loved to read 
 any books that taught them the precious practical truths 
 of the Bible. 
 
 Henry VIII. was, as we have said, fond of learning. 
 He was a sagacious prince, and comprehended some- 
 what of the signs of the times. His sympathy with 
 learning therefore disposed him to listen to the solicita- 
 
 * At Cambridge.
 
 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 321 
 
 tions of Cranmer, in his great desire to convert into 
 English the service of the Church. 
 
 But he lived and died a Romanist, as the existence 
 of the six Articles proved. In his rage against the 
 pope for refusing to grant him a divorce, he had cast off 
 his allegiance to him, affecting to believe what the 
 early Church did in truth believe, that the bishop of 
 Rome should claim no priority over the bishops of 
 other metropolitan cities, and to restrict himself to 
 ecclesiastical affairs. 
 
 We see in the history of this world how our Al- 
 mighty Father educes good from evil : it was wicked 
 passion that induced Henry VIII. to dissolve the bond 
 that connected papal Rome with his kingdom ; yet the 
 friends of reform hailed it with joy, knowing that the 
 illegal and unrighteous authority that had so long inter- 
 fered with their desire to purify and renovate the 
 Church, was ended. 
 
 In the year 1525, an association was enrolled in 
 London called the "Christian Brothers."* It was 
 composed chiefly of poor men, tradesmen and artisans. 
 There were a few of the clergy with them. These men 
 employed agents to go up and down the country, car- 
 rying Testaments and tracts with them. The records^ 
 of the bishops' courts in the early part of this century 
 were filled with accounts of prosecution for heresy. 
 The persecuted were men and women who rose up 
 against the masses, the pilgrimages and the indulgences. 
 These things had become intolerable. They had 
 
 * We read of " Christian Brothers " as early as the thirteenth cen- 
 tury. Tauler and Groote were distinguished preachers of the " Brothers 
 of Common Life." Thomas a Kempis united with some of these in 
 his day, and was of like spirit.
 
 322 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 learned enough of the truth in Wycliffe's Testaments 
 to know that these things were false. 
 
 When Wolsey had founded the great college at 
 Oxford (now called Christ Church), desiring to make 
 his magnificent institution as perfect as art could make 
 it, he had not only sought Professors in Rome, and 
 from other cities in Italy, but he had introduced several 
 students from Cambridge represented to be of unusual 
 promise. These students were deeply imbued with the 
 enthusiasm of Tyndale. The names of some of these 
 were Clark, Frith, Sumner, Taverner and Garret. The 
 last mentioned was a secret member of the London 
 society. He sought all such young men as were given 
 to Hebrew, Greek and Latin. He also introduced into 
 Oxford treasures of forbidden books imported by the 
 "Christian Brothers." It is said that Wolsey knew 
 that the taint of heresy rested upon some of these 
 men, but thinking they were unsubstantiated rumors, 
 allowed them not to weigh against ability and char- 
 acter. These men were in the habit of reading the 
 New Testament in their rooms, especially studying St. 
 Paul's epistles. They had a gradually increasing circle 
 of interested hearers from the undergraduates of the 
 University. 
 
 After these students of the Word of God had con- 
 ferred together about six months, within the limits of the 
 university, suspicion rested upon them. Several of 
 these were imprisoned. Garret was fiercely pursued 
 from place to place ; but falling into the hands of 
 Wolsey, he refused to deliver him up. Clark died of 
 the treatment he received in prison. His last words 
 are recorded. He desired the communion, but was 
 refused, lest the holy thing should be profaned by the
 
 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 323 
 
 touch of a heretic. When told he could not be per- 
 mitted to have it, he* said : " Crede est manducasti" 
 " Faith is the communion." Some of these students 
 recanted, but afterwards repented of their weakness, 
 and suffered heroically at the stake. Of such men as 
 these were Bilney and Bainham. Bilney had escaped 
 through Wolsey's hands in 1527, but in 1529 he was 
 again cited before the bishop of London. Three times 
 he refused to recant. He was offered another chance, 
 and he fell. After spending two years in misery he 
 began to preach in the fields. He exposed the licen- 
 tiousness of some of the priests, and this formed the 
 ground of his last arrest. He still believed in the mass 
 and in the power of the keys, but he was found heter- 
 odox on the papacy and the mediation of the saints. 
 He was sent to the stake by the bishop of Norwich. 
 
 The crime of the offenders varied. Sometimes it 
 was a denial of the corporal presence, more frequently 
 a denunciation of the habits of some of the clergy. 
 It is said that Bilney once chose Latimer for his con- 
 fessor, that he might confer with him, and that Latimer 
 said that Bilney poured a flood of light on his soul, and 
 called him the instrument whereby God called him to 
 knowledge. 
 
 Sir Thomas More was successor to Wolsey, and 
 under him the fires of Smithfielcl burned more fre- 
 quently. ' ' With Wolsey heresy was an error, with 
 More it was a crime." Of these first martyrs of the 
 reign of Henry VIII., Mr. Froude says: " These were 
 the first Paladins of the Reformation, the knights who 
 slew the dragons and the enchanters, and who made 
 
 * Froude.
 
 324 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 the earth habitable for flesh and blood." They were 
 rarely men of much ability, but of clear sense and 
 honest hearts. Tyndale was a remarkable man, and so 
 Clark and Smith promised to become, but they were 
 cut off. William Tyndale lived to see the Bible, for 
 whose translation into English he had so faithfully 
 labored in exile, carried into his own country with the 
 will of the king, solemnly recognized (no longer a hidden 
 possession) as the Word of God. Tyndale was in 
 Flanders at this time. He was denounced to the regent 
 by an English fanatic, who had enticed him to leave' 
 the city where he would have been secure. He died 
 the martyr's death amid smoke and flame.* 
 
 Every monastery, every parish church had in these 
 superstitious days something to attract the interest of 
 the people. The people brought offerings to the 
 shrines where it was supposed the relics were of the 
 greatest power. The clergy, to secure the offerings, 
 had invented the relics and invented the stories of the 
 wonders. 
 
 The greatest exposure of these things took place at 
 the visitation of the religious houses. There were 
 images of the Virgin and crucifixes or roods, the 
 virtues of which many had begun to doubt. There 
 was a famous crucifix in Boxley in Kent, which was 
 said to smile or frown as its worshipers were generous 
 or close-handed. About the time of the imprisonment 
 of Bainham and others, four young men in the vicinage 
 of Boxley determined to experiment on the virtues of 
 this rood or crucifix. They carried it on their shoul- 
 ders for some distance, and, feeling no resistance from 
 
 * Froude.
 
 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 325 
 
 the idol, they fastened some tapers to it, and the image 
 was soon reduced to a heap of ashes. For this night's 
 work, three of these young men swung in chains (one 
 having made his escape) on the scene of their exploit. 
 
 As yet but two men of the highest position in power 
 and ability were on the side 'of Protestantism. But we 
 have seen the upturnings among the people and the 
 tendencies of many in the universities. Three editions 
 of Tyndale's translation in English were sold before 
 1530. The king now gave his sanction to the work. 
 Cromwell gave a license to Miles Goverdale to go 
 abroad, and, with Tyndale's help, to collect and edit the 
 scattered portions; and in 1536 there appeared in 
 London the first complete edition of the English Bible. 
 It was dedicated to Henry VIII. Cranmer and Crom- 
 well were represented on a portion of the frontispiece 
 as presenting the Bible to kneeling priests and laymen. 
 
 " I came not to send peace on earth, but a sword," 
 was fully demonstrated in many of the scenes and acts 
 of the Reformation. In all great revolutions, whether 
 political or religious, it seems the destiny of nations to 
 be baptized in blood. The state of England in 1434 
 seemed very critical. There was evidently much disaf- 
 fection and discontent among the people. 
 
 Anne Boleyn had interceded for others, but the 
 time soon came when Queen Anne herself had to die 
 by the axe of the headsman. She was condemned to 
 die on a false charge. She left one child, the famous 
 Queen Elizabeth. Anne Boleyn wrote from the Tower 
 a letter, which is still preserved in the British Museum, 
 in which, with simple earnestness, she declares her 
 innocence. She had tried to influence the king to favor 
 the cause of the Reformation by forming a union with
 
 326 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 the Protestants of Germany. The Protestants of Ger- 
 many, including Luther, were generally hostile to 
 Henry. But Cromwell, who was at this time the great 
 and energetic leader of the affairs of England, seeing 
 that conspiracies were rife in England, and that the 
 throne was in danger from the ambition of some parties 
 and from the fanaticism of others, determined, if pos- 
 sible, to form a Protestant League. Parliament in 1534 
 adopted a variety of measures, under Cromwell's lead, 
 to widen the separation between Rome and England. 
 Convocation declared that the pope had no more au- 
 thority in England than any other bishop. An act of 
 supremacy was passed, making Henry "head of the 
 Church." Oh, dreadful act! Could not the indepen- 
 dence of England have been secured in some other 
 way ! This term was applied to him simply to stop 
 the encroachments of spiritual powers, within and with- 
 out the realm. It was a symbol of the independence * 
 of England ; but it has been fearfully misunderstood. 
 
 A distinction should be carefully drawn between the 
 nomination of a king and the ordination by the clergy. 
 As early as 1537, the reforming clergy instructed the 
 people not to confound the presentation of a monarch 
 with the religions authority conferred by the bishops and 
 clergy. The presentation was simply a nomination to a 
 living by a patron ; the other was the holy rite of ordi- 
 
 * The Annates or First-fruits were at this time transferred to the 
 crown (1532). They were afterwards restored to the Church by Queen 
 Anne. an<l destined to the support of the poorer livings. A late writer 
 on "The Property of the Church of England" says: "The property 
 of that Church is not the property of the state. The Church of En- 
 gland, instead of being maintained by the state, contributes annually 
 out of its own funds, for the welfare of the nation, between fifty and 
 fifty-five millions of dollars."
 
 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 nation conferred by an authorized clergy. Henry VIII. 
 abused the supremacy given him by the convocation in 
 putting to death some noble men who refused to ac- 
 knowledge his headship in Church affairs. The election 
 or nomination of the bishops by the chapters of the 
 cathedrals had long been formal, and their appointment 
 since the time of the Edwards had been practically 
 made by the papacy, on the nomination of the crown. 
 The privilege of election was still left to the chapters of 
 the cathedral churches, but they were compelled to 
 receive the candidate chosen by the king. This strange 
 thing has lasted until the present time, but its character 
 is wholly changed. The nomination of bishops ever 
 since the accession of the Georges has passed from the 
 king in person to the minister who represents the will 
 of the people. Practically, therefore, an English pre- 
 late, among all the prelates of the world, is now raised 
 to the episcopate by the same popular vote which raised 
 Ambrose to the episcopal chair at Milan. 
 
 But the policy of Cromwell in Henry VIII. 's time 
 reduced for a time the English bishops to mere de- 
 pendents on the crown. Cromwell, as Vicar-General, 
 aspired to make his monarch the center of all power, 
 spiritual as well as temporal. Cromwell did not follow 
 the beautiful counsel given him by Wolsey, which the 
 great dramatist puts in his mouth. On the contrary, 
 his cruel policy brought to the scaffold or block several 
 noble men. 
 
 The accomplished Sir Thomas More and Fisher, 
 bishop of Rochester, were executed because they re- 
 fused to take the oath of supremacy. The Charter 
 House monks of the Carthusian order were brought to 
 trial for this cause. The Prior of the Charter House
 
 328 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 was executed, and many others connected with this 
 establishment suffered imprisonment, exile and other 
 evils. The members of the Charter House were said 
 to be monks of pure morals and simple faith. Their 
 fate seemed to be universally mourned.* 
 
 The same historian from whom we have already 
 quoted says that Cromwell had a long and bitter debate 
 to meet in the suppression of the monasteries ; although 
 the House of Commons had cried " Down with them ! " 
 when overwhelming proofs of the general corruption of 
 the religious houses were laid before them, yet there 
 was much wrath and hate seething in the minds of a 
 large number of the people. Especially did they hate 
 the measure when they saw that the money derived from 
 the spoliation was not all devoted to educational pur- 
 poses, but a large portion, it is alleged, was used for 
 enriching the king, his minister Cromwell, and that 
 minister's satellites. 
 
 " Before Cromwell's rise and after his fall from power 
 the reign of Henry VIII. witnessed no more than the 
 common bloodshed of the time." Cranmer, who was 
 now Archbishop of Canterbury, never soiled his hands 
 with any portion of the spoils of the monasteries. 
 
 Cromwell seems, from his great talents, energy and 
 decision, to be a favorite with historians. But he set a 
 human life at " a pin's fee." The only good we know 
 of him was his faithful service to Cardinal Wolsey. 
 But he did not "fling away ambition," but he hugged 
 it to his soul. He was a pupil of Machiavel, and, like 
 that great politician, his only aim seemed to be to make 
 his state or country the most powerful nation of the 
 
 * Green.
 
 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 329 
 
 earth, whatever costly sacrifices must be made to achieve 
 it. His great desire to connect his monarch and coun- 
 try with the Protestant powers of Germany was the 
 cause of his fall. The blow of the headsman's axe was 
 the guerdon of his splendid services he at last received. 
 He had caused so much blood to flow that little regret 
 was felt at his death. Cranmer interceded strongly in 
 his behalf, but to no avail. 
 
 In the year 1536, Henry, with the sanction of the 
 convocation, prescribed that the Scriptures and the 
 ancient creeds be made the standards of faith ; the 
 doctrine of justification by faith is stated ; four of the 
 sacraments are passed over, and purgatory is left 
 doubtful. But transubstantiation, auricular confession, 
 the worship of images and saints, were still retained. 
 In the year 1539, however, the king and the opposers 
 of the Reformation procured a statute to be passed in 
 both houses of parliament, making it penal to speak or 
 write against any of the six following articles, namely : 
 i. That there remained in the sacrament of the altar 
 after consecration no substance of bread and wine, but 
 under these forms the natural body and blood were 
 present. 2. That communion in both kinds was not 
 necessary. 3. That priests might not marry by the law 
 of God. 4. That vows of chastity ought to be ob- 
 served. 5. That masses should be continued, the use 
 of private masses. 6. That auricular confession was 
 expedient and necessary, and ought to be retained in 
 the Church. 
 
 This six-article law was called the bloody statute, 
 because it was enforced during the residue of Henry's 
 reign, and brought many to the stake or to prison. It 
 caused the Reformation to recede during the last eight 
 years of Henry's reign. It was enforced until 1547.
 
 33O ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 Cromwell was executed in 1540. His fall has usu- 
 ally been attributed to his connection with the German 
 marriage. He, like Wolsey, is thought to have for- 
 feited his high position on account of a woman. Crom- 
 well daily became more identified with the Protestants, 
 and this must have disaffected the king, as we have 
 seen from the "six-article act" that he became more 
 stringent in his Romish views in the latter part of his 
 life. Cromwell, too, had failed in the Anglo-German 
 League. Henry was left alone politically at the very 
 time that Charles V. and Francis I. were drawing 
 together. The Lutherans were deluded by the emperor. 
 
 Have we maintained the position with which we set 
 out in this chapter, that Henry VIII. was not the 
 author of the Reformation of the Church in England ? 
 It is conceded that, through the Providence of God, 
 opportunities were afforded in this reign for an increase 
 of knowledge. Light from the Lutheran Reformation 
 dawned upon England. The Bible and other books 
 were translated. It matters not whether England's 
 king broke the fetters that bound him to the papacy, 
 through passion or through righteous conviction he 
 could break down a barrier, but he could not create or 
 build up.
 
 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 331 
 
 CHAPTER XXXV. 
 
 Much sarcasm has been leveled at the assumption 
 of Henry's- title, "Head of the Church."* On the 
 accession of Elizabeth, it was deemed prudent to re- 
 tire from the designation, f When the Act of Suprem- 
 acy was passed, in order to guard against misconcep- 
 tion, an explanatory document was drawn up. "The 
 king's grace," says this paper, "has no new authority 
 given hereby in being recognized as supreme head of 
 the Church of England, for in that recognition is in- 
 cluded only that he have such power as to a king ap- 
 pertaineth by the law of God, and not that he should 
 take any spiritual power from ministers that is given 
 them by the gospel. So that the words "Head of 
 the Church " serve rather to declare to the world that 
 the king hath power to suppress all powers, as well of 
 the bishop of Rome as any other within this realm, 
 whereby his subjects might be grieved, and to correct 
 and remove any disquiet among the people, rather than 
 he should pretend thereby to take away from the suc- 
 cessors of the apostles that which was given to them 
 by God." 
 
 In the session of this former Parliament in the 
 twenty-fifth year of this reign, when the exactions done 
 to the king's subjects by a power from without were put 
 away, then the promise was made that nothing should 
 
 * Mr. Froude. t While retaining the authority.
 
 33 2 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 be interpreted upon that statute that the king's grace, 
 his nobles or subjects intended to vary from the con- 
 gregation of Christ's Church, in anything in the articles 
 of the Catholic Church, or anything declared by the 
 word of God necessary for salvation. 
 
 "It is not meet lightly to think that the selfsame 
 persons, continuing the selfsame Parliment, would, in 
 the next year following, make an act whereby his ma- 
 jesty, his nobles and his subjects should so vary. And 
 no man may with conscience judge that they did so." 
 
 There is no authority of Scripture that will prove 
 that any oneo{ the apostles should be head of the Univer- 
 sal Church of Christendom. 
 
 The suppression of the monasteries, as we have al- 
 ready hinted, produced much discontent and disorder. 
 All the gold, silver an'd other' property pertaining to 
 these religious houses had been confiscated. The ab- 
 bots were pensioned, and part of the revenues were 
 expended in founding schools and colleges, and six 
 new bishoprics ; but a very large portion of the church 
 property, the people believed, had been grasped by 
 the courtiers and favorites of the king. 
 
 In the northern counties an army of 40,000 people 
 undertook what they called a "pilgrimage of grace." 
 Many towns and castles fell into their hands. A Par- 
 liament of the north met at Pomfret and demanded 
 reunion with Rome, the restoration of Princess Mary 
 to her rights as heiress to the crown and the fall of 
 Cromwell. To that great statesman (Comwell) they 
 attributed all the evils of the time. This rebellion was 
 put down with the most summary vengeance. Four ab- 
 bots were hung, and several feudal chiefs were executed. 
 At the first outbreak the king yielded to several of
 
 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 333 
 
 their demands, and a compromise was made, but a sec- 
 ond insurrection was put down, as we have said, with 
 terrible violence. Much odium rested on the head of 
 Cromwell on account of these executions, and it doubt- 
 less contributed to his overthrow, though this "pil- 
 grimage of grace " occurred in 1536 and his execution 
 in 1540. 
 
 Towards the close of Henry's reign the conserva- 
 tives gained the ascendancy. The Protestants were 
 persecuted. Anne Askew was racked and burned be- 
 cause she refused to believe in the real presence. Lat- 
 imer was arrested, and an attempt was made against 
 the life of Katharine Parr, the Protestant wife of the 
 king. She saved her life by a little well-timed flattery 
 of the king, who was fond of conversing with his wife 
 on the controverted points of religion. Her enemies 
 narrowly escaped the fate they had prepared for her. 
 Gardiner, bishop of Winchester, was her enemy. 
 Henry, it is said, in his last speech to Parliament, 1545, 
 spoke as favorably of toleration as a statesman of that 
 age could be expected to do. 
 
 Several distinguished nobles suffered upon the scaf- 
 fold during this reign, but to the masses of the people 
 it was not so tyrannical as many previous reigns. 
 More than once Henry was compelled to yield to the 
 popular will. A very distinguished man of this reign 
 was Reginald Pole. He was a cousin to Henry, and 
 wrote a book filled with arguments, which he sent to 
 the king, protesting against the divorce and his separa- 
 tion from Rome. 
 
 Paul III., the successor of Clement VII., made 
 Pole a cardinal, but he lived away from England, 
 which was the home of his childhood and youth, until
 
 334 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 the reign of Mary Tudor. Philip Melanchthon wrote a 
 noble protest to the king against the "Bloody Stat- 
 ute." He insists that Henry should repeal the barbar- 
 ous decree, but the appeal was unavailing. The Prot- 
 estants of Germany had been greatly grieved by what 
 is called "the Peasants' War." 
 
 There arose in the year 1525 a multitude of sedi- 
 tious, delirious fanatics, who declared war against the 
 laws and magistrates, and spread rapine and slaughter 
 through the land. Thomas Munzer, a fanatical Ana- 
 baptist, was one of the chief incendiaries and leaders 
 in this peasants' war. The storm subsided after the 
 battle of Mulhausen, A. D. 1525, in which Munzer was 
 taken and suffered capital punishment. The enemies 
 of the Lutherans pretended to ascribe this sedition to 
 the spread of the new doctrines. 
 
 The great Luther died in 1546. He had witnessed 
 the extension of the religious doctrines he had so 
 labored to propagate, not only throughout Germany, 
 but also in Denmark, and Sweden. In these two last 
 mentioned counties the Episcopate was retained; the 
 bishops f were reformed with the people, as was the 
 case in England. 
 
 To return to Luther. He had married, much to 
 the surprise of his friends, in 1526, Catharine von 
 Bora. The marriage was a happy one. He had three 
 sons. -From 1521 to 1530 Luther's pious labors were 
 devoted to the translation of the Bible, hymns and 
 choral services in the vernacular tongue. Luther wrote 
 some famous hymns. Luther has been called the 
 Elijah of the reformation. In unrolling the scroll of his- 
 
 * Melanchthon in 1560. f At least some of them.
 
 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 335 
 
 tory we see impressed upon it great peculiar characters, 
 who seem to have been created for trying emergencies. 
 Luther was one of these. He had to bear the burden 
 of ages of superstition and ignorance, and to open and 
 clear the way, that the world might see the light of 
 truth. He possessed the boldness, the energy and the 
 endurance to accomplish a grand, moral work, even 
 the work of regenerating Christendom. He was the 
 forerunner, the voice (not the echo) crying in the wil- 
 derness of sin and death, "Make straight in the des- 
 ert a highway for our God." Under different circum- 
 stances, and different conditions many men after Luther 
 nobly helped to accomplish the grand result of a glori- 
 ous reformation, in giving Christian liberty to man, 
 and in enabling him to burst the shackles of supersti- 
 tion. 
 
 Cranmer, the great reformer during the reigns of 
 Henry VIII. and Edward VI., had a most difficult 
 part to act. His path was beset with thorns during 
 the reign of Henry. His province was to calm the 
 irascible temper of the monarch and to sue for privi- 
 leges to the church that would elevate and instruct the 
 people. He has been called timeserving and com- 
 pliant, but it is very certain from the fruits of his labor 
 that he served the time manfully and well. 
 
 The year 1552 must be remembered as the year in 
 which Cranmer and other divines prepared for the 
 church in Great Britain the priceless gift of the English 
 liturgy. The Creed, the Lord's Prayer and the Ten 
 Commandments had already been given to the people 
 in English. A prayer book, known as the First Book 
 of Edward, had been published in 1549; but much re- 
 mained in this book in the service of popery. It
 
 336 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 pleased neither party. A commission of six bishops, 
 with Cranmer as primate, was appointed to prepare a 
 new book, the Second Book of Edward VI., 1552.* 
 They used the treasures of the past, that had been 
 bequeathed to them, ancient liturgies, collects and offi- 
 ces which had happily survived. The present was thus 
 connected with the past by golden links of prayer and 
 praise, reaching down through the ages. The Songs 
 of Zion, the Psalms of Moses and David, the noble 
 Ode of Zachariah, the Magnificat of Mary, the Gloria 
 in Excelsis of the Angels, and, more than all, the 
 prayer given to us by our Lord, were as precious 
 jewels set in this book, together with the holy and wise 
 collects of the fathers of the early church and the Te 
 Deum of Hilary. For this crowning service the ar- 
 rangement of the prayer-book, England is indebted to 
 Cranmer and his associates, next in importance to the 
 gift of the English Bible. The people could now in- 
 telligently unite in the public worship of God. The 
 prayers were repeated aloud. This drew multitudes to 
 hear \\\e prayers in their own native tongue. 
 
 The absolution was turned into a prayer! The 
 prayers for the dead were removed; also, the invocation 
 of the saints. Much credit is due to Cranmer, that he 
 
 * The prayer-hook is the genuine flower and fruit of the Church 
 of England, put forth by her own inward life, indorsed and sanctioned 
 by her clergy in convocation and her laity in Parliament assembled. 
 The authority of the bishop of Rome was from the first as exercised 
 in Kngland, an invasion of the rights of the British Church. This 
 usurpation, against which the English nation vainly struggled for cen- 
 turies, became intolerable as its pretenses and abuses grew. The re- 
 vival of learning and the translation of the Scriptures unveiled to the 
 people more clearly the enormities of the papacy. At length the 
 church and nation threw off forever the usurper.
 
 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 337 
 
 gave so much beauty and simplicity of expression to 
 his native tongue.* As the translation of the Bible 
 bears the impress of Tyndale, so is the image of Cran- 
 mer reflected on the calm surface of the liturgy. Many 
 beautiful portions are translations of the Breviary. 
 Cranmer's translations of these prayers chime like 
 church bells in the ears of the English-speaking na- 
 tion. 
 
 The English liturgy was the one admirable thing 
 produced in the reign of Edward VI. The accession 
 of Edward was in 1547. His father had appointed a 
 council of regency under the Duke of Somerset, the 
 brother of Edward's mother, Jane Seymour. Somer- 
 set surrounded Edward with Protestant teachers. 
 
 Gardiner, Bishop of Winchester, a strong opponent 
 of the reformation, and himself a fierce persecutor, 
 was thrown into prison by Somerset. Somerset after- 
 wards sought to release Gardiner, but he was overcome 
 in his conscientious scruples by Warwick, his wicked 
 brother, and some ultra-Protestants. 
 
 Ridley was not so loving in his spirit, to those who 
 differed from him, as we would hope to see in one so 
 good and true. He was destined to become in the 
 reign of Mary one of "the army of martyrs." Rid- 
 ley once said to Gardiner, when referring to his 
 
 * Froude. 
 
 t To class the Church of England, says a late writer on " The Con- 
 tinuity of the Church," among the many sects produced by the refor- 
 mation is to act in defiance of history and common sense. Not one 
 link in the chain of her apostolic order was severed. Stie had been, 
 and continued to be, the apostolically founded and divinely commis- 
 sioned witness and keeper of Holy Writ " to preserve in England and 
 tiand on to future ages to all who would seek authority and instruc- 
 tion " the faith once delivered to the saints.
 
 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 persecution: "The hand of God is upon me, because 
 I have troubled other men." The spell of the past 
 long held some men stern but true in the idea that cer- 
 tain opinons deemed false should be punished 
 
 Calvin and Bullinger were not free from this mis- 
 chievous error, as well as Bonner and Gardiner. A 
 thoughtful writer says that the Roman Catholic was in- 
 tolerant upon principle ; persecution was the corollary 
 of his creed. The Protestant was a persecutor in spite 
 of his creed, led by vindictive temper. The Protest- 
 ant brings his Bible to the door of every Christian 
 family. He recognizes the ability of the Church in de- 
 fining Scripture, but denies the infallibility of human 
 testimony. We can not find gold unalloyed in the 
 work of the reformation. In all revolutions there will 
 be some base metal mixed with the pure ore. 
 
 While the unscrupulous Dudley was forming a con- 
 spiracy against his brother Somerset, while he and 
 others of the laity were devising wicked plots, Lever, 
 Latimer, Ridley and Cranmer held on unflinchingly to 
 their honest convictions. With aching hearts and per- 
 plexed intellects they witnessed the prevailing corrup- 
 tion and cruelty. Cranmer kept aloof now from State 
 matters, and was devoutly engaged in arranging the 
 prayer-book. No fibre of political intrigue or conspir- 
 acy could be' traced to the palace at Lambeth. No 
 plunder of church or crown had touched his hands. 
 
 It is to be regretted,* says a late historian, that 
 Cranmer deposed Bonner and Gardiner. There was 
 about was time a vestment controversy. Hooker, Bishop 
 of Gloucester, had some doubts as to the propriety of 
 
 * Froude.
 
 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 339 
 
 the square cap, etc. He consulted Martyr and Bucer 
 on this subject. They gave him wise answers. His 
 scruples were finally overcome. 
 
 In these pages of our history we have sought to 
 prove that the Church of England did not take its 
 shape and form through the counsel of Henry VIII. 
 On the contrary, that Henry maintained and promul- 
 gated the six-article law which embodied the cardinal 
 doctrines of the Romish Church. It is conceded that 
 through the prudent and pious intervention of learned 
 men during this reign, important principles were 
 gained by the friends of reform. 
 
 Henry was a sagacious prince, and in this era of re- 
 viving literature he was persuaded by Erasmus (who 
 made the translation) and by Cranmer and others to 
 consent to the translation of the Greek Testament into 
 the English tongue ; also the Ten Commandments and 
 Lord's Prayer. Henry's Protestantism extended no 
 further than a protest against the infallibility of the 
 Pope, with regard to his divorce and a determination 
 that he should not interfere with the affairs of his king- 
 dom. 
 
 The dissolution of the monasteries, of which we 
 have already spoken,* was doubtless an entering wedge 
 to the battering down of many of the corrupt incrus- 
 tations which had gathered upon the Church during the 
 ignorance and violent misrule of the middle ages. A 
 cry for reform from within the Church had been heard 
 from all the countries of Europe, from the days of 
 Wycliffe, and afterwards from the holy Savonarola, but 
 
 * Chapters XXXI V-XXXV.
 
 34O ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 the cry was stifled and discouraged and overcome by 
 obstacles that seemed insurmountable. 
 
 But now the time was come. Leaders of thought 
 in Germany, in Switzerland, and in France were earn- 
 est and active in the cause of reform. In the last 
 years of Henry's life reform had retrograded in Eng- 
 land because of the terrors of the "six articles." 
 
 In* 1547, Edward VI. ascended ihe throne. The 
 parliament in 1547 repealed the laws which sanctioned 
 persecution, but previous to this time Bonner and Gar- 
 diner, refusing to obey the injunctions of the court of 
 Edward, had been sent to prison. Injunctions were 
 issued to regulate worship and religious order. They 
 who prepared and revised the English prayer-book 
 were engaged in selecting the treasures of the past. 
 They retained all that was in unison with the word of 
 God. They did not, says Bishop Hall, take the 
 prayer-book out of the mass, but they thrust the mass 
 out of the prayer-book. They did not adopt much 
 that was new. They were reformers, not revolution- 
 ists. 
 
 In 1551 forty-two articles of faith were adopted. 
 In 1552 the prayer-book was organized and made 
 nearly as it is now in the Church of England and the 
 Episcopal Church of the United States. By the act of 
 supremacy the right of reforming the Church was in 
 the crown ; but, says Mr. Gladstone, when the convo- 
 cation acknowledged the headship of the crown in 1531, 
 Archbishop Warham was primate. Not one of the 
 bishops or prelates who determined the royal suprem- 
 acy had aught to do with the reformation. Cranmer 
 was not a bishop when this act of supremacy was 
 passed. The leading reformers of Edward's reign
 
 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 341 
 
 (sixteen years after the act of supremacy was passed), 
 were young Edward himself, the Duke of Somerset, 
 the king's uncle, the lord protector, the Archbishops 
 Cranmer and Holgate, Paget, secretary of state, Lisle 
 high admiral, the Bishops Holbeach, Goodrich, Lati- 
 mer, and Ridley. 
 
 Peter Martyr, of Florence, was appointed divinity 
 professor at Oxford, and Martin Bucer was professor 
 at Cambridge. Both these men were liberal enlight- 
 ened reformers. The king, though a child in years, 
 was remarkably mature in intelligence and virtue. 
 The dependents of Dudley, earl of Northumber- 
 land, appropriated to themselves all the public prop- 
 erty they could lay their hands upon. The young 
 prince, on the contrary, stimulated the lord mayor 
 and aldermen to establish hospitals and schools. 
 
 Parliament had ratified the first book of Edward 
 published in 1549, and aftewards the revised book of 
 Edward, published in 1552. As a proof of the intol- 
 erance of the times parliament made it a penal offense 
 to use any other liturgy. Some tumults were excited 
 by this measure, but they were soon quieted. Ed- 
 ward VI. seemed to have just notions of government, 
 and was truly a religious prince. 
 
 Many learned men had gathered around from every 
 quarter holding Protestant opinions, The leading op- 
 ponents to reform were the Princess Mary, Wrothes- 
 ley, the Bishops Tonstal, Gardiner, and Bonner. The 
 first book of Homilies was appointed to be read in 
 the church when the incumbents were not well quali- 
 fied to preach.
 
 342 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVI. 
 
 ACCESSION OF MARY TUDOR. 
 
 Edward died in 1553. As soon as Mary, the 
 daughter of Katherine of Arragon, was established 
 upon the throne, she proceeded to release from prison 
 Bonner, Gardiner, Tonstal, and to restore them to their 
 sees. The reforming bishops, Cranmer, Hopper, Lati- 
 mer and Ridley, Coverdale, Rogers, Holgate, were 
 incarcerated. Eight hundred friends of the Reforma- 
 tion fled from their country and settled upon the Rhine. 
 Among these were bishops, deans, archdeacons, doc- 
 tors of divinity, together with noblemen, merchants, 
 etc. A compliant parliament repealed the laws that 
 Edward had made, and restored things to the state in 
 which Henry had left them. The Protestant professors, 
 Martyr and Bucer, were expelled. 
 
 Mary had had a brief struggle for the throne in a 
 contest with the partisans of the Dudleys and Greys, 
 who had urged Lady Jane Grey, against her will and 
 judgment; to pretend to the throne, which was the 
 rightful inheritance of Mary Tudor. 
 
 Lady Jane was a Protestant, distinguished for her 
 learning and accomplishments, and for a lovely, relig- 
 ious character, as all historians testify. Unfortunately, 
 she became the tool of the unprincipled Dudley, her 
 father-in-law, who, to serve his own selfish ends, wished 
 to make her Queen. She was the granddaughter of 
 Mary, the youngest sister of Henry VIII. Her father
 
 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 343 
 
 also was descended from Margaret, Henry's eldest 
 sister. 
 
 But the people of England had too strong a sense 
 of justice, despite her Catholicism, to ignore the 
 claims of Mary to the throne of England. 
 
 It is said that Edward VI. heartily desired that his 
 cousin, Lady Jane, should succeed him, on account of 
 her Protestant opinions, and her excellence of character. 
 Edward had been educated with his cousin, and fully 
 understood the purity of her religious principles ; in 
 his languishing state of health, Dudley, now Earl of 
 Northumberland, persuaded the young king to exe- 
 cute a deed, whereby Lady Jane Grey, to the exclusion 
 of his sister's superior legal rights, was made heir to 
 England, and Queen of England. After wearing a 
 crown for ten days, the noble princess resigned the 
 vain pageantry and returned to domestic life. 
 
 Mary immediately ascended the throne. She at 
 first concealed her violent bigotry, and assured the 
 people that she would not alter the laws of Edward 
 VI. An entire change, however, quickly followed her 
 accession, both in men and measures. All the popish 
 rites were everywhere restored. The imprisoned bish- 
 ops were released. A compliant parliament in October,^ 
 l :>33> repealed the reforming laws of King Edward. 
 The married and recusant clergy, some thousands in 
 number, were deprived of their parishes and sees. 
 
 Much displeasure was now manifested at the violent 
 measures of the Queen, and especially her proposed 
 marriage with Philip II., king of Spain. An entensive 
 conspiracy was formed by Sir Thomas Wyatt, Sir Peter 
 Carew and the Duke of Suffolk. The strong motive 
 with the latter was the hope of recovering the crown
 
 344 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 for Lady Jane Grey. This rebellion ended in disaster 
 and defeat. Lady Jane Grey, who had been spared 
 when her father-in-law expiated his guilt on the scaffold, 
 on account of her youth and innocence, was now 
 attainted for treason, together with her youthful hus- 
 band, Guilford Dudley, and suffered the extreme pen- 
 alty of the law. It is said that the council, dreading 
 the compassion of the people for one so loved, ordered 
 that she should be beheaded privately, within the verge 
 of the Tower, while her husband was executed on 
 Tower Hill.* 
 
 The fires of Smithfield burned fiercely during Mary's 
 short reign of five years. Rogers, prebendary of St. 
 Paul's, a man distinguished for piety and learning, was 
 the first martyr. Hooper, Bishop of Gloucester, was 
 condemned at the same time with Rogers; he was sent 
 to his own diocese to be punished, in order to strike 
 more terror into his flock. But his constancy had the 
 opposite effect. He bore testimony to the truths he 
 had proclaimed among them, until the violence of his 
 sufferings denied him utterance. Ferrar, bishop of St. 
 David's, also suffered martyrdom in his own diocese. 
 Ridley, Bishop of London, and Latimer, of Worcester, 
 perished together in the same fire at Oxford. Latimer 
 called to his companion when tied to the stake, " Be of 
 good cheer, rny brother ! We shall this day kindle such 
 a flame in England as I trust, in God, will never be 
 
 * "The husband was first executed. When she heard of the mag- 
 nanimity and calmness that her husband evinced on the scaffold, she 
 was encou/aged to write upon her tablets three sentences one in 
 Greek, one in Latin and one in English ; purporting thai, though 
 human justice was against her husband's body, divine mercy would be 
 favorable to his soul." RUSSEL'S MODERN EUROPE.
 
 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 345 
 
 extinguished." Sanders was committed to the flames 
 at Coventry ; he rejected with scorn a pardon offered 
 him if he would recant, crying out, " Welcome cross of 
 Christ ! Welcome everlasting life! " 
 
 But the man who had beeri most active in Edward's 
 reign, he who had given shape and form and consis- 
 tency to the work of reformation, now faltered for a 
 time when he was called upon to die. We mean Arch- 
 bishop Cranmer ! 
 
 He was now an old man ; his body was enfeebled by 
 a long imprisonment ; in a moment of infirmity he 
 signed a recantation. \Vhen it was known that he had 
 signed this paper, he was required by Mary and her 
 council to come to the church, that he might acknowl- 
 edge publicly his errors. He came to the church, 
 weary and weak with suffering, but he surprised his 
 audience with a very different declaration from that 
 which the Queen expected. After explaining his sense 
 of what he owed to God and his sovereign, he said, 
 "There is one miscarriage in my life, which above all 
 others, I heartily repent I mean, the insincere declar- 
 ation of faith to which I had the weakness to subscribe. 
 I take this opportunity of atoning for my sin by a 
 public declaration. I am willing to seal with my bloqd 
 those doctrines, which, in an hour of infirmity I denied 
 doctrines which I firmly believe to have been com- 
 municated from heaven." 
 
 But little time was lost before he was led to the 
 stake. When the fire burned around him, he thrust 
 his right hand into the fierce flame, exclaiming, " This 
 hand has offended." He seemed to find some relief 
 when he had sacrificed this instrument of his crime to 
 divine justice.
 
 34-6 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 The whole number put to death in this reign was 
 about two hundred and eighty-eight. Some died in 
 prison and many, as we have said, fled the country. 
 Cardinal Pole, after a long absence, was recalled to 
 England. He, it is believed, tried to restrain the court of 
 Mary in their ferocious proceedings. Bonner has been 
 charged with the chief agency in these cruel proceed- 
 ings. Queen Mary died in 1558. 
 
 Elizabeth was immediately proclaimed. She deter- 
 mined to restore the reformed religion. She first 
 inhibited preaching until church affairs were more 
 settled. The exiles hastened back to their homes in 
 England. They were somewhat divided in their views 
 as to discipline, rites and ceremonies. The court se- 
 cured a parliament in 1559, which repealed the persecu- 
 ting laws of Mary Tudor, and invested the sovereign 
 with power to regulate the discipline and forms of wor- 
 ship. She consulted the clergy as to these measures. 
 The Queen appointed Parker, Grindal, Cox and others 
 to revise the liturgy of King Edward, which had been 
 so carefully revised and compiled by Cranmer 
 Very slight alterations were made ; it was ratified 
 by parliament and established by law. 
 
 Much prudence had been exercised by Elizabeth 
 during the reign of her sister. When pressed as to her 
 belief in the real presence, she replied : 
 
 " Christ was the Word, that spake it, 
 He took the bread, and brake it ; 
 And what that Word did make it, 
 Thus I believe, and take it." 
 
 About forms of prayer, there has been and ever 
 will be, much thought and discussion in the religious 
 world. When the disciples of our Lord asked from
 
 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 347 
 
 Him instruction in prayer, He gave them a form of 
 prayer ; a form forever hallowed in the hearts of His 
 people. The wants of individual human hearts are the 
 same in every age and country, when looking to the 
 Father of our spirits, the source of all hope and help. 
 In the worship of the congregation, however, not only 
 similarity, but some degree of uniformity, seems to be 
 necessary. Accordingly, we find from very early times, 
 the existence of liturgies. 
 
 The Jews used precomposed forms of prayer. The 
 Greek, in the chorus of the tragedy and in singing 
 poeans to their gods, united in lofty religious harmonies. 
 The Psalms were introduced early into the public 
 Christian service. " The Church," says Dean Milman, 
 " succeeded to an inheritance of religious lyrics as unriv- 
 alled in the history of poetry as of religion." The 
 Psalms, and perhaps the Psalmody that had filled the 
 spacious courts of the temple, may have been adopted 
 by the Christians. The earliest recorded hymns are 
 fragments from the Scripture those hymns that are 
 now constantly sung in our Episcopal churches, viz., 
 the Doxology, the angelic hymn, Glory be to God on 
 High ; the Cherubic Hymn, and the Hymn of Victory, 
 are both taken from Revelation. The Magnificat, and 
 the Nunc Dimittis, are still sung in the Church of 
 England. 
 
 In the early Christian churches each nation had its 
 liturgy. In these there was much similarity, but not 
 entire uniformity. When Gregory I. writes to Austin, 
 in the sixth century, on the discipline of the British 
 Church (which had come into contact with the church 
 of his Saxon converts), he tells him not to interfere 
 with the worship of the Britons, but to allow them to
 
 348 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 use their own liturgy, which had been received from 
 another source. 
 
 The liturgy used in the church at Jerusalem can be 
 traced back to the second century. The liturgies of 
 Basil and Chrysostom are revisions of the early church 
 at Jerusalem. These form the basis of the liturgies of 
 the Greek Church in Russia and Greece, and Armenia. 
 The liturgy of Cyril of Alexandria forms the princi- 
 pal part of the worship of the Copts in Egypt and 
 Abyssinia. The Ambrosian liturgy, ascribed to Bar- 
 nabas, is still used in the churches of Milan. The 
 liturgy used in Spain is very ancient. The Gallican 
 church had a liturgy of its own until the rise of the 
 Carlovingians. The Roman liturgy gradually sup- 
 planted the Gallican liturgy, which has been ascribed 
 to Hilary of Poictiers. 
 
 The Roman liturgies are traced to the time of Leo 
 I., 440. To Hilary of Poictiers has been ascribed the 
 grand anthem of the Te Deum ; but it has usually been 
 styled the Hymn of Ambrose, as tradition says he sang 
 it in the church at Milan, at the baptism of St. August- 
 ine, in the fourth century. 
 
 Many liturgies were written in the sixteenth century 
 during the reforming movement ; but the most cele- 
 brated 1 * of these was the liturgy of the Church of 
 England, which was carefully revised from the 
 treasures of the past. Of this we have fully spoken. 
 Calvin, Luther and Zuingliu published liturgies, but 
 no uniformity was arrived at among them. The Swiss 
 and Germans retained their liturgies until the -close of 
 the eighteenth century, when a new theology (rational- 
 ism), produced a radical change in the spirit and form 
 of Divine worship in those countries. At the present
 
 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 349 
 
 day, however, these churches have returned to their 
 liturgies of the sixteenth century, and now seem to 
 value liturgical worship. 
 
 We have spoken of the accession of Elizabeth in 
 1559, and of the clergy she appointed to revise the 
 liturgy adopted during Edward's reign. It was slightly 
 altered, but all that savored of idolatr)', all the notions 
 about purgatory, were rigorously excluded ; the pre- 
 cious services of the early church were retained, and 
 the bishops, pri sts and deacons continued in an unin- 
 terrupted line, as from the beginning. When the 
 bishops of Mary's reign were called upon to take the 
 oath of supremacy, all refused except one. New bish- 
 ops were consecrated by the ex-bishops of Edward's ' 
 reign. The Queen now ordered a visitation of all the 
 churches in her realm and issued injunctions regulating 
 worship and discipline, and the duties of clergymen ; 
 also holy days, etc., with penalties against the recusant 
 clergy. Two hundred refused obedience ; these lost 
 their livings. 
 
 The convocation, in revising the Forty-two Articles 
 of Religion, as they are called, reduced them to thirty- 
 nine, the number in which they now exist in the Eng- 
 lish and American prayer-books. The Puritan argued 
 at this convocation for a still more simple worship, but 
 the book, as prepared by Cranmer, has remained sub- 
 stantially the same from that time to the present day. 
 
 A NOTE ON ROMAN CATACOMBS. Inquiries are frequently made 
 in late years about the Catacombs of Rome : What are they ? They 
 are galleries dug in the rock, used as places of burial. The Christians, 
 following the examples of the Jews, buried their dead in rock-hewn 
 galleries. In times of persecution, the early Christians used them as
 
 35O ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 places of worship. They wrote on the graves of their friends consoling 
 words, and painted symbols of their happiness in heaven. From the 
 sixth century to the seventeenth, nothing was known of the Catacombs, 
 as they were deserted at the invasion of the barbarians, and filled with 
 ruins. 
 
 "These Catacombs," says Dean Stanley, "are a standing monument 
 of the Oriental and Jewish character even of Western Christianity." 
 
 The primitive Christians of Rome were an Eastern community, speak- 
 ing Greek. All the paintings on these Catacombs are cheerful and 
 joyous. There is neither the cross of the fifth century, nor the crucifix 
 of the twelfth. There is the Good Shepherd, the Vine with its branches, 
 also the Lamb at the foot of the Cross. There are many symbols of 
 the Resurrection. 
 
 " I say to thee, do thou repeat 
 To the first man thou mayest meet 
 In lane, highway or open street, 
 That he and I and all men move 
 Under a canopy of love 
 As broad as the blue sky above." 
 
 TRENCH.
 
 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 35 1 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVII. 
 
 JOHN KNOX REFORMATION IN SCOTLAND AND SWIT- 
 ZERLAND. 
 
 The affairs of Scotland, civil and ecclesiastical, were 
 in great confusion from the death of James V., in 1542, 
 to the accession of Mary, Queen of Scots, in 1561. 
 As early as 1527, Protestant doctrines had made their 
 way in Scotland. Perhaps some of the writings of 
 Luther, that Latimer, Bilney, and Tyndale fc had circu- 
 lated in England, had reached Scotland. It is quite 
 certain that in 1527 Patrick Hamilton was arraigned for 
 heresy and burned at the stake at St. Andrews. Ham- 
 ilton had visited seminaries of learning on the conti- 
 nent, and was greatly esteemed for his accomplish- 
 ments. Hamilton was abbot of Feme, a young noble- 
 man of blameless life. He suffered martyrdom in the 
 twenty-fourth year of his age. From this time Prot- 
 estantism made slow but sure progress in Scotland. 
 
 For nineteen years Mary Guise held arbitrary sway 
 over the kingdom. She was the widow of James V. 
 and mother of Mary Queen of Scots, and the sister of 
 the famous Guises of France. With little observation 
 or opposition the reformed doctrines were quietly 
 spreading in Scotland until the martyrdom of George 
 Wishart, a reformed preacher, by Beatoun, Archbishop 
 of St. Andrews. This occurred in 1545, and created 
 the wildest excitement. 
 
 Norman Leslie, a young nobleman, assembled an
 
 352 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 armed force, surprised and murdered the cardinal in 
 his castle of St. Andrews. Leslie and his adherents 
 held possession of St. Andrews for fourteen months. 
 John Knox was the leading spirit at this time among 
 the preachers, and boldly preached the doctrines of 
 the reformation. The Regent, Mary Guise, assisted by 
 a French squadron, forced the garrison of St. Andrews 
 to submit. Knox was among the prisoners. He was 
 sent out of the country to France. He was on the 
 galleys nineteen months. John Knox had been edu- 
 cated in the University of Glasgow. He was a 
 teacher of philosophy and theology at St. Andrews in 
 1530, devoting himself in his hours of study to the 
 works of Augustine and Jerome, and doubtless con- 
 trasted the doctrines of these ancient fathers of the 
 church with the traditional teachings of the court of 
 Rome in the sixteenth century. After his release from 
 the French galleys he became for a short time one of 
 the chaplains at the court of Edward VI. 
 
 On the accession of Mary Tudor* he fled from 
 England. He resided in Geneva for two years with 
 Calvin, Beza, and other learned reformers. In 1559 
 Knox left Geneva for his native country, greatly 
 strengthened and encouraged by his intimate com- 
 munion with Calvin. 
 
 Knox, in his theological views, was an ardent dis- 
 ciple of Calvin, and a bold and fearless preacher. He 
 was a leader in the political affairs of his country, as 
 well as in the ecclesiastical. The tyranny and dissimu- 
 lation of the unpopular Regent, Mary Guise, together 
 with the violent intolerance of the reforming preachers, 
 
 *To the throne of England.
 
 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 353 
 
 produced violent and disgraceful scenes. Iconoclasm 
 was a prominent feature in the Scottish reformation. An 
 insurrection ensued on one occassion, when some of the 
 were priests preparing to celebrate mass. In the mad fury 
 of the people the images of the churches were demolished, 
 pictures torn from the walls, and the houses of some of 
 the Franciscan and Dominican Friars were destroyed. 
 
 Civil war raged through the kingdom between the 
 regent, assisted by French troops and the lords of the 
 congregation, as the Protestant leaders were called. 
 Elizabeth, Queen of England, sent powerful assistance 
 to the Protestants. The death of the regent, while the 
 city of Edinburgh was invested, led to a truce and to 
 the call of a parliament to settle differences. Parlia- 
 ment, in 1560, established the reformed religion and 
 Roman Catholicism was interdicted. When Mary 
 Queen of Scots, came to her kingdom in 1561, she 
 summoned John Knox to her presence. He discussed 
 with undaunted vigor the questions she proposed to 
 him. She had him arrested in 1563, but all except the 
 dependents of the court acquitted him. 
 
 The Presbyterian churches accepted the order of 
 Geneva. The Scots have inflexibly held to the 
 Presbyterian form of government, doctrine, and dis- 
 cipline through many trials. Though we may not fully 
 sympathize in their mode of worship, nor feel satisfied 
 with their ordination (seeing that they exclude what we 
 deem the apostolic mode), yet it must be conceded by 
 every candid mind that the Calvinists 6f Scotland and 
 Geneva have been able defenders of the cardinal truths of 
 our holy religion, and warm advocates of civil liberty. 
 
 In this world of sin they have been active in batter- 
 ing down the strongholds of Satan by well directed
 
 354 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 engines of the press and pulpit. Mosheim, in tracing 
 the origin and progress of the Lutheran Church, says 
 this church was called Lutheran because it would not 
 be ungrateful to the man who first dispersed' the clouds 
 that had gathered around gospel truth, teaching his 
 hearers to place no reliance upon their own doings, or 
 upon glorified saints, but to give all their confidence to 
 Christ. 
 
 We date the commencement of the Lutheran 
 Church from the time when Leo X. expelled Martin 
 Luther and his adherents from the Roman Church in 
 1520. It acquired a permanent form in 1530, when 
 the confession of its faith was drawn up and presented 
 to the diet of Augsburg. It was freed from the juris- 
 diction of the pope in 1552, when Maurice of Saxony 
 made a pacification with Charles V. at Passau. Like all 
 Protestant churches, the Lutheran holds that the rule 
 for a correct faith and holy life is to be drawn from the 
 Bible itself. This church has certain books, such as 
 the Augsburg Confession, the Articles of Smalcald, 
 and the Catechisms of Luther. These, like the ' ' Book 
 of Common Prayer," are deemed to be digests of the 
 sacred oracles. 
 
 The prayer-book of Episcopalians derives much of 
 its significance from its being a record of the utterances 
 of distinguished saints in the primitive and uncorrupted 
 ages of the church. The internal regulation of the 
 Lutheran Church is intermediate between the Episco- 
 pal and Presbyterian forms or systems, except in Swe- 
 den and Denmark, where the Episcopal form is re- 
 tained. The Lutherans have a liturgy. These litur- 
 gies have been often amended, as circumstances re- 
 quired or as sovereigns demanded. They commemo-
 
 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 355 
 
 rate the great festivals of the Christian year, as Christ- 
 mas, Easter, Ascension, Pentecost. 
 
 The Reformed Church in Switzerland (called usu- 
 ally the German Reformed) had for her founder and most 
 zealous defender Zwingle or Zuinglius. This church dif- 
 ered but little in the beginning from the Lutherans, except 
 in regard to "the Lord's Supper." The father of 
 the Swiss Church taught that the bread and wine repre- 
 sent the body and blood of Christ. The Lord's Sup- 
 per, said the early followers of Zuinglius, is simply a 
 memorial of Christ. 
 
 Several leading men f among the reformers tried to 
 assimulate the doctrine of Zuinglius to the view of 
 Luther, who taught consubstantiation of the spiritual 
 presence of Christ in the Eucharist. One of the illus- 
 trations used by the Lutherans to denote this idea was 
 "as heat dwells in iron, but it does not change it." 
 John Calvin was of Noyon in France. He obtained 
 the direction of the Church in Geneva in 1541, and had 
 vast influence in the republic. It was his aim to make 
 Geneva the mother of the whole Reformed Church and 
 the focus of light, as Wittemberg had been to the 
 Lutheran community. His chief influence outside of 
 Switzerland was felt in France ; its churches looked- to 
 him for counsel and received his creed and polity. He 
 had ceaseless industry. Calvin was an intellectual 
 giant. How wonderful and rich were his mental gifts ! 
 But, alas ! his hard temper, together with the inherited 
 spirit of the times, betrayed him into a fearful crime 
 the persecution unto death of Michel Servetus for her- 
 
 NOTE. The Mercersburg professors are said to entertain n<nv differ- 
 ent views from Zuinglius. 
 t Especially Martin Bucer.
 
 356 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 esy. This dark shadow constantly rises up to inter- 
 cept his brilliant fame, and to lessen his influence as a 
 great reformer. 
 
 Beza, who succeeded to the chair of theology oc- 
 cupied by Calvin, wrote at Calvin's request a defense 
 of the execution of Servetus^ in which he pleaded the 
 right of the civil power to punish heresy. Beza after- 
 wards greatly modified his opinions. He was a man 
 of admirable temper. An edict of toleration in France 
 made it safe for Beza to return to his own country. 
 He was very anxious to proclaim the reformed doc- 
 trines in Paris. While there some of the retainers of 
 the Duke of Guise attacked a congregation of Hugue- 
 nots, assembled in a barn for worship. A frightful 
 massacre ensued. Beza hastened to the court to re- 
 monstrate. One of the nobles present threw all the 
 blame upon the Huguenots. " I admit, sire," said the 
 reformer, "it is the part of God's church, in whose 
 name I speak, to endure rather than to inflict blows ; 
 but may it please you to remember that it is an anvil 
 which has worn out many a hammer." 
 
 We must not forget while speaking of the many 
 righteous Protestants of this era to mention Borromeo, 
 a Romanist of Milan, who reminded his people of 
 the good deeds of Ambrose, so devoted was he to the 
 duties of his bishopric. Borromeo was the agent in 
 finishing the work of the council of Trent in 1563. 
 He was the most unworldly of men, and as benevolent 
 as he was unworldly. 
 
 To return to Calvin. The institution of Calvin 
 continued to flourish long after his death, in 1564. 
 By his writings and his famous academy of learning he 
 induced many eminent persons to emigrate to Geneva.
 
 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 Calvin introduced at Geneva the Presbyterian form of 
 church government. The disciples of Zuinglius would 
 not accept the views of Calvin on the Lord's Supper, 
 and were also much opposed to his views of predestina- 
 tion. But the reformed religion, as shaped by Calvin, 
 took up a permanent residence not only at Geneva, but 
 it had many adherents in France and Germany. 
 
 Frederick III., in 1560, substituted Calvinistic 
 teachers for Lutheran teachers. There were friends of 
 the reformation in France from a very early time. 
 The encouragement that Francis I. gave to learned 
 men induced many persons of genius to reside in 
 France. Some of these were reformers, and they 
 brought with them Protestant writings. 
 
 William Brissonet, bishop of Meaux, 1530, felt and 
 deplored the corruptions of the Romish Church. He 
 wished to work a reformation in his diocese without 
 producing a schism. He associated with himself sev- 
 eral pure spirits. His efforts were rendered abortive 
 by persecution. He protected for a time Le Fevre, 
 Farrel, and Roussel, who were known to be earnest 
 reformers. 
 
 The lovely Margaret Valois, of Navarre, the sister 
 of Francis I., was an earnest promoter of the spread 
 of evangelical religion. Her brother rebuked her for 
 the protection she afforded to Lutherans. She prom- 
 ised not to proceed further, if he would grant certain 
 concessions. Two of these concessions were that the 
 host should not be worshiped, and that the cup should 
 be given to the laity. This famous woman was the 
 maternal grandmother of Henry IV., of Navarre. 
 "The reformation in France," says d'Aubigne, 
 "was self -adopted." It put out shoots in the university
 
 358 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 itself, having germinated in Paris. Be this as it may, 
 there is no country where the Huguenots were more 
 fiercely persecuted than in France. Their confession of 
 faith was drawn by the strong hand of Calvin at a gen- 
 eral synod in May, 1559. 
 
 It was during the reign of Henry II. that the 
 Huguenots gained so much strength that they attempted 
 to become the dominant party. The love of political 
 power was a leading feature in some of the members 
 of the reform party, as well as those of the Romanist 
 party. Antony, king of Navarre, his brother, the 
 Prince of Conde, and many of the nobility were Prot- 
 estants in their feelings and opinions. They belonged 
 to the Huguenot party, with perhaps little personal 
 piety. But Admiral de Coli-gny, the greatest general and 
 statesman of them all, combined with the genius of a 
 warrior the fervor of a religious reformer. How 
 grand is the opportunity of doing good in the- State, 
 when men like de Coligny preside in its council.* 
 
 Catharine de Medicis, the widow of Henry II., has 
 become a synonym for the most monstrous vices. She 
 cared not for religion. Power was the idol she wor- 
 shiped. She was the ruler behind the throne during 
 the short successive reigns of two of her sons. The 
 Duke of Guise, a Romanist leader, and the Princes of 
 Bourbon, supported by the Huguenots, also contended 
 for the mastery during the feeble administration of 
 Catharine's sons. Some concessions made by the 
 Guises and the Queen to the Huguenots, to serve po- 
 litical ends, stirred up the jealousy of the Romanists. 
 
 * The world has presented few such models. Washington, in our 
 own land, Gui/.ot in France, and the present Premier in England, Mr. 
 Gladstane, are striking examples.
 
 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 359 
 
 In order to pacify them war was renewed with the Hugue- 
 nots. After a bitter contest peace was declared at St. 
 Germain in 1570. The daughter of Catharine, and sis- 
 ter of Charles IX., was given to Henry of Navarre, the 
 great military leader of the Huguenot party. This 
 seeming peace culminated in the massacre of St. Bar- 
 tholomew, 1572. It was instigated by the queen mother, 
 and occurred on the night of the marriage of her 
 daughter.
 
 360 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVIII. 
 
 MASSACRE OF ST. BARTHOLOMEW, 1 5 72. 
 
 This horrible massacre was instigated by the queen 
 mother ; it filled Protestant Europe with horror. On 
 this night perished Coligny, the benefactor of France, 
 of whom we have already spoken, with many other 
 worthy people. Five thousand persons perished in 
 Paris alone. One mayor only in the numerous cities 
 of France, it is said, had the moral courage to despise 
 the edict of the young king, Charles IX. This boy * 
 died in less than two years of nervous prostration and 
 remorse. Henry III, successor to Charles, was more 
 jealous of the League than of the Huguenots. The 
 Guises, the Duke and the Cardinal, were at the head of 
 the League. This League, it is alleged, had been 
 formed for the extermination of the Protestants, but 
 more probably with the purpose of transferring the 
 crown of France to the head of the Duke of Guise at the 
 death of Henry III, whose health was very feeble. Henry 
 III. procured the assassination of the brothers, the Duke 
 of Guise and the Cardinal, but was himself murdered in 
 a short time, 1589, by Clement, a Dominican fanatic. 
 Henry IV. now acceded to the throne; he reached it by 
 owf of the three methods of obtaining it, the success 
 of his sword. He refused to take Paris by assault, lest 
 he should sacrifice too many lives. To give peace to 
 
 * He was but nineteen years old. 
 
 t By inheritance, by election, by the sword.
 
 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 361 
 
 his distracted country, he declared himself a Roman 
 Catholic, thus forsaking the faith of his fathers. He 
 issued immediately as a reparation "the Edict of 
 Nantes," which gave to the Huguenots the same rights 
 as the Romanists. They enjoyed by this edict full re- 
 ligious liberty. 
 
 We now recede a little to speak of a body that did 
 not wholly sympathize with the kings and queens. The 
 parliament of Paris refused to register some of the de- 
 crees against the Huguenots made by the wicked 
 Katharine. That parliament also refused to register 
 an edict for the establishment of the Inquisition in 
 France. A discussion in 1559 took place in the par- 
 liament condemning former rigors and urging a more 
 merciful policy. Henry II., husband of Katharine de 
 Medicis, interposed and ordered seven of the men who 
 recommended mercy to be imprisoned. This cruel 
 monarch, who threatened that he would himself see the 
 Huguenots burned, was called a few days after to a 
 higher tribunal. He was wounded in the eye at a 
 tournament, which caused his death. 
 
 " Henry, duke of Navarre (afterwards Henry IV:), 
 was a heroic, humane man, but fanaticism would 
 not suffer him to live. He was murdered in 1610, 
 leaving the Huguenots without a protector. They 
 had rfs/, however, during the administrations of 
 Richelieu and Mazarin. They (the Huguenots) were 
 faithful during the minority of Louis XIV., and actually 
 fought against Conde to sustain the throne of Louis. 
 In 1685 this Grande Monarque revoked \.\\z Edict of Nantes. 
 This revocation made 500,000 of the best citizens of 
 France to flee to other countries and live in exile. 
 Large numbers were sheltered in England. Many
 
 362 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 came to America. The names of their descendants 
 are still recognized among our people. 
 
 Among the sects that arose in Germany about this 
 time were the Anabaptists of Westphalia. This sect, 
 now so learned and pious, were in their origin connected 
 with fanaticism and sedition. Some of the princes of 
 Germany, incensed by the seditious leaders of the Ana- 
 baptists, persecuted the whole society. Munzer and 
 his associates in Saxony and in other German prov- 
 inces proclaimed war in 1525 against all law and civil 
 government, declaring that Christ- alone would reign 
 from that time forward. The Anabaptists, by the 
 favor of William I., Prince of Orange, acquired a quiet 
 residence in Belgium. William I., the great vindicator 
 of Batavian liberty, accepted the simple affirmation of 
 these enthusiasts, not requiring from them a citizen's 
 oath. In 1689 messengers from a hundred congrega- 
 tions in England and Wales, met in London, and drew 
 up a confession, very similar to the Westminster and 
 Savoy Conferences. 
 
 The troubles of the Baptists seem to have re- 
 sulted chiefly from their interference with the civil 
 governments. Some of them had very just views 
 of civil and religious liberty, but they brought much 
 odium upon themselves in railing at "the higher pow- 
 ers." It was under very different circumstance's that 
 Roger Williams denied the right of the magistrate to 
 impose faith and worship, also the right of the king to 
 take the lands of the Indians without purchase. To 
 obtain the freedom he desired he retired to the shores 
 of Narragansett, R. I., where he founded the city called 
 Providence. Williams and his coadjutors founded the 
 first Baptist church in America. They instituted bap-
 
 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 363 
 
 tism by immersion, Holliman, a lay elder, baptizing 
 Williams and he baptizing the elder. Williams had 
 been a minister of the Church of England, and after- 
 wards an elder among the Puritans at Salem, Massa- 
 chusetts. Persecution drove him to Rhode Island. 
 Roger Williams was a noble, large-hearted man. Civil 
 and religious liberty are greatly indebted to him. The 
 history of Williams, say his biographers, was for half a 
 century the history of Providence, R. I. He made 
 several trips to England, where he received assistance 
 for his colony. He was made president of the colony 
 in 1654. He enjoyed when in England intimate com- 
 munion with John Milton. Williams would not per- 
 secute the Quakers, but discussed with some of their 
 leaders the importance of the sacraments. 
 
 Washings and sprinklings have formed a part of the 
 religious ceremonies of all nations. This rite of initia- 
 tion arose doubtless from a sense of impurity. When 
 the Jewish ceremonial law was instituted by Moses, 
 with its various washings prescribed to priest and 
 people, they were intended ^to convey to their dark- 
 ened minds the idea of holiness, and the necessity of 
 purification in approaching God in worship. These 
 people understood the power of Jehovah, but they had 
 little conception of his holiness or love. They were 
 brutalized by the superstitions of Egypt and the evil 
 treatment they had received. 
 
 John the Baptist called upon his followers to be 
 baptized. Our Lord received baptism either by 
 immersion or pouring, and he commanded his dis- 
 ciples to teach and baptize all nations. Baptists 
 claim that the immersion of believing adults was 
 the primitive baptism. It is conceded by many who
 
 364 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 now use sprinkling that immersion was the most 
 usual mode in the early church. It is still exclusively 
 practiced by the Oriental churches and the Greek 
 church, but these immerse their infants. The Western 
 church, some centuries before the Reformation, adopted 
 sprinkling as most convenient, especially in the cold 
 countries of Northern Europe. 
 
 An effort was made in the sixteenth century to re- 
 store immersion to the church, but except in the case 
 of the Anabaptists the effort was unsuccessful. The 
 Episcopal Church makes it optional with the subject 
 whether immersion or sprinkling should be used. 
 Baptists refuse to accept infants as proper subjects of 
 baptism. A large class of Baptists, inasmuch as they 
 consider baptism as the door of entrance to their com- 
 munion, decline to partake of the "sacrament of the 
 Lord's Supper" with other Christian denominations. 
 Open communion, however, has been eloquently ad- 
 vocated by Robert Hall, the great Baptist divine of 
 England. Within the present century the Baptists 
 have advanced rapidly in numbers and influence.* 
 Under the name of Baptists, a great variety of sects 
 are embraced. John Bunyan, who lived in the seven- 
 teenth century, and the author of " Pilgrim's Progress," 
 was a Baptist. Baptists all agree in maintaining the 
 congregational form of church government. 
 
 The advocates of infant baptism argue somewhat in 
 this manner: "God said to Abraham, every man child 
 among you shall be circumcised." By this command 
 circumcision became the rite of the Abrahamic cove- 
 
 * The disciples of Carey who planted a Baptist mission in India in 
 1796, have done much to evangelize India; also Mr. and Mrs. Judson, 
 who went thither from the United States.
 
 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF. CHRIST. 365 
 
 nant, and is declared by St. Paul to be the sign and 
 seal of that covenant; this sign and seal was admin- 
 istered to infants. If baptism comes in the place of 
 circumcision, the presumption is that Jesus, by the 
 words "make disciples of all nations," baptizing them 
 meant that baptism should be administered to infants. 
 When Jesus said " Suffer little children to come unto 
 me, for of such is the kingdom of heaven," nothing is 
 said of baptism, but there is no prohibition. If by the 
 kingdom of heaven is meant the heavenly society and 
 church of Christ's kingdom, then there is encourage- 
 ment to parents to bring their children to God in bap- 
 tism. 
 
 We have no account in Scripture of the baptism of 
 Christ's disciples. They were probably baptized by 
 John the Baptist, but there is no record of it. We 
 read of the baptism of households. In such cases the 
 faith of the parent or guardian was accepted. In physical 
 diseases our Lord sometimes accepted the faith of the 
 parent in the healing of the child. When Peter says 
 "Be baptized every one of you .... for the promise 
 is unto you and your children, " he was speaking to Jews 
 who knew that the promise of Abraham was to them 
 and to their children, they vvould naturally infer that the 
 blessings of the gospel would not be less extensive. 
 Infant baptism was practiced in the early church, and 
 in whatever way administered it devolved upon the 
 children to confirm this dedication when they reached 
 mature years. 
 
 Church history asserts that the baptized presented 
 themselves to the bishop to receive the laying on of 
 hands. In this rite they declared their personal faith 
 in Christ, and made a solemn renunciation of a worldly,
 
 366 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 sinful life. Confirmation, or laying on of hands, is not 
 regarded by Protestants as a sacrament but as a holy 
 rite. 
 
 Our Lord said to Nicodemus, "Except ye be born 
 of water and of the Spirit ye can not enter into the 
 kingdom of God." (St. John, third chapter). Some 
 Christians suppose that this declaration means that no 
 person can be admitted to heaven who has not been 
 baptized with water. St. Paul's language perhaps 
 strengthens this opinion, "He saved us by the wash- 
 ing of regeneration, and the renewing of the Holy 
 Ghost." The Church of Rome considers baptism 
 when administered by a priest with good intention, as 
 applying the merits of Christ to the person baptized. 
 Hence their great anxiety for the early baptism of 
 children, believing this sacrament necessary to salva~ 
 tion. Augustine, the famous bishop and writer of the 
 fourth century, made a distinction between the regene- 
 ration produced by the waters of baptism and the pre- 
 destinated. The reception of this sacrament either by 
 an infant or adult would deliver them, he taught, from 
 the wrath or sin which the children of Adam inherit, 
 but unless they were predestined to salvation they 
 would not persevere in that state to which they had 
 been regenerated. Inasmuch as our Lord invites all to 
 come to him and partake of the water of life freely, and 
 as St. Paul too declares that the sacrifice of Christ was 
 a propitiation for the sins of the whole world, we can 
 not sympathize in this view of the great theologian 
 Augustine. We believe that all who come to God in 
 sincerity will be accepted. All who are baptized by 
 an authorized minister, whether infant or adult, in the 
 exercise of faith, are brought into covenant with God,
 
 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 367 
 
 into a state of salvation. Christ has not established a 
 nullity in giving us'baptism, if we receive it according 
 to his command by faith and repentance. The blood 
 of Christ is surely available to the unbaptized when 
 opportunity is wanting. God is a God of love.
 
 368 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIX. 
 
 The Quakers, a sect that arose in England in the 
 early part of the seventeenth century, whose founder 
 was George Fox, refuse to accept either baptism or 
 the Lord's supper as obligatory upon them. They con- 
 sider these sacraments merely as symbolical actions, 
 the one shadowing forth the inward purification of the 
 soul; the other, the intimate communion which Chris- 
 tians enjoy with Christ. They say our Lord conde- 
 scended to use these sacraments in accommodation 
 to the weakness of his disciples and followers, but all 
 sacraments became unnecessary after the outpouring of 
 the Holy Ghost, upon the day of Pentecost. They 
 consider it wrong to prepare a sermon, or to preach, in 
 the ordinary sense of that word ; they must not indeed 
 "neglect the assembling of themselves together," but 
 in their assemblies they must wait for the impulse of 
 the Spirit before they attempt to pray aloud or exhort. 
 They did not acknowledge the necessity of a regular 
 ministry ; each man or woman in their meetings, who 
 was moved, as they supposed,, by the Spirit of God, 
 stood upon the same plane and possessed equal 
 authority. 
 
 Notwithstanding their fanatical and fanciful views on 
 many points in religion, they incorporated into their 
 system some sound practical principles, which have 
 challenged the respect of all. They have adopted liter- 
 ally, under all circumstances, the words of our Saviour 
 as to non-resistance. They say that war is wholly at
 
 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 369 
 
 variance with the spirit of the Gospel, which continually 
 breathes peace on earth and good will to all men. The 
 Quaker, therefore, never engages in war, and would 
 never hold in bondage a fellow-creature. 
 
 As it regards slavery and war, the principles of the 
 Quaker must ever be accepted, in the abstract, by 
 Christians of every name ; but in the question of self- 
 defense, either of individuals or nations, a formidable 
 obstacle is presented to its practical working. But, if 
 the doctrines of the Quakers were carried out, " nation 
 would not lift up the sword against nation, nor would 
 men learn war any more." 
 
 George Fox, the founder of the Society of Friends, 
 was educated in the Church of England. From child- 
 hood he led a religious life. He was apprenticed to a 
 shoemaker, who also kept sheep ; his occupation was 
 chiefly that of a shepherd. Passing much of his time 
 in retirement, and being earnestly engaged for the salva- 
 tion of his soul, he diligently read the Holy Scriptures, 
 waiting on the Lord to be taught by His Spirit their 
 true meaning. 
 
 "This sect had its birth," says Mr. Bancroft (he 
 has given us a beautiful chapter on the rise of Quaker- 
 ism), " in a period of intense public activity when 
 the heart of England was swelling with passions, and 
 the public mind turbulent with factious leaders ; when 
 a zeal for reform was invading the Church, subverting 
 the throne, and repealing the privileges of feudalism ; 
 when Presbyterians in every village were quarreling 
 with Independents and Anabaptists, and all with the 
 English Church and with the Roman Catholics."* 
 
 * History of the United States.
 
 37 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 George Fox was set by his employer to watch 
 sheep. He was a shepherd, like David, and Tamer- 
 lane, and Sixtus V. The occupation was. grateful to 
 his mind ; the years thus engaged were passed away in 
 prayer and in reading the Bible, in frequent fasts, and 
 in reveries of contemplative devotion. He commenced 
 preaching at nineteen years of age. One day the 
 thought rose in his mind that a man might be bred at 
 Oxford and Cambridge, and yet be unable to solve the 
 problem of his existence. Again, he reflected that 
 God lives not in temples of brick or stone, but in the 
 hearts of the living. From the parish priest, he turned 
 to the dissenters, but he found them unable to reach 
 his condition. He now determined, within himself, 
 that truth is to be sought for by listening to the voice 
 of God in the soul. 
 
 The "inner light" from henceforth must be the 
 guide of the Quaker. The Bible is the religion of Pro- 
 testants. Had the Quaker a better guide ? The Quaker 
 rejoined, that he believed in the unity of truth ; there 
 can be no contradiction between right reason and prev- 
 ious revelation, between just tradition and an enlight- 
 ened conscience. The letter is not the spirit ; the Bible 
 is not religion, but a record of religion. The Scrip- 
 tures (said one of their leaders) are a declaration of the 
 fountain, and not the fountain itself. 
 
 ' ' They are a people, ' ' said Oliver Cromwell, ' ' whom 
 I can not win with gifts, honors, offices, or places." 
 
 "We agree with other professors of the Christian 
 name," say the most reliable Quaker authorities, "in 
 the belief in one eternal God, the Creator of the uni- 
 verse ; and in Jesus Christ His Son, the Messiah, and 
 Mediator of the New Covenant. To Christ alone we
 
 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 3/1 
 
 give the title of the Word of God ; although we highly 
 esteem these sacred writings in subordination to the 
 Spirit. We believe that, in order to put in practice 
 those sacred precepts, some of which are contrary to 
 the unregenerate heart or will of man, every man 
 is endued with a measure of the Spirit, sufficient, if 
 cherished, to enable him to distinguish good from evil ; 
 and to correct his evil propensities, which mere reason 
 is insufficient to overcome. We believe, true worship 
 is not confined to time and place ; but we think it 
 incumbent on Christians to meet often together, in tes- 
 timony of their dependence upon God, and for a re- 
 newal of their spiritual strength. Nevertheless, we dare 
 not depend for our acceptance with him, on a formal 
 repetition of the words and experiences of others. We 
 dare not encourage any ministry, but that which we 
 believe to spring from the influence of the Holy Spirit. 
 We attempt not to restrain this influence to persons of 
 any condition in life, or to the male sex alone ; but, as 
 male and female are one in Christ Jesus, we allow such 
 of the female sex as are endued with qualifications for 
 the ministry, to exercise their gifts for the edifying of 
 the Church." 
 
 We have already spoken of their rejection of the 
 sacraments, of their opposition to war and slavery, and 
 their testimony against oaths. One of their most 
 peculiar customs, is the refusal of the men to take off 
 the hat in any presence. It is related of William Penn, 
 the celebrated founder of Pennsylvania, that when his 
 father, Admiral Penn, earnestly solicited his son, then 
 a young man, to doff his hat in respect to the King 
 and Duke of York, he persistently refused. He pre- 
 ferred to break the commandment of God, Honor thy
 
 372 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 father, rather than depart from the unmeaning custom 
 of his sect. When he was a student at Oxford, Eng- 
 land, he not only refused to conform to the worship of 
 the established Church, or to wear the dress prescribed 
 for students, which he considered a relic of superstition, 
 but with some of his companions who had embraced 
 his views, assaulted several of the students in public 
 and stripped them of their linen surplices or robes. 
 For this outrage he was expelled. 
 
 Quakers in the seventeenth century were frequently 
 imprisoned for refusing to take the prescribed oaths, 
 also their refusal to pay taxes or tithes. Penn, how- 
 ever, was a great favorite of Charles II. and James II. 
 Penn interceded with these monarchs very successfully 
 for his Quaker brethren, and for himself he received 
 large grants of land on the Delaware, in America. He 
 also had powerful friends afterwards at the court of 
 William and Mary, in Locke and Tillotson, and in the 
 Duke of Buckingham. 
 
 The wise and Christian government of William 
 Penn * in Pennsylvania, and his kind and honest deal- 
 ings with the Indians, have entirely overshadowed the 
 fanatacism and inconsistencies of his youth. The name 
 and character of this lover of freedom and of equal 
 rights have come down to the sect whom he loved so 
 much, as a noble inheritance. 
 
 Fox, Barclay and Penn were the three great leaders 
 of this peculiar people. It is believed that this sect 
 has somewhat dwindled in numbers in the nineteenth 
 century. Many of their descendants in England have 
 
 * William Penn, however, freely employed negroes, and died a 
 slave-holder though his people generally refused to consider them as 
 property.
 
 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 373 
 
 gone into the Episcopal Church, and have adopted 
 those forms of worship, which, in their early history, 
 seemed to be most obnoxious. The decline in their 
 numbers is most probably to be ascribed to the neglect 
 of the Sacraments, appointed by our Lord Himself. 
 Their excellent principles and moral virtues as a com- 
 munity, must be conceded. 
 
 The Independents, a sect who arose in the seven- 
 teenth century and became very conspicuous during 
 the time of Cromwell's rule in England, express as 
 follows the leading principle of their system : " Every 
 particular society of visible professors agreeing to walk 
 together in the faith and order of the gospel is a com- 
 plete church, and has full power within itself to elect 
 and ordain all church officers, to exclude all offenders, 
 and to do all other acts relating to the edification and 
 well-being of the Church." Their doctrines were very 
 similar to the Presbyterians, adopting the system of 
 Calvin for their creed. 
 
 Robinson, the author of the sect of the Inde- 
 pendents, regarded a standing ministry as use- 
 less. He was the leading teacher of the Pilgrim 
 Fathers. Cromwell and his Ironsides belonged to this 
 sect. The whole body sets apart with religious solem- 
 nity certain persons under the name of pastors, teach- 
 ers or elders, who derive their title to act in that capac- 
 ity solely from the nomination of their society, and 
 who, in virtue of that nomination, are the only persons 
 entitled to perform the acts, such as the administration 
 of the sacraments and other offices that may minister 
 to edification. The name of Independent was after- 
 wards changed to the present name they bear Con- 
 gregationalist.
 
 374 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 The Presbyterians, on the contrary, have a system 
 of church government, by presbyteries or associations, 
 of teaching or ruling elders. This system is estab- 
 lished by law in Scotland, as the Episcopal system is 
 established u by law in England. Both * claim to have 
 derived the power of ordination from the apostles, the 
 one through the line of bishops by apostolic succession, 
 the other through the presbyters or elders. 
 
 When Christianity emerges from the obscurity o 
 the first century, says Milman, it appears uniformly 
 governed by superiors in each community, called bishops. 
 Some learned writers, as Mosheim, Neander, and Gib- 
 bon, consent to the fact of the government of these 
 superiors or bishops in the early part of the second 
 century ; but believing from the beginning 'it was not so, 
 they attempted to account for this total revolution by 
 supposing that each community or church was governed 
 by a college of presbyters, one of whom naturally pre- 
 sided at their meetings, and gradually assumed, and 
 was recognized as possessing, a superior function. 
 
 But the almost simultaneous elevation of the bishop 
 in every part of the Christian world (though the bishop 
 was for a long time assisted by his presbyters) appears 
 to me an insuperable objection to this hypothesis.f Ac- 
 cording to this view (the view of Mosheim) they al- 
 lowed themselves to be deprived of their co-equal dig- 
 nity, without resistance and without controversy. The 
 uninterrupted line of bishops is traced by the ecclesias- 
 tical historian up to the apostles ; but no murmur of 
 remonstrance against this usurpation has transpired. 
 Episcopalians believe that the bishops spoken of in the 
 third chapter of Paul's epistle to Timothy were 
 
 *The Episcopalian and Presbyterian both claim, t Milman.
 
 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 375 
 
 identical with the presbyters and elders, but that the 
 Bishops of Ephesus and Crete were office-bearers of 
 the same order as the Bishops in after ages. 
 
 The Presbyterians argue that Timothy and Titus 
 were extraordinary office-bearers, suited to the infant 
 state of the Christian Church. The Presbyterians say 
 that their church government has its germ in the Old 
 Testament, inasmuch as the people of Israel, at various 
 periods of their history, had wise and able men set 
 over them who were styled elders, and that this was a 
 distinctive feature of the synagogue system up to the 
 time of the Savior. The model of the ancient com- 
 munity would naturally, as far as circumstances might 
 admit, become that of the new. But in their primary 
 constitution there was an essential point of difference. 
 The Jews were a civil, as well as a religious ; the Chris- 
 tians, exclusively a religious, community. 
 
 In making an epitome of the several Protestant 
 sects who arose in the sixteenth and seventeenth cen- 
 turies, we must not forget "the little flock " of the 
 Moravians, also called the United Brethren. Christian- 
 ity was introduced into Moravia and Bohemia by mis- 
 sionaries who came from countries in which the apostle 
 Paul had preached and founded churches. These were 
 provinces doubtless connected with the Greek Church. 
 For several centuries the people of Bohemia and Mo- 
 ravia manifested matters of faith, a close adherence to 
 the doctrines of the New Testament. They held fast 
 to church principles, in opposition sometimes to the 
 injunctions of the bishop at Rome. They insisted that 
 the Bible was the only rule of faith and practice. They 
 claim John Huss as one of their martyrs, who, in 1415, 
 was burned at the stake by the order of the Council of
 
 3/6 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 Constance. We have already spoken fully of his mar- 
 trydom, and also of the interchange of religious senti- 
 ments that passed freely between England and Bohemia 
 in Wycliffe's time, through the religious efforts of Anne 
 of Bohemia, the wife of Richard II. 
 
 Whether indigenous or transplanted, the doctrines 
 of our Lord flourished in Moravia and Bohemia as in a 
 kindly soil. But after the martyrdom of Huss, and 
 after much dreadful persecution and opposition, they 
 seemed to forget for a time, in the war waged against 
 them, that love or charity is the essence of Christ's 
 religion. 
 
 In 1433, the Council of Basle granted to the Hus- 
 sites (as the people are called, from whom the Mora- 
 vians are descended), the famous compacts, thereby 
 granting their essential demands. One party refused to 
 receive these concessions, whereupon the other party, the 
 Calixtines, made war upon them and entirely defeated 
 them. The Calixtines now became the national church 
 of Bohemia. A remnant of the other party,* not 
 liking the corrupt practices of the Calixtines, deter- 
 mined to recede from them. Through the instrumen- 
 tality of their bishop they obtained leave from the Re- 
 gent of Bohemia to settle on one of his estates, called 
 the Barony of Litiz. Their pastors were Calixtine 
 priests, who held evangelical views, and who had joined 
 their society. This was the beginning of the modern 
 Moravian Church. 
 
 In 1461, by the treachery and at the instigation of 
 one of their leaders, a fierce persecution fell upon them. 
 After much deliberation they f determined to separate 
 from the national establishment, and to change their 
 
 * Taborites. t The Tahorites.
 
 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 377 
 
 society into an independent church. To do this it was 
 necessary to institute a ministry of their own. Anx- 
 ious to secure a ^ministry whose validity was unques- 
 tionable, and one that the Calixtines and Roman Cath- 
 olics must acknowledge, they determined to seek the 
 Episcopal succession from a colony of Waldenses, liv- 
 ing on the confines of Bohemia and Austria, who had 
 obtained this succession. The Waldensian bishop 
 consecrated three men who had been sent them by 
 their synod, as their bishops. About the close of the 
 fifteenth century they had more than 200 churches. 
 They had published a Bohemian version of the Bible. 
 In the sixteenth century they sent deputations to Lu- 
 ther. There were some differences of opinion between 
 them and the Lutherans, yet their conferences were 
 friendly. When the Moravian deputation took leave of 
 Luther, the great reformer said, when he bade them 
 Godspeed: "Do you be apostles of the Bohemians as 
 I and my brethren are apostles of the Germans." 
 
 In the beginning of the seventeenth century the out- 
 ward prosperity of the "United Brethren," as they 
 were now called, was fully established. In 1621, Fer- 
 dinand II. began a series of persecutions, directed 
 against all the Protestants of Bohemia and Moravia. 
 Protestantism was overthrown in these countries. But 
 more than 50,000 emigrated. The church of the 
 United Brethren seemed to disappear, but a hidden 
 seed was preserved for ninety-four years. This seed 
 was fostered by Comenius, a bishop of the Moravian 
 line. In Moravia many families had cherished in secret 
 the views of their fathers. Just fifty years after the 
 death of Comenius, their bishop, a colony of Moravians 
 established themselves on an estate of a pious noble-
 
 37$ ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 man, Count Zinzendorf. They built here a town, 
 called it Herrnhut, introduced the discipline of their 
 fathers, preserved by the writings of their last bishop. 
 They now obtained the episcopate from the Unitas 
 Fratrum (the national church from which they had sep- 
 ated). In this way the ancient Moravian society was 
 again renewed. Zinzendorf renounced all worldly hon- 
 ors and became a bishop, devoting himself to the serv- 
 ice of the Church. 
 
 Churches were planted in various parts of the conti- 
 nent in Great Britain and North America. In North 
 America, they were devoted to the missions among 
 the Indians. In 1749 the British Parliament acknowl- 
 edged the Moravia brethren as an Episcopal Church, 
 and passed an act encouraging them to settle in the 
 North American colonies. They established several 
 mission stations in Southern Greenland. These mis- 
 sions were paid for by the Church of England, but the 
 missionaries were Moravian. 
 
 The Moravian brethren have not increased in the 
 United States as other denominations. Two causes 
 have been assigned. First, the entire strength of the 
 Moravian Brethren in this country was concentrated on 
 the foreign mission field. Secondly, their exclusive 
 system. No one was permitted to own real estate in 
 their communities unless they were members of their 
 church. This system was changed in a general synod 
 held in 1857, and a way opened for a more general de- 
 velopment of the church resources in the home field. 
 A community of goods never existed among them, as 
 has been sometimes stated. In early times, during In- 
 dian wars, they combined their efforts for the protec- 
 tion of their people. The Moravian ministry, like
 
 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 3/9 
 
 that of the Protestant Episcopal Church, has bish- 
 ops, priests, and deacons. Their ritual also is very 
 similar. They have love feasts in imitation of the 
 apostolical Agapae. Their ritual also is very similar. 
 They have regular forms for adult and infant baptism, 
 for the Lord's Supper, for marriage and burial, and for 
 confirmation.
 
 380 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 CHAPTER XL. 
 
 ACCESSION OF ELIZABETH CONSECRATION OF PARKER. 
 
 It were an arduous task in one who has attempted 
 to give the Annals of the Church from the beginning, 
 to tread all the mazes of the Reformed Church of 
 England, from the accession of Elizabeth to the reign 
 of William and Mary. When we look at the distrac- 
 tions and dissensions of the Church during the Common- 
 wealth, followed by the immoral reign of Charles II., 
 and that of his more wicked brother, James II., and to 
 go further back and observe the varied and difficult ques- 
 tions that were presented to the clergy and the worldly 
 queen at her accession, we are constrained to say, 
 "What hath God wrought in bringing the Church of 
 England, as we see it to-day, a church of order and 
 beauty, out of the chaotic mass of trouble and gloom 
 that encompassed it in the sixteenth century ? " 
 
 We will try, during that stormy time, to seize 
 upon some salient points of interest without wearying 
 or disgusting the reader. During the five years of 
 Mary Tudor's reign, much that was perishable had 
 been destroyed. The fires of Smithfield had burned 
 fiercely, but a living flame still glowed in the hearts of 
 those who loved the reforming work of Cranmer, Rid- 
 ley, Latimer, Hooper, and a cloud of other witnesses, 
 whose bodies had been burned, but the books in which 
 they had preserved the treasures of the best, earliest 
 ages of the Church remained. Thousands who had
 
 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 381 
 
 fled to the continent returned when they knew a friend 
 to reform was on the throne. Thirteen bishops had 
 died just before Elizabeth's accession. Not one had 
 conformed but the Bishop of Llandaff. It was a re- 
 sponsible and difficult matter to fill the vacant sees with 
 good, efficient men. A primate must be chosen. 
 Matthew Parker, who had been the chaplain of Anne 
 Boleyn, and much beloved by Elizabeth, was made 
 primate. He was a devout man. He had been Dean 
 of Lincoln in King Edward's time, but seemed unwil- 
 ling at first to assume the onerous duties of the Epis- 
 copate, the responsibilities involved were so great. The 
 Lord Keeper, who was his intimate friend, used his en- 
 couraging influence, and perhaps high moral consider- 
 ations overcame his scruples. 
 
 Parker was elected in August, and on the Qth of 
 September an order for his consecration was given un- 
 der the great seal. Tonstal, Boure and Poole were in- 
 vited to consecrate him, but they refused to act. Bar- 
 low, late Bishop of Bath and Wells ; Scory, late Bishop 
 of Chichester ; .Coverdale, late of Exeter, and Hodg- 
 kins, expressed their willingness to consecrate. On 
 December 9th the election of Parker was confirmed, 
 and in the chapel of Lambeth Palace he was duly tron- 
 secrated according to the ordinal of King Edward's 
 second book, which, having been incorporated with 
 the prayer-book, was now legalized by the recent act of 
 uniformity. 
 
 "Of this consecration," says Canon Perry, "there 
 remains a minute and detailed account in the register 
 of Lambeth and in the registers of the court of Can- 
 terbury ; in many documents in the rolls ; in contem- 
 porary letters; in papers preserved at Zurich, not
 
 382 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 known in England until 1685, and Parker's own book, 
 printed in 1572. No historical fact, says the same au- 
 thority, can be supported with evidence more over- 
 whelming. 
 
 These details are given because a story called ' ' The 
 Nag's Head Fable," invented forty years after by 
 Romanists, who wished to make it appear that Parker 
 had not received proper consecration, and to disparage 
 the apostolic succession, which is claimed by the bishops 
 of the Church of England. The new archbishop, with 
 the assistance of other bishops, consecrated five other 
 bishops. One of these was Jewel, who wrote the first 
 of a series of works, that became afterwards so famous 
 in English theology. This man had been marked for 
 destruction in Mary's reign, but saved his life by sub- 
 scribing a formula, presented to him by his enemies. 
 Ashamed of his weakness, he left England and took 
 up his abode in Zurich with a distinguished reformer. 
 His great talents as a preacher, soon after his return 
 from his exile, marked him out for preferment. Before 
 his consecration as Bishop of Salisbury he had gained 
 distinction in a controversy with Romanists. This 
 controversy led to his writing in Latin a celebrated 
 work, "The Apology for the Church of England." 
 This work was translated into English by Lady Bacon, 
 the wife of the Lord Keeper, and afterwards into the 
 several languages of Europe. 
 
 Jewel was inclined from his tastes and antecedents 
 to the extreme school of the reformers, but he exer- 
 cised wise moderation in the administration of his dio- 
 cese. He has received much praise for' the discrimina- 
 tion he evinced in his encouragement of Richard 
 Hooker, the author of "Ecclesiastical Polity." He
 
 ANNAtS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 383 
 
 procured Hooker's admission to Corpus Christi College, 
 Oxford, and settled a pension on him. 
 
 After Jewel's death this great man was befriended 
 by Dr. Sandys, Archbishop of York. Having neither 
 " family nor fortune," Hooker, in these disjointed times, 
 required friends to introduce him to a career, which he 
 afterwards pursued with so much honor to himself and 
 with such great advantage to others. It is no small 
 Christian virtue for men to use their opportunities in 
 the advancement of the poor and meritorious, as did 
 Jewel and Sandys. Hooker was born of poor parents 
 in 1554, near Exeter. He took orders in 1581. 
 In 1585 he was made master of the temple. Here 
 he became involved in a controversy with Walter 
 Travers. The controversy was carried on in their ser- 
 mons, so that it was said that in the morning Canter- 
 bury spoke, and in the afternoon Geneva. 
 
 It is said that Hooker's distaste for disputation 
 drove him from London to a Wiltshire vicarage, which 
 he exchanged at a later time for the parsonage of 
 Bishopsbourne, among the quiet meadows of Kent. 
 Parker, the first Archbishop of Canterbury, under 
 Elizabeth, was buried in Lambeth Church, June 6, 
 1575. Moderate in his views, but firmly opposed to 
 Romanism and Puritanism, he desired to enforce the 
 laws, not because "he cared for cap, tippet, surplice, 
 wafer, bread, or such," but for the laws established. 
 He was specially valuable to the church as an organ- 
 izer. He was resolute to restore -order in the worship 
 and discipline of the church. The whole machinery of 
 publication had been thrown out of gear by the rapid 
 and radical changes of the last two reigns. A large
 
 384 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 number of the priests in the North were still Roman 
 Catholic at heart. 
 
 The first difficulty with which Parker and the new 
 bishops had to contend was with the queen herself. 
 Elizabeth was unwilling to give up the crucifix and 
 lights in her chapel. The bishops were compelled to 
 minister, much to their annoyance, at the altar thus 
 ornamented. 
 
 Jewel writes to Ballinger: "It comes to this, that 
 either the crosses or roods must be restored, or our 
 bishoprics relinquished." At length a compromise 
 was effected with the queen. Sandys writes that the 
 queen had agreed that the images should not be re- 
 stored, but the popish vestments, I mean the copes* are 
 still to remain, which, however, we hope will not last 
 long. 
 
 It is probable that the queen was influenced in this 
 matter, says her biographer, not so much by religious 
 as by political considerations. There was a great want, 
 too, of competent ministers to preach the word of God. 
 In order to supply this want, the bishops consented to 
 admit illiterate men to orders. This, however, proved 
 to be an unwise expedient, and we find Parker writing 
 to Grindal, then Bishop of London, not to ordain or 
 admit any to orders who had not some suitable educa- 
 tion. 
 
 Another formidable difficulty met the bishops in 
 the resolution of the queen to grasp with unblushing 
 rapacity the revenues of the church. The archbishop 
 and four other bishops elect, addressed a letter to the 
 queen appealing to her to stop her proceedings. The 
 property, Elizabeth contrasts unfavorably with her sis- 
 
 *A rich habit covering the person, with a cape or hood.
 
 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 385 
 
 queen would not consent to relax her grasp of episco- 
 pal manors, but she remitted to the bishops half of the 
 first fruits, payable to the crown. In regard to church 
 ter Mary. The primate and certain of the bishops, 
 being ecclesiastical commissioners, determined to draw 
 up a paper for the guidance of the clergy, and at the 
 same time to prepare a short confession of faith, which 
 all clergy appointed to livings might be required to 
 sign. The document they now issued was styled "in- 
 terpretations and further considerations." These con- 
 siderations related to suitable apparel for the bishops 
 and other clergy while engaged in the ministrations of 
 the church. Only one apparel should be used in the 
 church, as the cope in the administration of the Lord's 
 Supper, and the surplice in all other ministrations. 
 The principal articles of religion drawn up were as fol- 
 lows : The first asserts the doctrine of the Trinity. 
 The second, the sufficiency of Scripture and the three 
 creeds, the Apostles' Creed, the Nicene Creed, and 
 the Athanasian Creed.* Third, the power of the 
 Church to change ceremonies and rites. Fourth, the 
 necessities of appointment to the ministry by the 
 "high authorities." Fifth, asserts the supremacy as 
 " expounded and declared " by the injunctions. Sixth, 
 that the Bishop of Rome has no more authority than 
 other bishops. Seventh, that the Book of Common 
 Prayer is Catholic, apostolic, and most fit for the ad- 
 vancin^ of God's glory, and the edifying of God's 
 people. Eighth, that though the old ceremonies be 
 
 * Efforts have been made at different times in the Church of Eng- 
 land to get rid of the last-mentioned creed. It is, however, we be- 
 lieve, a dead letter. This creed was not written by Athanasius. The 
 name is spurious.
 
 386 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 omitted in baptism, yet that it is validly performed in 
 the Church of England. Ninth, that private masses, 
 and the doctrine that the mass is a propitiatory sacrifice 
 are to be condemned. Tenth, the holy communion 
 ought to be received in both kinds. Lastly, that im- 
 ages are-vain things, and God must be served by works 
 of obedience, faith, and charity. 
 
 Archbishop Parker turned his attention to the re- 
 vision of the Bible. Some of the reformers in their 
 exile at Geneva, had occupied themselves in this holy 
 work. The Genevan Bible, with notes, had appeared 
 about 1560. The "injunctions" ordered, as those of 
 Edward had done, a copy of the " Great Bible " to be 
 set up in all the churches. But the translation of the 
 "Great Bible" was by no means perfect. The Gene- 
 van Bible was not fully approved. The archbishop, there- 
 fore, determined to have all the authorized versions re- 
 vised by learned divines. This revision was completed in 
 1568, and as the majority of the revisers were bishops 
 it was called the Bishops' Bible. The ecclesiastical 
 courts greatly needed reformation. They had become 
 a legalized tyranny. But in Elizabeth's reign the 
 needed reformation was not made. 
 
 On the accession of James I., a millenary petition 
 was presented to him, signed by a tenth of all the 
 clergymen in his kingdom, praying that the church 
 courts should be reformed. This petition asked for no 
 change in the organization of the church, but for a 
 thorough reform in the courts. "Why should," says 
 Bacon, "the civil state be purged as time breedeth 
 mischief, and the ecclesiastical state continue upon the 
 dregs of time and receive no alteration these many 
 years ? ' '
 
 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 387 
 
 When the Queen made a progress, in 1561, in the 
 eastern counties of her kingdom, she was greatly in- 
 censed to see the irregularities in the public worship. 
 The queen was disposed to attribute the seeming in- 
 difference of the clergy and their carelessness in the 
 administration of the rites of the church to clerical 
 matrimony. In her displeasure she was disposed to 
 issue a proclamation forbidding the marriage of her 
 clergy. Cecil used his influence to prevent so unbe- 
 coming a step on the part of the queen. Some of the 
 bishops were indignant and expressed horror at the 
 language of the queen, with regard to God's holy or- 
 dinance of matrimony. That there \vas some disorder 
 in the churches at this time during the hours of public 
 worship, appears from the following statement : 
 
 "Some say their prayers in the chancel, some in 
 the body of the church ; some attend to the order of 
 the book, others intermeddle psalms in metre ; 
 some minister in a surplice, others without a surplice. 
 In some churches the table standeth in the chancel ; 
 sometimes persons receive the Lord's Supper kneeling, 
 others standing or sitting. This disorder was distaste- 
 ful to the queen. The love of order and ceremonial, 
 say the writers of that day, was her strongest religious 
 sentiment. 
 
 Queen Elizabeth had, perhaps, but little personal 
 piety, but her love of a gorgeous ceremonial was no 
 proof of the want of it. She was not a persecutor. 
 A late historian, Mr. Green, says she was a persecutor, 
 but she was the first English ruler who felt the charge 
 of persecution to be a stigma. Her ministers boldly as- 
 serted the right of every religious subject to freedom. 
 It is true that Walsingham, her minister, pursued the
 
 388 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 Douay priests. Those Jesuits came to England, the 
 people thought, to sow treason and revolt. Those 
 who were put to death died as traitors, not as religion- 
 ists. 
 
 Thousands of Flemish exiles and French Hugue- 
 nots found homes in England. Statements of doc- 
 trine were distasteful to Elizabeth. She would not 
 ratify the articles until she made a change in them. 
 She kept the homilies a long time under consideration. 
 In her youth she had been strictly subjected to Roman- 
 ist surveillance, and was assailed afterwards with so 
 many differing creeds that we are not surprised at her 
 impatience in listening to doctrinal disputations. 
 When she was made queen she reverently kissed the 
 Bible, pronouncing that they (the evangelists) should be 
 no longer prisoners. She blamed the bishops for the 
 prevalent disorders in the church, yet she would not 
 permit them to enforce subscription to the articles by 
 statute. She desired to govern the church by her pre- 
 rogative and by the ecclesiastical commission, and not 
 by statute law. 
 
 It was the policy of Leicester and other anti-church 
 counsellors who surrounded her, to stir up the Puritans 
 to resistance, and on the other hand to represent that 
 all the non-conformity in the land was due to the 
 bishops' want of discipline. 
 
 Parker had made an effort, in 1565, to reduce the 
 London clergy to conformity. At that time 140 ap- 
 peared before him at Lambeth, of whom all but thirty 
 promised conformity. In 1566 they were again called 
 to Lambeth. On this occasion sixty-one promised 
 obedience ; thirty-seven refused. The recusants were 
 now suspended or deprived. The archbishop had now
 
 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 389 
 
 commenced the policy of coercion. He did it with a 
 foreboding that it would not succeed. Among the 
 deprived ministers themselves there was some anxious 
 deliberation. Were they to decline to separate from a 
 church in which the word and sacraments were truly 
 administered, though denied with superstition ? or were 
 they, inasmuch as they could not have the word of 
 God preached, or the sacraments administered without 
 idolatrous gear, to break off from the public churches, 
 and assemble elsewhere to worship God in a manner 
 which would not offend the light of their consciences ? 
 There was a division among them. Some of the 
 most able objectors continued in communion with the 
 church ; another section broke off entirely from the 
 church and established a discipline and worship of 
 their own. 
 
 This was the first formal act of schism in the Church 
 of England. No charge of false doctrine was made. 
 It was simply the vestments to which they objected. 
 The name of Puritan was first applied to those men 
 who left the church on account of ' ' the idolatrous 
 gear," * as they termed it. Truly it may be said that 
 religion has received, in all ages, the severest wounds 
 in the house of her friends. All who read church his- 
 tory must acknowledge this humiliating truth. 
 
 Archbishop Parker was succeeded in the primacy 
 by Edmund Grindal. Grindal had been one of the 
 Marian exiles. In 1549 he had been president of 
 Pembroke Hall, Cambridge, having become distin- 
 
 * Throughout the earlier years of Elizabeth's reign, the vestments 
 of which there is such frequent mention in " the Zurich letters," were 
 only the cope and surplice. Copes were used chiefly in the cathedral 
 churches.
 
 39O ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 guished as a preacher. He was appointed, in 1550, a 
 chaplain of Ridley, bishop of London. In 1551 he 
 became the chaplain of Edward VI., but on Mary's 
 accession he fled to Strasburg, where he remained un- 
 til Mary's death. As soon as he returned to England 
 he was employed, with seven other Protestants, to re- 
 vise the liturgy, and also to oppose the Roman Cath- 
 olic prelates in public debate. He succeeded Bonner 
 as Bishop of London, and was afterwards translated to 
 the see of York. 
 
 Grindal had shown a becoming spirit in repressing 
 disorders both in the North and at Durham. Grindal 
 was recommended to the queen by Lord Burleigh, who 
 -believed that the exercise of his gentle and amiable 
 disposition would be more effectual in quelling disturb- 
 ance than arbitrary moroseness. A quiet term of 
 office could not he anticipated, as non-conformists and 
 puritanical conformists were making attacks upon the 
 Church of England, as it had been settled in the early 
 days of Elizabeth and Archbishop Parker. Grindal 
 says he had many conflicts with himself in accepting 
 the great responsibility. " He did so lest, resisting his 
 vocation, he might, with Jonas, offend God, ancf occa- 
 sion a tempest." 
 
 " Our affairs, says Grindal, "after the settlement ot 
 the ceremonies, were for some time very quiet when 
 some virulent pamphlets came forth in which almost 
 the whole external polity of our church was attacked. 
 The writers of these papers maintain that the archbish- 
 ops and bishops should be reduced to the ranks ; that 
 the ministers of the church ought to be solely elected 
 by the people ; that in every city, town and parish a 
 consistory should be established, consisting of the min-
 
 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 39! 
 
 ister and elders of the place, who alone are to decide 
 .on all-ecclesiastical affairs." 
 
 The persons who held these sentiments were the 
 forerunners of the Independents, who increased so greatly 
 during the reigns of the arbitrary James I. and his suc- 
 cessor, Charles I., that in the era of the Commonwealth 
 they became the governing party. We have seen that 
 the epithet Puritan was first applied to the frivolous ob- 
 jectors to the vestments worn by the Episcopal clergy. 
 The term Puritan was afterwards applied to all who re- 
 fused to conform to the Church of the State. Some 
 who did fully conform to the establishment, but who 
 attached more importance to the essentials of religion, 
 humility, justice, mercy, and truth, than to its outward 
 symbols and ceremonies, were often called Puritans by 
 the worldly and evil-minded. 
 
 In the summer of the year 1570, Archbishop Grin- 
 dal made a metropolitan visitation. He soon found 
 that the great want of the church was earnest, efficient 
 preachers. Grindal testifies to the advance that had 
 been made during the primacy of Parker, yet they had 
 been very irregularly distributed. Grindal, noble mis- 
 sionary as he was, determined to use his best efforts to 
 supply the need. Grindal encouraged the frequent 
 meetings of his clergy for mutual improvement. 
 These meetings were called " prophesy ings, " and there 
 was doubtless an element of usefulness in these ex- 
 changes of sentiment, helping the clergy to think defin- 
 itely, and to express themselves correctly. They were 
 well calculated to increase Christian fellowship. Many 
 of the laity also attended these meetings, but after- 
 wards it was thought best to restrict them to the clergy. 
 The queen became prejudiced against them, either
 
 392 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 through misrepresentation of those who did not under- 
 stand them, or perhaps through the evil influence of. 
 Leiscester, who was very inimical to the Church. 
 These " prophesyings " commenced about the year 
 1571. They became very popular. In 1574 the Bishop 
 of Lincoln issued directions to the clergy as to their 
 direction, recommending that not only doctrines were 
 to be discussed, but practical religious duties were to 
 be indicated and commented upon. The new Arch- 
 bishop of the Canterbury Convocation laid before the 
 synod a body of articles relating to the qualifications 
 of the candidates for the ministry or clerical office. 
 Grindal was anxious in these articles to meet and over- 
 come puritanical objections, so far as it was expedient. 
 When these articles were submitted to the queen she 
 struck off two of them one that allowed marriage to 
 be celebrated at any convenient time without regard to 
 Lent ; and another which declared that baptism could 
 only fitly be performed by a lawful minister. The 
 queen wished to make them remember that she had the 
 power to strike out that which was offensive to her, 
 though she had withdrawn the title of "Head of the 
 Church." 
 
 These canons or articles said that " unlearned min- 
 isters " must not be promoted in the Church.* When 
 these "exercises" or prophesyings had extended to 
 Norwich, the headquarters of non-conformity, the 
 queen became impatient ; she severely reproved Grin- 
 dal for licensing so many preachers. She also com- 
 manded him at once to put a stop to the ' ' prophesy- 
 ings. " The Archbishop was grieved at this peremptory 
 and imperious mandate. As soon as he deliberated 
 
 * Canon Perry's History of the Church.
 
 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 upon this matter, that he thought so important, he de- 
 termined to write to her majesty a letter of remon- 
 monstrance. In this letter he reminds her of the great 
 duty and value of preaching. He tells her that ten 
 of his suffragans greatly esteemed the religious exer- 
 cises in which they had been engaged. He laments 
 the spoliation the church had suffered, which had been 
 the cause that every parish could not now have a pas- 
 tor. Hence the origin of these associations in parishes 
 without pastoral care. "I can not, " he says, "with 
 safe conscience, and without the offense of the majesty 
 of God, give my consent to the suppressing of these 
 ' prophesyings. ' I choose rather to offend your earthly 
 majesty than the heavenly majesty of God. In God's 
 matters all princes ought to bow their sceptres to the 
 Son of God, and to ask counsel at His mouth what 
 they ought to do. 
 
 1 ' Remember, madam, that you are a mortal creature. 
 Must not you also one day appear before the judgment 
 seat of the Crucified, to receive there what ye have 
 done in the body, whether good or evil ? And al- 
 though ye are a mighty prince, yet remember that He 
 which dwelleth in heaven is mightier." 
 
 The boldness and independence of this opposition 
 is specially to be admired when it is borne in mind how 
 much Erastian principles prevailed at this era, that is, 
 an idea that ecclesiastical authority is subordinate to the 
 civil power. The queen's answer to the noble letter of 
 Grindal was to order a meeting of the Star Chamber 
 to propose that the Archbishop should be deprived. 
 She was prevailed upon, however, to consent to a 
 milder sentence. .The Archbishop was suspended and 
 confined to his own house. Another peremptory
 
 394 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 epistle was then sent to all the Bishops, warning them 
 to desist from these " prophesyings." Most of the 
 Bishops liked these meetings, but they did not evince 
 the boldness of their chief. 
 
 * Bishop Cox writes to Burleigh : "I trust that her 
 majesty, when she examines into this matter, if she 
 seeks the glory of God and the edifying of the people ; 
 when she sees the ignorance and idleness of a great num- 
 ber of poor blind priests, she may deem it necessary to 
 drive them or encourage them to some travail and ex- 
 ercise of God's holy word, whereby they may be bet- 
 ter able to discharge their bounden duty to their 
 flock." 
 
 The suspension of the Archbishop did not incapaci- 
 tate him from the performance of much episcopal duty. 
 He was unable to act as president of the Convocation. 
 His compeers earnestly besought the queen fully to 
 restore him. 
 
 In the meeting of the Convocation in 1580, the 
 clergy were directed to look into the subject of excom- 
 munication. Much irritation had been produced among 
 the laity by the conduct of lay judges, who had caused 
 the penalty of excommunication to be inflicted for very 
 inadequate causes. 
 
 A paper was drawn up by Grindal insisting that ex- 
 communication should be taken away except for great 
 crimes, then the sentence was to be pronounced by the 
 bishop. His views were not fully carried out at this 
 time on this delicate subject. 
 
 In January, 1583, the queen sent to Grindal to pre- 
 pare his resignation. He professed himself ready to 
 resign, but before his arrangements were made for the 
 
 * Canon Perry's Book of the Church.
 
 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 395 
 
 resignation of the see death released him from its cares. 
 In 1586 we learn that the Bishop of Chester issued 
 directions as to "prophesyings. " In his letter he says, 
 "Her majesty's privy council have recommended their 
 use and extension."
 
 396 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 CHAPTER XLI. 
 
 Whitgift became archbishop of Canterbury on the 
 death of Grindal ; he was bishop of Worcester when 
 called on to take the primacy. The withdrawal of 
 Grindal from active work seems to have encouraged 
 the Nonconformists in a bolder expression of their 
 views. Whitgift was full of energy and decision. 
 There were at least three formidable sects of Noncon- 
 formists when Whitgift commenced the administration 
 of ecclesiastical affairs. 
 
 The Brownists were the most considerable sect. 
 Their leader, Robert Brown, had left the Church of 
 England on account of its "vain ceremonies." Whit- 
 gift's first step was to present the test of the "Three 
 Articles " to many of the preachers who pretended to 
 conform, and yet disregarded the Prayer Book the 
 Queen's supremacy, the Book of Common Prayer, and 
 the Articles of Religion (the Thirty-nine Articles). 
 Whitgift presented no new test, but he presented very 
 frequently the old tests for subscription. He prepared 
 for much opposition, as he knew he would have great 
 trouble in enforcing conformity. Therefore, in 1583, 
 the great seal was affixed to a new ecclesiastical com- 
 mission, with fuller powers than any before issued. 
 The queen supported Whitgift in this tyrannical pro- 
 cedure, considering that the recusants could only be 
 silenced by this weapon, which they vainly thought 
 might be effective. 
 
 Whitgift drew up twenty-four articles for the use of
 
 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 397 
 
 the ecclesiastical commission, that were so stringent as 
 to bring upon him the displeasure of many of his 
 former friends. He insisted that the critical state of 
 the Church required such proceedings. Lord Burleigh 
 wrote to him on the subject in much displeasure. He 
 tells him that "the Inquisition in Spain use not so 
 many questions to entrap their prey." The queen her- 
 self was appealed to in favor of the nonconforming 
 ministers. She desired the archbishop to answer the 
 objections made against his proceedings. 
 
 Whitgift was constrained, by the opposition he 
 received, to allow conferences to be held at Lambeth * 
 between the Church divines and the Puritans, in the 
 presence of Lord Leicester and the other ministers of 
 the court. 
 
 We can see very clearly, in the light of the nine-' 
 teenth century, the weakness and ineffective tyranny of 
 Whitgift's policy ; but it was not so apparent in the 
 sixteenth century. Yet Burleigh seemed to understand 
 that " the spirit of gentleness would be more winning 
 than severity." Some men, either in|political or religious 
 crises, seem incapable of conciliation. Whitgift and 
 Laud, though possessing some qualities that adorn a 
 man, belonged to the class of uncompromising zealots. 
 These men belonged to different schools in theology, 
 yet they were both equally devoted to non-essentials. 
 Whitgift was a Calvinist, and Laud an Arminian. 
 
 The parliament of 1593 made a law that those who 
 refused to conform, by non-attendance on the service 
 of God, should be banished or imprisoned within three 
 months. In this way the country was cleared of many 
 of the sectaries, who preferred exile to imprisonment. 
 The greater number of the disaffected emigrated with 
 their ministers to Holland.
 
 39^ ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 We have spoken of conferences at Lambeth. The 
 chief topics at these debates were the reading of the 
 apocrypha, the use of private baptism by laymen, the 
 use of the cross, private communion, the clerical dress. 
 Let us look at these unimportant questions with charity ; 
 they were doubtless perplexing to weak but conscien- 
 tious minds at that time. It is a mortifying concession 
 to make, that Whitgift and others seemed to plead for 
 the "institutions of the Church" on Erastian princi- 
 ples. They were called Erastian from a learned physi- 
 cian of Switzerland. Erastus thought it the best 
 policy, in view of the claims of the Pope, and the 
 extravagant claims, too, of some of the heads of the 
 Reformed Churches, as a Protestant, to resolve all the 
 powers exercised by Church governors into the will of 
 the State. 
 
 On three occasions our Lord declares His kingdom 
 upon earth is spiritual, not civil Matt. xx. 25, 26; 
 Luke xii. 13 ; John xviii. 36, 37. 
 
 The men who conferred at Lambeth believed that 
 their Church in important points was in accordance with 
 the Bible, and with the primitive Church. Yet they 
 said (Erastians) it was within the power of the sove- 
 reign to appoint Church government. 
 
 It is true that many valuable concessions were gained 
 for the Church by ecclesiastics who gained influence 
 over the sovereign. Cranmer and other good men 
 availed themselves of the circumstances of the dis- 
 jointed times of Henry VIII. and his successor to gain 
 religious ends. Was this time-serving ? If they did 
 acquiesce in questionable measures, it was not for 
 personal emolument ; it was that they might gain 
 benefits for the Church they loved so well, that they
 
 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 399 
 
 sought conciliation rather than debate. The claim of a 
 king to be the head of a CJmrch in the full sense is more 
 revolting than the claim of Bishop or Pope. " My 
 kingdom is not of this world," said our Lord. 
 
 But the men of whom we have been speaking did 
 not bask in the calm sunshine of political favor. They 
 were required to act, to reform systems amid storms of 
 political and ecclesiastical strife. 
 
 During the reign of Elizabeth there were many 
 controversies on the respective merits of Episcopacy 
 and Presbyterianism. Whitgift, the archbishop, and 
 Cartwright, a university professor, had a famous con- 
 troversy on this subject. Whitgift did not prove him- 
 self to be very learned in theology. Cartwright de- 
 fended with ability the Presbyterian basis as the most 
 scriptural. 
 
 Dr. Bancroft preached, in February, 1589, a sermon 
 that challenged much interest and attention. He 
 asserted that there was no scriptural basis whatever for 
 the Presbyterian mode of ordination, but claimed it for 
 Episcopacy. There was never ancient father, nor 
 church, nor synod, he said, from the apostles' time to 
 the present, that ever dreamed of a Presbyterian basis. 
 Sararia also, a learned divine from Holland, held- the 
 same views. In a controversy that he held with Beza 
 he said that the apostles did not appoint anything that 
 they had not received from the Lord ; but they did 
 appoint bishops (such as were Timothy and Titus) 
 wherever there was need. 
 
 This earnest introduction of the question of Church 
 government upon such exclusive grounds alarmed the 
 fears of many churchmen of this time, lest in adopting 
 such views they should unchurch the foreign reformed
 
 4OO ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 communities, for whose piety and learning they had 
 great respect. Such feelings greatly modified the 
 opinions of many, in embracing what the Episcopal 
 controversialists called the truth of history. The 
 moderate or Low Church party contented themselves 
 in thinking that Presbyterian ordination was irregular, 
 but they would not presume to say it was invalid. 
 
 We will now quote on this vexed subject the 
 opinion of Hooker, the author of "Ecclesiastical 
 Polity." He is the great standard authority of the 
 Church of England. Hooker occupies a middle ground 
 between differing schools of theology. He says bishops 
 have indeed a Divine sanction, but are not indispen- 
 sably necessary to a Church. Church government, 
 according to him, is a thing which the Church consti- 
 tutes under a Divine authority. The Church has, in 
 accordance with this Divine power, constituted the 
 regimen of bishops ; but the Church might, if it 
 pleased, under certain circumstances, dispense with 
 this order, and arrange otherwise. Whether or not the 
 justifying circumstances had arisen in the case of the 
 foreign churches, Hooker does not say. " We must 
 note," he says, "that he that affirmeth speech to be 
 necessary to all men, doth not necessarily import that 
 all men must speak of necessity one kind of language. 
 Unto the complete form of Church polity much maybe 
 necessary that the Scripture teacheth not, and much 
 that it hath taught become unrequisite, sometime be- 
 cause we need not use it, and sometime because we 
 can not. I see that certain reformed churches, the 
 Scottish especially, and the French, have not that 
 which best agreeth with sacred Scripture ; I mean the 
 government that is by bishops, inasmuch as both these
 
 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 4OI 
 
 churches have fallen under a different kind of regimen. 
 I had rather lament than excogitate, considering that 
 men often, without any blame of their own, may be 
 driven to want that kind of polity which is best, and to 
 content themselves with that which the irremediable 
 error of former times, or the necessity of the present, 
 hath cast upon them. Bishops, though many avouch 
 with conformity of truth that their authority hath thus 
 descended, even from the very apostles themselves, yet 
 the everlasting and absolute continuance of it, they can 
 not say that any commandment of the Lord doth 
 enjoin, and, therefore, must acknowledge that the 
 Church hath power by universal consent, upon urgent 
 cause, to take it away if thereunto she be constrained 
 through the proud, the tyrannical and unreformable 
 dealings of her bishops, whose regimen she hath long 
 delighted in, because she hath found it good and 
 requisite to be so governed." 
 
 Hooker allows to Episcopacy scriptural sanction, 
 yet does not assert its divine right. He leaves it to the 
 conscience to determine, or to the reason of man, 
 whether Church polity is a mutable thing, under the 
 control of circumstances. 
 
 The Lutherans in Germany, and the Calvinists of 
 France, Holland, and Scotland, made up their minds 
 that they could do without bishops. There was sad 
 warfare through the center of Europe, and the Span- 
 iards and French persecuted the Protestants, some of 
 them thinking in their blindness that they were doing 
 God service. Queen Elizabeth was a friend in need to 
 all the distressed reformers. 
 
 There were four branches of the Reformed Church 
 of Christ that kept their bishops : the English and
 
 4O2 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 American Episcopalians, the Swedish Lutherans, and 
 the Moravians. 
 
 A proper observance of the Lord's day became 
 now a subject of interest. A book came out on this 
 subject in 1595, which had the effect of giving a pecu- 
 liar character to the religious and social life of England. 
 The bishops had issued directions about Sunday ob- 
 servance, but they restricted their injunctions to buying 
 and selling on the Lord's day. They forbade all 
 games being carried on during the time of divine 
 service. 
 
 As early as 1449 an act was passed in England to 
 prohibit merchandise on Sunday. In 1678 all secular 
 work was forbidden, except works of charity and 
 mercy. How precious are the Sabbaths of our lives ! 
 Oh, that they could be hallowed to all classes in the 
 community ! See in Isa. Ivi. 2 and Iviii. 13 the prom- 
 ises made to all who hallow the sacred day. 
 
 The book to which we have alluded was written by a 
 Puritan minister in 1595. Fuller testifies to its remark- 
 able effects: "The fencer laid down his buckler, the 
 archer his bow. May-games and morris-daYices grew 
 out of repute." 
 
 Although the proper observance of the Sabbath, or 
 a seventh part of our time, is a blessed institution to all 
 God's creatures, yet some well-meaning sectaries have 
 carried their views to as absurd an extreme as did the 
 Jews in the days of our Lord. The Sunday had been 
 shamefully desecrated in the age just previous to the 
 Reformation. " The rites of sacrifice and circumcision 
 have vanished away, but the name and duties of the 
 Sabbath, enshrined as it is in the moral code, must 
 forever remain."
 
 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 403 
 
 The doctrines of predestination and election have 
 produced much controversy. Since the day that the 
 question was asked of our Lord, " Are there few that be 
 saved?" the question of election has agitated the 
 Church of God. St. Augustine, in the fourth century, 
 sounded its deep mysteries, but was not quite able to 
 satisfy himself. His theology, as we have said, has 
 iufluenced the Church in every age. We see it in the 
 Thirty-nine Articles of the Protestant Episcopal Church. 
 
 " Work out your own salvation with fear and 
 trembling, for it is God that worketh in us, to will and 
 to do, of his own good pleasure." In this passage of 
 Scripture we see declared, not only the sovereignty of 
 God, but the free agency of man. On the mysterious 
 question of the operation of grace, the English Church 
 was long dominated by the opinions of Calvin and Beza. 
 
 During the reign of Mary, the Protestant exiles had 
 received much kindness from the leaders of the Genevan 
 and from the Zurich schools of theology. During a 
 large part of the reign of Elizabeth the English divines 
 were strongly tinctured with Calvinism. Now and then 
 a bold man uould declare his belief in free will, as 
 Bishop Cheyney of Gloucester. 
 
 Mr. Barrett, in a sermon which he preached at 
 Cambridge, said that sin was the true, proper and first 
 cause of reprobation. This assault on Calvinism was 
 distasteful to the most influential doctors at Cambridge. 
 Dr. Whitaker, the Regius Professor of Divinity, brought 
 the matter before the archbishop. Whitgift called to 
 his aid several divines to settle the controversy. At 
 Lambeth a paper of articles was drawn up, known as 
 the "Lambeth Articles." There were nine of these 
 articles. We will only quote the first: "God from
 
 404 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 eternity hath predestinated some to life, some He hath 
 reprobated to death." If these articles prove anything, 
 they prove that man, when he presumes to understand 
 the "secret decrees" of God, plunges into absurdity 
 and blasphemy. Many were shocked at this document, 
 denying, as they thought, the attribute of justice to the 
 Most High. 
 
 The^queen, when she heard of these articles, said 
 that "she misliked them very much, regretting that the 
 prelate had allowed such points to be discussed, as 
 being matter tender and dangerous to weak minds." 
 A protest was soon made against these articles. 
 
 Baro, in a Latin sermon at Cambridge, 1596, took 
 the position that God created all men in the likeness of 
 Adam, and consequently to eternal life as Christ 
 gave Himself a propitiation for all. Baro was cited 
 before the vice-chancellor to answer for heresy. The 
 primate wrote to the chancellor to proceed cautiously. 
 Burleigh reproved the vice-chancellor for his citation of 
 Baro : " Ye sift him with interrogatories, as if he were 
 a thief. If you punish him, it will be for holding the 
 truth." The queen said these articles must be sup- 
 pressed. 
 
 Andrews, a bishop of much ability, placed the 
 doctrines of the articles in their true light before Whit- 
 gift. Baro was permitted to keep his place. 
 
 Calvin was indeed an intellectual giant and a deeply 
 religious man. His "Institutes" prove that he pos- 
 sessed great logical powers. He elaborated a system 
 of theology in all its parts, on the basis of the Divine 
 will as supreme.* That will, in Calvin's view, though 
 
 * Calvin seemed to square and triangulate and systematize the 
 doctrinal mysteries of the Scripture, as a problem in mathematics.
 
 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 405 
 
 hidden to us, is not arbitrary, but most wise and holy. 
 The human race, corrupted radically in the ' fall of 
 Adam, has upon it the guilt and impotence of original 
 sin ; its redemption could 'only be achieved through a 
 propitiation ; of this redemption only electing grace can 
 make the soul a participant, and such grace once given 
 is never lost. This election can come only from God, 
 and it includes only a part of the race, the rest being 
 left to perdition. Justification is by faith alone, and 
 this faith is the gift of God. 
 
 All Christians embrace a large part of Calvin's 
 creed ; but there are two points in his faith that ordi- 
 nary minds can not receive. One is that a loving 
 Father, as the Bible represents our God to be, could 
 ever pass by or reprobate any of the creatures He has 
 made. "Whosoever will may take of the waters of 
 life freely " is the doctrine of our Lord, who gave 
 Himself a propitiation for the sins of the world. The 
 other point in Calvin's theology that we can not receive 
 is, that we can " never depart from grace given." We 
 know that nothing but our sins can separate us from 
 God. If we are diligent in our Master's work, "our 
 calling and election " will be sure. 
 
 The execution of Servetus, the Socinian physician, 
 was in accordance with the laws of the European states 
 of that time. It was, say his friends, the inherited 
 spirit of the times. His condemnation was an act of 
 the council, after some deliberation, and in accordance 
 with the opinions of other cantons. Calvin, it is said, 
 interceded that he might not be burned, but decapi- 
 tated. If Calvin had possessed as much love as he did 
 learning, we believe he would have heartily interceded 
 with the council, to save the life of Servetus.
 
 406 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 Religion without love or charity is as sounding 
 brass or a tinkling cymbal. Oh, how lamentable is it 
 that some of the lights of the world have almost gone 
 out in darkness on account of the persecution unto 
 death of a fellow-creature, not for crime, but for error 
 in opinion ! 
 
 At the close of the reign of Queen Elizabeth, a 
 generation had arisen which knew nothing of any 
 religion which differed greatly from the Church of 
 England. The peculiarities of this Church, the cere- 
 monies and vestments which had at an earlier period 
 been exposed to bitter attacks, were now connected 
 with hallowed associations. The time, however, was 
 not very far distant, when kings, by their absolutist 
 principles, and ecclesiastics, in magnifying non-essen- 
 tials and in the exercise of an uncompromising spirit, 
 brought tribulation and woe upon the Church of God. 
 
 In 1603 James I. became king of England. There 
 was some doubt upon the minds of Englishmen as to 
 the religious opinions of James, coming as he did from 
 Scotland, and from under the instruction of the learned 
 but Calvinistic Buchanan. He showed soon his pref- 
 erence for the Church of England, but, we think, his 
 embrace was one of death and dishonor to the Church. 
 There was a conference at Hampton Court which 
 amounted to nothing. This took place in 1604. The 
 Puritans were very unfairly represented, and afterwards 
 scoffed at its proceedings. There were numerous ob- 
 jections made to the ritual the cross in baptism, 
 the ring in marriage, and the surplice in preaching. 
 Soon after this conference Whitgift died. It is said of 
 Whitgift that he spoke very plainly to the queen with 
 regard to Church spoliation. The rescue of its prop.
 
 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 407 
 
 erty from her covetous grasp is ascribed to Whitgift. 
 He was not a time-server, as were some of the bishops 
 during the reign of James. 
 
 Bancroft succeeded Whitgift to the primacy. Ban- 
 croft, says Southey, had neither the wisdom nor mod- 
 eration of Parker or Whitgift. He framed canons by 
 which all persons who spoke in derogation of the 
 Church of England were to be excommunicated, and 
 with an impolicy as gross as his intolerance, when 
 several Puritans wished to migrate to some of the 
 colonies 1 ' of America, he, instead of rejoicing that 
 intractable spirits, as some of the Puritans were, were 
 willing to leave the country, obtained a proclamation 
 whereby they were forbidden to leave it without a 
 special license from the king. 
 
 He ejected from their benefices all who would not 
 conform to the rules. The Church was weakened 
 under his policy, and at the accession of Abbott it was 
 found that opponents of the Church system had in- 
 creased in number. Abbott was appointed to the 
 primacy, not on account of any peculiar fitness for his 
 high office, but from favoritism. The appointment of 
 Andrews, a man of marked ability and excellent spirit, 
 was desired by the true friends of the Church, but they 
 were overruled. Abbott, however, seems to have been 
 a good man, though without great qualities. He 
 showed his steady virtue in refusing to grant a divorce 
 to the Earl of Rochester that he might marry the 
 wicked Countess of Essex. For this independence he 
 lost for a time the favor of the king. At the same 
 time he is accused of making the tribunal of the High 
 Commission more terrible than ever from the imposition 
 of heavy fines. Yet his sensibility was so wounded by
 
 408 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 causing the death accidentally of a man when he was 
 hunting, that his own life was shortened by sorrow. 
 This seems hardly consistent with the disposition 
 ascribed by some historians to him of moroseness and 
 tyranny.* Abbott from his death-bed implored James 
 I. to raise an army to assist his son-in-law, the elector, 
 who was fighting for Protestantism. 
 
 James was vain, selfish, and vacillating. He sup- 
 posed himself capable of settling everything in the 
 Church, because theology had been his favorite study. 
 There was much time-serving in the reign of James. 
 He attempted to defeat justice by brow-beating the 
 judges, but Sir Edward Coke bravely refused to be 
 influenced by him. Sir Francis Bacon is said to have 
 sanctioned torture in this reign. 
 
 '*' Abbott was a Calvinist, and was accused of being too lenient to 
 the Puritans.
 
 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 409 
 
 CHAPTER XLII. 
 
 The discovery of the gunpowder plot in 1605 natu- 
 rally awakened suspicion in the king and his court. 
 Bishop Andrews, the great preacher of the day, was 
 exhorted to write against the Romanists. The spirit 
 of controversy infected many of the great divines of 
 that day. They should have been differently em- 
 ployed. A great crisis was approaching. "If the 
 Marian fires," says Canon Perry, "the French St. 
 Bartholomew, the 50,000 victims of the Low Countries, 
 did not avail to destroy their influence or lessen their 
 power, what hope of usefulness could reasonably be 
 expected from controversy?" 
 
 Now for the first time a sacramental test was used 
 in the service of persecution. Recusants were re- 
 quired not only to attend the parish church, but to re- 
 ceive the Lord's Supper. One noble work must not 
 be forgotten as belonging peculiarly to the reign of 
 James I. The encouragement that James gave to the 
 translation of the Bible must be heartily recognized. 
 The king was well aware, from his scholastic attain- 
 ments, of the deficiences of the Bishops' Bible, and as a 
 theologian, he had an antipathy to the Calvinistic per- 
 versions of Scripture in the Genevan Bible.* He 
 wrote to Bancroft, who was Bishop of London, that he 
 had selected fifty-four divines for the work. Bancroft 
 informed his brother bishops of the wishes of the king. 
 
 Canon Ferry. Or rather, the marginal notes.
 
 4IO ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 They were expected to consult all the learned men of 
 their diocese, and ask their suggestions in all passages 
 of difficulty. When the work was begun, in 1607, the 
 fifty-four divines were reduced to forty-seven. How 
 thorough, true, grand and beautiful this translation 
 was, and is, all Protestant English-speaking people 
 have declared with uniform acclaim. 
 
 In 1610, three bishops were consecrated for Scot- 
 land. An objection was urged by some of the Scotch 
 clergy to consecration by the Archbishop of Canter- 
 bery, lest the Scotch Church should be subjected to the 
 English Church. To avoid any subject of jealousy, 
 neither of the archbishops took any part in the conse- 
 cration. Several years after this time, 1637, when the 
 liturgy was read in the Cathedral of Edinburg, a furi- 
 ous riot ensued. James I. and his advisers understood 
 the temper of the Scotch people far better than the 
 indiscreet ecclesiastics of Charles I. James had posi- 
 tively refused to adopt the stringent policy that was 
 afterwards attempted in the reign of his son. These 
 objections to a harsh policy probably arose in his mind 
 after he had permitted a great crime to be committed, 
 in allowing two unhappy men to be burned for their 
 religious opinions. One of these men was brought into 
 the presence of the king, that he might convince him 
 of his Socinian errors. When the man refused to ac- 
 cept his arguments, it is said he spurned him with his 
 foot. The usual excuse has been made for James, that 
 toleration was not understood, and that heresy was be- 
 lieved to be high treason against the Almighty. 
 
 These burnings excited, however, such horror 
 among the people, who had become strangers to such 
 cruelties, that the king was obviously ashamed of what
 
 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 4! I 
 
 he had done. James was an absolutist in politics, and 
 very impatient of contradiction in his religious opin- 
 ions. Under his rule had taken place an ominous union 
 of Patriots and Puritans. Many of these men loved 
 the Church, but unwilling to lose their political rights, 
 they formed an alliance with men who thought with 
 them on political subjects. This was a natural result. 
 James claimed "the divine right of kings, " and to 
 their shame be it spoken, there were clergymen in his 
 day who sustained him in this idea. Strange as it may 
 appear to us, there were really good men who believed 
 in "passive obedience." 
 
 The claims of James, however, startled many 
 thoughtful Englishmen, who concluded that " if the 
 practice should follow the king's theories, they would 
 not be likely to leave to their successors the freedom 
 they had derived from their ancestors." 
 
 We must now, for a short space, retrace our steps. 
 About the time that Luther cast aside the veil that 
 covered the corruptions of Rome, a great man arose in 
 Spain Ignatius Loyola, the founder of the Jesuits. 
 He saw the corruption of the Romish communion, 
 which he loved, and determined to create an order 
 which would enter into all the ramifications of society, 
 lay hold of the springs of social life, and seize by a 
 skillful policy upon all the schools and colleges. We 
 have already spoken of the introduction of Jesuit 
 priests into England during the reign of Elizabeth, and 
 the summary measures that were adopted to drive them 
 from the country and to prevent the establishment of 
 their schools in England. They were punished as 
 traitors, rather than heretics. The efforts of Loyola 
 had been endorsed by the Pope. He had constructed
 
 412 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 a wonderful system, a deeply laid scheme to control 
 the destinies of the world. 
 
 Before the actors in the busy drama of European 
 politics had specially marked the course of this enter- 
 prising astute order, it had sent out emissaries into all 
 the world. Loyola's successors had followed the track 
 of maritime discovery. Their missions were sent out 
 into all the world, to India, South America, China ; 
 but above all, they in little more than fifty years had 
 filched from Protestantism many of her provinces. They 
 produced a counter reformation.* The provinces of 
 Southern Germany, Bohemia and Poland were restored 
 to the papal see. The Huguenots in France lost in 
 numbers and in power. Many left the country at the 
 revocation of the edict of Nantes. Great efforts were 
 made to seduce Sweden, but in this they utterly failed. 
 There were doubtless assisting causes besides the ener- 
 getic efforts of the disciples of Loyola. Protestantism 
 had wasted its strength in theological controversies, in 
 bitter disputes, between the churches which followed 
 Luther and the churches which followed Calvin. The 
 German princes who espoused the cause of the refor- 
 mation used it and prostituted it to their political ends 
 and aims. The papacy meanwhile rallied the Catholic 
 world to revise the Council of Trent. At this council 
 (impelled, it is probable, by the knowledge of the 
 superior morality of the Protestants), they deliberated 
 seriously on the morals of their clergy. They passed 
 decrees on this subject which challenged general appro- 
 bation. 
 
 The Council of Trent, which was summoned, it was 
 
 * We have alluded to this counter reformation in our sketch of 
 Moravianism.
 
 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 413 
 
 alleged, to explain and reform the doctrine and disci- 
 pline of the Church, produced new enormities, inasmuch 
 as they placed among the doctrines necessary to be 
 believed, and guarded by anathemas, the doctrine of 
 the seven sacraments, the necessity of auricular con- 
 fession, the canonical authority of the Apocryphal 
 books, etc. 
 
 No pope was personally present at this Council, but 
 it was governed by his legates. This Council seemed 
 more anxious to serve the interests of the papal do- 
 minion than the general interests of the Christian 
 Church. 
 
 Some provinces of the Romish church receive the 
 decrees of the Council of Trent entire, without excep- 
 tions or conditions, as Portugal, Italy, portions of 
 Germany.* That part of the Council which related to 
 the doctrines of religion was admitted as a rule of faith 
 among the French. But that part which relates to 
 discipline and ecclesiastical law has been constantly re- 
 jected by France, as it was deemed hostile to the rights 
 of the French Church. The Vulgate, the old Latin 
 version, was declared authentic. 
 
 Both sacred and secular learning were held in 
 greater esteem, after the time of Luther, by Romish 
 Christians, than ever before, especially by the Jesuits. 
 The written word of God, and the unwritten, i. e., the 
 traditions of the Church, are tJietivo sources of Christian 
 knowledge. 
 
 At the death of Elizabeth, the Protestants saw 
 their losses. The dream of a reformation of the Uni- 
 versal Church was at an end. When awakened from 
 this dream many of the Protestants of England became 
 
 * Mosheim.
 
 414 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 excited and restless. Any ceremony, however beautiful 
 and innocent, if it was retained or used by the Roman 
 Catholics, became distasteful to them. We have al- 
 ready said that James claimed the divine right of 
 kings. His aggressive tone on the rights of freemen 
 soon evolved an alarmingly aggressive tone in the 
 House of Commons towards the monarchy and the 
 Church. Three-fourths of the Parliament that met in 
 1604 were in sympathy Puritan, not Presbyterian. 
 James had been frightened by the Presbyterians in his 
 youth, and he now chose to confound them.* 
 
 The name was of little consequence. All the great 
 and good, with few exceptions, were opposed to the 
 extravagant claims of James and the high-churchism 
 that threatened the Church. 
 
 In our inquiry as to the causes that seemed to arrest 
 Protestantism in its onward march, near the close of 
 the sixteenth century, we must not forget certain in- 
 dividuals who, though within the fold of the Church of 
 Rome, labored with a Irue Christian spirit to extend 
 the knowledge of Christ. Among the Jesuits who 
 took the lead in the work of missions was Francis 
 Xavier, commonly called the Apostle of the Indies. 
 He was a contemporary of Loyola. Both teacher and 
 disciple were very different in their spirit and teaching 
 from many of the Jesuits who came after them, those 
 "who compassed sea and land to make proselytes," 
 yet taught their benighted hearers but little of the 
 gospel of our Lord. 
 
 In 1549 Xavier went to Japan and laid the foun- 
 dation of a numerous body of Christians, which 
 flourished for many years in the empire. Xavier 
 
 * Green's History of Englad.
 
 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 415 
 
 composed some delightful hymns that Protestants now 
 sing in their churches with much zeal. 
 
 Ricci, a learned Jesuit, went to China, 1582, and 
 by practicing many ingenious devices attracted the 
 attention of the Chinese. After twenty years' labor 
 he gained access to the Emperor, and soon gained a 
 numerous body of converts. 
 
 St. Theresa, in Spain, was preeminent in seeking to 
 effect a reform amid the Carmelite nuns. She was a 
 true disciple of Christ. She tried to convince her sis- 
 ters that no seclusion from the world, no discipline of 
 mind, was sufficient without useful labor. By suitable 
 employment the mind was best preserved from un- 
 profitable, sinful and wandering thoughts. She de- 
 sired to inspire them with what she calls the prayer of 
 love, where the soul forgets itself, and listens only to 
 the voice of the Heavenly Master. 
 
 The institutions of St. Francis de Sales were estab- 
 lished in the same spirit as those of Theresa. He 
 founded the order of Visitation. This order was in- 
 tended to protect delicate females from direct penances 
 and from austere communities. His order is said to 
 have exercised a beneficent influence in France. 
 About this time the Ursuline Nuns went to France 
 and placed themselves over the schools of young girls. 
 Vincent de St. Paul appeared also in France as the 
 missionary of the people. He founded the order of 
 the Sisters of Mercy. 
 
 THE JANSENISTS. 
 
 The society of the Jesuits, however, departed more 
 and more from the principles of their founder. They 
 constantly acted upon the dangerous principle that
 
 4l6 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 " the end sanctifies the means." Some of them said, 
 " To take a false oath is in itself a deadly sin ; but he 
 who swears outwardly, without inwardly intending to 
 do so, is not bound by his oath. He does not mean, 
 he only jests." 'it had been a principle that he who 
 took the Jesuits' vow should abandon temporal posses- 
 sions ; but they now so managed property that they 
 received all the benefits by transferring property to the 
 respective colleges with which they were connected. 
 When the Jesuits became corrupt, an opposition to 
 their false doctrines arose in Jansenism, so called from 
 their teacher, Jansen. This man, with his friend, Du 
 Verger, studied at the University of Lourain, Holland,* 
 where the true doctrines of the gospel had never been 
 entirely forsaken, the learned theologians say. His 
 associate, Du Verger, labored in the Abbey of St. 
 Cyran to do the same work that Jansenius did at the 
 university. They endeavored to revive true doctrine 
 as taught by Augustin. Jansenius boldly attacked the 
 Jesuits in their doctrines. He taught the necessity of 
 grace, ' ' the baptism of the Spirit, " to aid the will which 
 is in bondage to earthly desires. 
 
 Du Verger devoted himself in the midst of Paris to 
 the study of the Scriptures and the early Christian 
 Fathers. Many distinguished persons attached them- 
 selves to his tenets, such as Arnauld, an intimate friend 
 of Richelieu, and of Anne of Austria. Angelique 
 Arnauld, with her nuns of Port Royal, became Jansen- 
 ists and were renowned for good works. Port Royal 
 authors became very celebrated. Blaise Pascal was 
 one of these. Jansenius died before his book was 
 printed. St. Cyran, his coadjutor, was thrown into 
 
 1 There is still Jansenism in Holland.
 
 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 417 
 
 prison by Richelieu, who had an antipathy to such 
 effective doctrines as were preached by the Jansenists. 
 
 St. Cyran tried to do good to the souls of men 
 while in prison. Like Paul, and Silas, he preached to his 
 jailers. He was released after the death of Richelieu, 
 1643. The Jansenists bore a close analogy to those 
 Protestants who have retained episcopacy or govern- 
 ment by bishops. The Jansenists, however, never left 
 the fold of Rome, though at times fiercely persecuted. 
 They were devoted to the writings of Augustin, Je- 
 rome and Chrysostom. They believed they possessed 
 a pure tradition to the time of St. Bernard. 
 
 The hermitage of Port Royal became very celebrated 
 as the nucleus of the holy doctrines of the Jansenists. 
 They translated the Scriptures into their own native 
 tongue ; also the writings of the Fathers and the Latin 
 prayer-books. This community of men, the Port 
 Royal authors, endowed with the highest intellect, and 
 actuated by the most noble aims, exercised an exten- 
 sive influence on the literature of France for many 
 years. "The literary splendors of the age of Louis 
 XIV. may safely be attributed to the Jansenist authors 
 of Port Royal."* 
 
 During the pontificate of Innocent X. Jansenist 
 divines were heard preaching from the pulpits of Rome. 
 Their essential doctrines, consisting of five propositions, 
 were examined and passed upon by a court of Rome. 
 Innocent X. cared not for the investigation of doc- 
 trine, but he was forced to issue a bull condemning the 
 five propositions. The Jansenists were remarkable for 
 holiness of life and great devotion to good works. 
 Some of them were called Mystics or Quietists. 
 
 * Draper.
 
 41 8 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 About the same time, 1668, lived Madame Guyon, a 
 distinguished Quietist. She propagated her religious 
 views by books and tracts. She was befriended by the 
 great Fenelon, Archbishop of Cambray. 
 
 Bossuet, Bishop of Meaux, wrote a book, contro- 
 verting, as he supposed, the doctrines of Madame 
 Guyon. He applied to the good Fenelon to endorse 
 his book against the heresies of Guyon. Fenelon ob- 
 jected, saying that he considered the errors of the 
 book consisted rather in fervid expressions than in 
 heretical doctrines. Fenelon published a book in 
 1697, declaring that he adopted some of her opinions, 
 especially the mystical precept that we ought to love 
 God purely, without the expectation of any reward. 
 This produced a controversy with Bossuet, who sent 
 Fenelon's book to the Pope. It was indeed a defense 
 of Quietism. 
 
 Innocent XII., after a long silence, passed a mild 
 censure upon the book, but censuring still more the ene- 
 mies of Fenelon, who had written so violently against it. 
 It is said Fenelon withdrew his book, and accepted 
 the condemnation of the Pope. Previous to his con- 
 troversy with Bossuet, Fenelon had stood high in the 
 royal favor and with Madame de Maintenon. He had 
 first been appointed missionary to the Protestants, in 
 the vicinity of Paris, after the revocation of the edict 
 of Nantes. In receiving this appointment, he pre- 
 ferred to the king one petition that there should be no 
 violence permitted in his diocese. He, by his mild 
 measures and great eloquence, is said to have been very 
 successful in winning many Protestants to Catholicism, 
 or at least to the doctrine's he taught, which were full 
 of Christian love. For some years Fenelon was the
 
 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 419 
 
 preceptor of the grandsons of Louis, the Dukes of 
 Burgundy, Anjou and Berry. He wrote admirable 
 books for their instruction. One of these was, "Tele- 
 maque, " in which the author significantly points out 
 the duties of a monarch to his subjects. The book 
 was anonymous, but so soon as the king discovered 
 that Fenelon was the author of the book, the good 
 archbishop was restricted to the diocese of Cambray, 
 and not permitted to appear again at court. He de- 
 voted himself to good works, and it is supposed, re- 
 tained to the last his Mystic or Quietist opinions, 
 though for the sake of the peace of the Church he 
 withdrew his book. 
 
 Madame Guyon, after enduring some persecutions, 
 died in obscurity in 1702. She had been always char- 
 itable to the poor, and devoted her whole time to re- 
 ligion. 
 
 Port Royal, the celebrated retreat for penitents, 
 and learned men, and noble women, was destroyed in 
 1709. It had exercised much influence over the relig- 
 ieuses of France for nearly a century. Louis XIV., 
 at the instigation of the Jesuits, ordered the edifice to 
 be entirely demolished, and the nuns, who still lived 
 there, were transferred to Paris. The institution at 
 Port Royal would have been destroyed long before, 
 had not the powers of the papacy been restrained by 
 the political and clashing interests of France and Austria, 
 and even Spain sometimes attempted' to restrict papal 
 interference. 
 
 In 1660 the papacy seemed to be shorn of some of 
 its "power. Louis XIV., Jthough superstitiously de- 
 voted to Romanism, historians say, avenged himself 
 upon the court of Rome by trying to lessen her power,
 
 42O ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 because the Popes Innocent X. and Alexander VII. 
 and Clement IX. and Clement X. were on the side of 
 Spain. Louis XIV. also encountered opposition from 
 Innocent XI. in his spoliations. 
 
 Certain bishops of Jansenist opinions had been sub- 
 jected to oppression because they resisted the will of 
 the king with regard to the revenues of some bish- 
 oprics. On this account they appealed to Pope 
 Innocent XL, who seems to have been a good man. 
 He adopted their cause, and warned Louis to abstain 
 from using the immunities of the church. 
 
 It had been the maxim of the French court that 
 the papal power should be restricted by the French 
 clergy, and the clergy to be kept within proper limits 
 by the Pope. The king, in 1682, assembled a Convo- 
 cation, his clergy sustaining him, in which he stated 
 propositions declaring the independence of the secular 
 power, and the king was declared free from the spir- 
 itual power. The Pope now determined to refuse ordi- 
 nation or institution to all who were members of the 
 Convocation assembled by Louis XIV. At this very 
 time the king of France pretended to prove his ortho- 
 
 9 
 
 doxy by a relentless persecution of the Huguenots. 
 It is said that this Pope Clement XIV. disapproved of 
 the king's cruelty to the Huguenots. In 1773 he (Clem- 
 ent) expelled the Jesuits, extirpating their offices, 
 houses and institutions. This order has been repeat- 
 edly suppressed by kings, from a jealousy of the 
 power and influence wielded by this body. 
 
 The effect of Jansenism in France, like Puritanism 
 in England, seems to have awakened religious thought, 
 and to have stimulated intellectual inquiry. The Jan- 
 senists were more speculative and mystical in their
 
 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 421 
 
 religion than the Puritans or Protestants of England. 
 They cared little for politics or earthly power. They were 
 submissive to authority, finding happiness in the mon- 
 astic institutions The Old Catholics of the present 
 time seem to be Jansenists. 
 
 The Protestants of Sweden, Germany and England 
 had a powerful leader to defend their rights when Gus- 
 tavus Adolphus arose to fight their battles. The king 
 of Sweden arrested, by his victories over the Catholic 
 powers, the papal inroads that had been made since 
 the close of the sixteenth century. 
 
 By the peace of Westphalia the great conflict be- 
 tween Catholic and Protestant powers was brought to 
 an end. But a bitter struggle of a different kind 
 awaited the Church of England ; " the foes were those 
 of her own household." The people of England were 
 a mighty bulwark against either civil or religious 
 tyranny, real or imaginary. The condition of the 
 Church at the death of James I. seemed prosperous, 
 but its condition was critical, its security was only 
 seeming. A fatal no, not fatal, but a fearful crisis was 
 at hand. The world, says Southey, did not contain 
 men of stronger talents, sounder learning, and more 
 exemplary lives, than the clergy of the Church of Eng- 
 land at that time. Their works have stood, and" will 
 continue to stand, the test of time. 
 
 These men were to be tried in the furnace. Many 
 and various were the circumstances that led to violent 
 measures. The times must have been terribly out of 
 joint when it was deemed necessary that the three fore- 
 most men in the realm the pillars of Church and 
 State should bare their necks to the headman's ax. 
 No moral stain could be imputed to any of these
 
 422 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 men. Their trangressions were political ! Strafford, 
 Laud and Charles I. The first was considered by his 
 former compeers in the House of Commons as an apos- 
 tate in political principle. He was tempted by the 
 honors offered by the king, and threw off the cloak of 
 patriotism worn for a time. He died for political offenses. 
 The purity and decorum of the life of Charles reflected 
 no discredit upon his religion. But his views of gov- 
 ernment were false. He seemed not to comprehend 
 that a king could not with impunity break the laws of 
 his country. Laud, the Archbishop of Canterbury, was 
 as intolerant in the Church, as Charles was exorbitant in 
 the State, in his claims of kingly authority. These men 
 ultimately fell under the power of a body of men 
 Cromwell and his Ironsides whose will for the time 
 was resistless, and who knew no mercy until the blood 
 of the victims flowed from the scaffold. This terrible 
 drama was enacted before the eyes of the English 
 people, and was permitted, we may humbly suppose, 
 that the world might learn that a heavy penalty will 
 follow in the train of disregarded human rights, both 
 civil and religious. 
 
 Laud was brought to the block at eighty-two years 
 of age. He died with the most devout prayers upon 
 his lips. Laud had done many unwise things, and 
 acted in a very arbitrary way when he tried to compel 
 the Scots to receive episcopacy against their will. He 
 attempted to increase the ritualistic ceremonies of the 
 Church of England, when he ought to have seen that 
 the prejudices of the Puritans (who still attended the 
 Episcopal churches) were increasing more and more. 
 They suspected Laud of Romanism. These suspicions 
 were not just, as was proved by the fact that a cardi-
 
 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 423 
 
 nal's hat was offered him and he positively refused this 
 much-coveted honor. 
 
 Laud sinned with many of his time in trying to 
 bind the consciences of men. He seemed incapable of 
 conciliation. The arbitrary measures of Laud caused 
 emigration to America. 
 
 George Herbert said: 
 
 " Religon stands tiptoe in our land, 
 Ready to pass to the American strand." 
 
 Laud injured the church he loved so well by his taste 
 for show and ceremony. In his time a painted window 
 was regarded as a relic of idolatry, and kneeling at the 
 chancel to receive the "sacred symbols," which we 
 now do so innocently, was regarded as very sinful, as 
 intimating that the bending of the knee meant wor- 
 ship. 
 
 Laud grievously answered for his faults. Few 
 characters have excited more controversy. He was a 
 benefactor to learning. He purchased rare books and 
 manuscripts. He encouraged the learned labors of 
 Ussher, of Jeremy Taylor, Hall and Sanderson ; but 
 his own vision was too much restricted to one range of 
 subjects. It is said that his opposition to Calvinism 
 was one cause of his unpopularity. Laud perished 
 in 1644; Charles in 1648. Some of Charles's ~best 
 soldiers clung to him, such as Lord Falkland not 
 that they approved his political views, but because they 
 loved the Episcopal Church of England, and plainly 
 saw that it was the object of the Revolutionists not 
 only to overturn the throne, but subvert the 
 altars. About the time of Laud's death, the lit- 
 urgy, a blood - boughtt reasure, was suppressed. 
 In Edward's time, iconoclasm had dashed into
 
 424 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 pieces its stained glass. In Elizabeth's time, the com- 
 munion table was moved into the middle of the chapel. 
 Archbishop Abbott tried to check all attempts at a 
 higher ceremonial. But Laud studiously tried to re- 
 place the stained window and the broken crucifix.
 
 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 425 
 
 CHAPTER XLIII. 
 
 In 1643, the English Parliament selected one hundred 
 and twenty of the ablest divines of England, with thirty 
 lay assessors, whom they commanded to meet at West- 
 minster to settle the worship, government and doctrines of 
 the Church. This famous Westminster Assembly con- 
 tinued to meet and discuss such subjects as the Parliament 
 submitted for several years in succession. They were 
 men of different religious views Presbyterians, Eras- 
 tians, Independents, and some moderate Episcopalians. 
 A deputation was sent, soon after the assembling of this 
 body, from Scotland, requesting the Westminster As- 
 sembly to sign the "League and Covenant," thereby 
 agreeing to establish one uniform religion in the three 
 kingdoms. The Parliament assented reluctantly to the 
 proposition of the Scottish Church, in order that they 
 might have their assistance in their political designs. 
 They drew up a Directory for Public Worship, also a 
 Directory for the Ordination of Ministers and for Dis- 
 cipline and Government, in 1645. Ruling elders^ were 
 chosen in 1646, and the erection of Presbyteries, Synods 
 and a General Assembly, for a trial of the system. 
 
 The Scotch Church objected to an appeal from the 
 highest ecclesiastical judicatory to the Parliament. The 
 English Presbyterians sided with the Scotch. The king 
 was at this time in the hands of the Scots. The 
 English Presbyterians determined to enforce Presbyte- 
 rianism jure divino on all England, and to allow no 
 toleration for dissenters.
 
 426 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 From 1644 to 1647, tne Independents greatly in- 
 creased in number. They uniformly pleaded for the 
 toleration of all sects who held the fundamental doc- 
 trines of Christianity.* 
 
 The intolerant measures of the Presbyterians alien- 
 ated the Independents and the army, and finally led to 
 the subversion of the Presbyterian establishment set up 
 in England. 
 
 Not one of the leading Puritans, says Mr. Green, of 
 the Long Parliament was a Presbyterian. Pym and 
 Hampden were disposed to Episcopacy, but the adop- 
 tion of the Presbyterian system was forced upon the 
 Puritan patriots by political considerations. 
 
 The demand of the House of Commons for scrip- 
 tural proofs of the divine authority of Presbyterianism 
 produced warm debates in the Westminster Assembly. 
 The Independents and Erastians at length withdrew 
 and protested. The Presbyterians, fifty-three in num- 
 ber, now left alone, voted almost unanimously that 
 " Christ has appointed a Church government, distinct 
 from the civil magistrate." No opinion can be more 
 correct than this ; but what government did he ap- 
 point ? This still remains a question in many minds. 
 
 In 1847, provincial synods met in London, and con- 
 tinued to meet until the end of Cromwell's reign. 
 
 The king, though a prisoner, and moved by the 
 entreaties of his queen, refused steadily to yield his 
 assent to the new ecclesiastical constitution of En- 
 gland. At the same time, he tried to detach the 
 Scotch from the English by promising them Presby- 
 terianism in Scotland and Episcopacy in England. But 
 
 * Murdock s Mosheim.
 
 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 427 
 
 they rejected his offers, hoping still to bless England as 
 well as Scotland with Presbyterianism. 
 
 The country now swarmed with sectarians. Mr. 
 Baxter mentions the chief separatists as Independents, 
 Anabaptists, and Antinomians. The Antinomians were 
 very rigid Calvinists. Some of these fanatics seemed to 
 consider themselves free from the moral law, arguing 
 that if they were the elect of Christ, and that Christ in 
 their stead had obeyed the law and suffered its penalty, 
 nothing more could be required of those who were 
 satisfied of their election. Doctrines like these could 
 only be maintained by madmen and hypocrites, with 
 the New Testament in their hands. 
 
 The king also tried to gain over the Independents, 
 promising them free toleration ; but his concessions 
 failed to benefit him. 
 
 The Assembly's short Catechism was presented to 
 parliament in 1647, an d the larger Catechism in 1648. 
 The army demanded of the Parliament free toleration for 
 all Protestant dissenters. The Presbyterians vigorously 
 opposed this, and endeavored to disband the army. 
 The army now took the king from the hands of the 
 Parliament and became peremptory in their demands. 
 
 In May, 1648, the Scots invaded England, in order 
 to rescue the king. The Parliament likewise com- 
 menced a negotiation with the king for his restoration, 
 upon the basis of a single religion, with no toleration 
 for any other. The king insisted upon Episcopacy, the 
 Parliament on Presbyterianism. 
 
 The army drove back the Scotch army, seized again 
 the king's person, purged the House of Commons of 
 many of its members, remodeled the government, 
 impeached the king, Charles Stuart, and beheaded
 
 428 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 him. A short time previous to the death of the king, 
 Parliament had enacted a ferocious law in its sectarian 
 zeal. The death-penalty was fixed upon all who should 
 deny the doctrine of the Trinity, the divinity of Christ, 
 the inspiration of the Scriptures, or the resurrection of 
 the body ; while persons believing that man by nature 
 hath free will to turn to God, or denying the lawfulness of 
 Church Government by Presbytery, were to be punished 
 with imprisonment. This statute was never enforced, 
 but it suggested extraordinary means of resistance. 
 
 Charles perished January, 1649. The House of 
 Lords and the monarchy were abolished a few days 
 after his death. The solemn League and Covenant was 
 laid aside, and nothing but an engagement or oath of 
 allegiance to government was required of any man to 
 qualify him civilly for any living in the country. Hence 
 many Episcopal divines now returned and became 
 parish ministers. 
 
 In 1653, the Parliament that had sat for thirteen 
 years, and for four years without a king or House of 
 Lords, was ordered to disperse. 
 
 Cromwell the Protector tried to make men of all 
 religions feel easy under his government, yet all Papists 
 and Episcopalians were excluded from full toleration. 
 Cromwell, however, forbade all the clergy from med- 
 dling with politics. The Presbyterians, in 1659, seeing 
 no prospect of restoring the League and Covenant 
 under the Cromwellian Protectorate, formed a coalition 
 with the Royalists to put Charles II. upon the throne. 
 The remains of the Long Parliament were restored. 
 Charles II. came back in 1660, amid bonfires and 
 rejoicing. No stipulations had been made as to the 
 national religion. Episcopacy was soon restored. Some
 
 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 429 
 
 hundreds of the Presbyterian ministers were displaced 
 to make way for the old Episcopal incumbents. 
 
 In 1662, an act of uniformity was passed which made 
 it criminal to dissent from the Established or Episcopal 
 Church. A number of Presbyterian ministers con- 
 formed, but about 2,000, most of them Presbyterians, 
 lost their places. A far wider change had been made 
 during the civil war, when 7,000 Episcopal clergy had 
 been ejected from their parishes, to suffer the extreme 
 of poverty. But, says a late historian, the Episcopal 
 clergy were ejected as much on political as on religious 
 grounds. The fidelity of those men to their Church 
 and king did not lessen their sufferings. We see, 
 during those times, Prideaux, Bishop of Exeter, was 
 torced to sell all his household stuff that he might 
 procure food for his family, and we see Chillingworth, 
 a lover of toleration, taken prisoner by Sir William 
 Waller and treated with great indignity.* 
 
 In the new Parliament of 1661, the new members 
 were yet better Churchmen than they were Royalists. 
 A common suffering had thrown the gentry and the 
 English clergy together, and the squires were now 
 zealous for the Church. 
 
 Some attempts at conciliation were made in. the 
 Convention that met soon after the restoration of 
 Charles II., so that the bulk of the Puritan party could 
 remain in the Church of Cranmer and Latimer. No 
 compromise with the Independents was possible. Arch- 
 bishop Ussher and Sir Matthew Hale were both anxious 
 that some concessions should be made to the Puritans. 
 Many moderate Presbyterians seemed disposed to 
 
 * Green.*
 
 43O ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. ' 
 
 accept terms. They (Ussher and Hale) proposed some 
 amendments in the Liturgy, omitting, as the Puritans 
 called them, "superstitious practices," also proposing 
 to give Episcopacy the synodical government of the 
 ancient Church. Hyde, Earl of Clarendon, however, 
 objected, and the compromise was never made. The 
 ejected Episcopal clergy entered into their livings 
 (many of them had died), the bishops returned to 
 their sees, the Convention Parliament was dissolved, and 
 every hope of compromise was removed. Had the 
 concessions been made that were so earnestly wished 
 for by some of the greatest and best of both parties, 
 it is believed that Howe and Baxter, and many others, 
 would have been reconciled to the Church of England. 
 At the dissolution of this Convention 2,000 Presby- 
 terian divines, as we have already said, some of them 
 distinguished for learning and piety, gave up their 
 livings. 
 
 Jeremy Taylor and Chillingworth were now dead, 
 but in their successors were found the pious, good sense 
 of Burnet, the enlightened wisdom of Tillotson, and 
 the logical philosophy of Bishop Butler. A class of 
 divines came to the front at the Restoration, who were 
 neither High Church nor Puritans. We mean Jeremy 
 Taylor, Stillingfleet, Hales, Chillingworth, Sherlock, 
 Burnet, Butler. These were enlightened, devout men, 
 but they abhorred persecution. Some of these men, 
 though devoted to their Church, as it then existed, 
 desired to include dissenters. They opposed dogma, 
 and insisted that the Apostles' Creed seemed to 
 them the one term of Christian union that the 
 Church had a right to impose. Chillingworth, 
 in his meetings, said, "Take away this persecution,
 
 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 431 
 
 this burning and damning of men, because they 
 refuse to subscribe to the words of men as the 
 words of God." Call no man Master but Christ. 
 Hale based his love and loyalty to the Church of Eng- 
 land on the fact that it was the most tolerant church 
 in Christendom. Jeremy Taylor pleaded for the Ana- 
 baptist and the Romanist. For all religions he would 
 plead freedom, except those that would destroy gov- 
 ernment or teach ill life. 
 
 These men were called in their day Latitudinarians, 
 because they simplified belief, and required only essen- 
 tial doctrines as taught in the New Testament. 
 
 A halo encircles the names of those clergymen of 
 whom we have just spoken, who refused to persecute 
 for opinions' sake, and whose only motive was a re- 
 spect for the rights of man and a love for humanity. 
 
 The Quakers, in the reign of Charles II., excited 
 alarm by their extravagance of manner, their refusal to 
 take oaths, and other peculiarities. Many of them 
 were put in prison. When Charles II. published the 
 "Declaration of Indulgence, " in 1672, thousands of 
 Quakers were set free. The famous John Bunyan, the 
 author of Pilgrim's Progress, came out of Bedford jail 
 at this time. Roman Catholics at this time practiced 
 their religion only in private houses. Charles" made 
 this " Declaration," not that he cared for religious lib- 
 erty, but that he might serve his own political aims. 
 Charles, however, had not a persecuting spirit. 
 Charles II., if he had any religious faith, was a Roman 
 Catholic. Our readers will remember Macaulay's 
 graphic description of the last scene in his death-cham- 
 ber when the priest entered at the back door of his 
 room, to administer the last sacrament.
 
 43 2 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 When James II. succeded to the throne of England 
 in 1685, he pledged his word to keep the laws and to 
 protect the Church. It was the word of a king, but 
 not of an honest man. He failed to observe either 
 oaths or pledges. James attempted to seize the uni- 
 versities in order to place in them Roman Catholic 
 professors. When he met with opposition, he sought 
 to deprive of their offices those who appealed to the 
 law against him. When the Bishop of London refused 
 to suspend a vicar for preaching against Popery, he 
 suspended the Bishop. 
 
 In 1687, James turned to the Nonconformists and 
 made & proclamation which annulled all penal laws against 
 Dissenters and Roman Catholics alike. The Dissenters 
 understood James's motive too well to be flattered by so 
 illegal a transaction. He ordered every clergyman in 
 April, 1688, to read his Declaration in every church 
 for two successive Sundays. 
 
 Sancroft the Archbishop, and six of his suffragans, 
 signed a protest to the king, in which they declined to 
 publish an illegal declaration. "It is a standard of 
 rebellion," said James, as he looked at the protest. 
 He ordered the ecclesiastical commissioners to deprive 
 them of their sees. The commissioners shrunk from 
 such an attempt. The Chancellor, Jeffreys, advised a 
 prosecution for libel as an easier mode of punishment. 
 The Bishops refused to give bail, and they were com- 
 mitted to the Tower. 
 
 On June 29, the Bishops appeared as criminals at 
 the bar of the king's bench. No sooner were the 
 words "not guilty" uttered by the foreman of the 
 jury, than the glad plaudits of the multitude were 
 heard on all sides. Had this assumption of authority
 
 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 433 
 
 attempted by James been admitted, the constitution in 
 Church and State would have received its death-blow. 
 The Bishops declared in their protest that it was from 
 no want of loyalty to the king, nor from any want of 
 tenderness to the Dissenters, but from the conviction 
 that the declaration was absolutely illegal. The peti- 
 tion was signed by the Primate, by Lloyd, Bishop of 
 St. Asaph, Turner, of Ely, Lake, of Chichester, Ken, 
 of Bath and Wells,* White, of Peterborough, Trelaw- 
 ney, of Bristol. 
 
 The king's Declaration fell to the ground. The 
 clergy were almost unanimous in refusing to read it. 
 Louis XIV. sent word by the English embassador to the 
 king of England that he was ready to give him everyjas- 
 sistance needed. France was at this time the most power- 
 ful country in Europe. The days of James II., as a king, 
 were numbered. The nation, disgusted with his tyranny 
 and hypocrisy, determined to invite over William III., 
 Prince of Orange, who had married Mary, daughter of 
 James II., to be the joint sovereigns over the realm of 
 England. 
 
 Mary was a Protestant in heart and education. 
 She was the granddaughter of Hyde, Earl of Claren- 
 don, the devoted friend of the Church of England. 
 William was the cousin of Mary, as he was the grand- 
 son of Charles I., of England. In 1689, William 
 III., by an express act of Parliament, relieved all Dis- 
 senters (except Socinians) from all penalties to which 
 they were by law exposed. 
 
 Sancroft, Archbishop of Canterbury, and seven 
 other Bishops, all men distinguished for their learning 
 
 * Ken was the author of the evening hymn "Glory to thee, my 
 God, this night."
 
 434 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 and for the purity of their morals, declared that they 
 could not conscientiously take the oath of fidelity to the 
 new king, William III., because in their view James II. 
 was the legimate king of England. 
 
 Among those who chose to incur the penalty of de- 
 privation, rather than transfer that allegiance which 
 they believed to be indefeasible, were five of those seven 
 to whose brave resistance the nation was mainly in- 
 debted for its deliverance from an arbitrary government 
 and a persecuting religion. The Bishops who refused 
 to take the oath were called Non-juring Bishops. " It 
 must be admitted," says Mr. Southey, "that they 
 judged erroneously, but never were men in error more 
 entitled to respect." The government treated them 
 with tenderness, and long put off the deprivation, 
 which they were at length compelled to pronounce. 
 The non-jurors died away long before the House of 
 Stuart was extinct. 
 
 The Bishops who entered upon the sees of those who 
 were displaced were Tillotson, Moore, Patrick, Fowler, 
 Kidder and Cumberland. These men were among the 
 brightest ornaments of the English Church. 
 
 We have spoken of emigration to, and colonization 
 in, North America. As early as 1607 there was a 
 Church of England settlement in Virginia, but the 
 great mass of the emigrants to New England were In- 
 dependents. 
 
 Maryland was settled by Roman Catholics, whose 
 liberal laws gathered around them many other denomi- 
 nations. South Carolina was settled largely by Hugue- 
 nots French Presbyterians. The Dutch settled New 
 York, but in a few years it became the possession of 
 Englishmen. Georgia was colonized by General Ogle-
 
 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 43 5 
 
 thorpe with a hundred and twenty emigrants, togethe r 
 with a minister of the Church of England. Oglethorpe 
 was a benevolent reformer. . ' 
 
 The cause of religion must have suffered from the 
 immoral sentiments and licentious living of Charles II. 
 and James II. Yet there lived and labored during 
 these reigns some of the brightest characters and most 
 faithful men that adorn the "Annals of the Church." 
 Mary, who succeeded her father, was a pious woman, 
 as "simple concerning evil" as James was cunning 
 and treacherous. Her husband, William, was a man of 
 war, devoting but little time or thought to the arts of 
 peace. Mary, however, was faithful in good works. 
 The adoption of the Bill of Rights in 1688 gives hon- 
 orable distinction to the reign of William III. Burnet 
 was the chaplain of Mary. By his kindly' intervention 
 all disaffection was removed from William's mind as 
 regarded the superior rights of his wife Mary to the 
 throne of England. 
 
 The deadness of the religious sentiment in the 
 eighteenth century has frequently been stated by relig- 
 ionists in writing of these times. Some have ascribed 
 this indifferentism to the preaching of the Latitudina- 
 rians, who, it has been affirmed, preached merely 
 moral essays. We believe this idea to be errone- 
 ous. 
 
 Such men as Jeremy Taylor, Chiliingworth, South, 
 and others, must have elevated rather than depressed the 
 tone of true religion. They were opposed to dogma. 
 They used enlightened reason as an interpreter of the 
 word of God. These men were succeeded by Tillotson, 
 Butler, and other learned, devout clergymen. But to 
 whatever cause or causes the lukewarmness in religion
 
 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 is to be ascribed during the early part of the eighteenth 
 century, we suppose the fact is indisputable. 
 
 After the termination of the social and political 
 tyranny in religion of the Commonwealth, the reaction 
 was terrible. The tone of Butler's Hudibras predom- 
 inated in serious things. There was much iniquity in 
 high places during the reign of Charles II., and the 
 brief reign of James II. 
 
 England sent out large armies to war during the 
 reigns of Mary and Anne. The demoralizing effects 
 of war are easily understood. Bolingbroke and Horace 
 Walpole, the Duke of Grafton and Lord Chesterfield, 
 all exercised an immoral, irreligious influence upon the 
 higher circles of English society. They were witty, 
 worldly, wicked men. 
 
 Many of the statesmen of this time were unbeliev- 
 ers in any form of Christianity. The infidelity of 
 Hobbes, and Hume, and Bolingbroke, in England, and 
 the blasphemous wit of Voltaire in France, were shed- 
 ding a baleful poison among all classes. But "at 
 heart " England was religious. During the minis- 
 try of Walpole there were few new schools estab- 
 lished, and few new churches built. But, in the rural 
 districts there was family religion, and in the parish 
 churches the grand old liturgy was still uttered by de- 
 vout lips. 
 
 A great revival of religion, of which we will pres- 
 ently speak, was at hand. During the time of which 
 we have just spoken we mean the period of alleged 
 indifferentism in religion there was pulpit ability in the 
 churches of London and vicinity. 
 
 Bishop Atterbury had not yet been banished from 
 his native land for an imputed correspondence with the
 
 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 437 
 
 Jacobites. (The adherents of the Stuarts, and the op- 
 ponents of the accession of the House of Hanover, 
 were called Jacobites.) This famous divine was ac- 
 cused of a correspondence with Charles Edward, 
 grandson of James II. Atterbury was eloquent in the 
 scriptures. He was the contemporary of the erudite 
 Gibson, Bishop of London, also of Hoadly, Bishop of 
 Bangor, in 1717, and much later, 1734, the Bishop 
 of Winchester occupied a high place among the Eng- 
 lish clergy. He asserted in his sermon, "My king- 
 dom is not of this world," that Christ was king in his 
 own kingdom, and that he had not delegated this 
 authority to any temporal power. William Law, the 
 champion of authority, both in Church and State, was 
 his opponent. 
 
 Law is the author of a book called " Law's Serious 
 Call." The writer of these sketches read this book 
 in her youth, and felt alarmed by its strict require- 
 ments. Seeker and Warburton also lived at this time. 
 Among the Presbyterians was Isaac Watts, who wrote 
 so many beautiful spiritual hymns ; and the devout 
 writer of the "Rise and Progress of Religion in the 
 Soul," Philip Doddridge. This is a book that the 
 earnest seeker after truth reads with intense interest. 
 
 Surely "in these times of deadness and defection," 
 there was no want of faithful, spiritual, intellectual men. 
 In the literary world there were stars of the first mag- 
 nitude. The glories of the age of Shakespeare, Milton, 
 Newton, Boyle, still reflected a moral grandeur on the 
 land. But there was indisputably much ignorance and 
 vice among the masses. A new phase of religious 
 fervor appeared in a knot of Oxford students. The 
 earnest souls of these young men rebelled against the
 
 438 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 coldness so manifest both in professors and people. 
 They began the work of inflaming their souls by a 
 round of ascetic observances, and a methodical regu- 
 larity of life which gained them the name of Methodists. 
 Whitefield was one of these young men, and he soon 
 attracted much attention by his fervid harangues. So ex- 
 travagant was he in his declamation that some time-serving 
 Episcopal clergymen closed the doors of the churches 
 against him, and he began to preach in the fields. 
 The vice chancellor of Oxford at this time seems to 
 have been a godly man, as he shows great solicitude 
 that the students should have excellent instruction. 
 He had an edict posted in many of the college halls 
 that, inasmuch as the prevalent news of infidelity had 
 possibly affected some of the members of the univer- 
 sity, the professors and teachers at Oxford should 
 give double diligence to the explanation of the Articles 
 of Religion and their Christian duty, and in recommend- 
 ing to them the careful and frequent reading of the 
 scriptures. 
 
 A late biograper of Wesley, in order to give as dark 
 a coloring as possible to the immorality of the times, 
 quotes a sermon in 1724, of the Bishop of Litchfield, 
 depicting the desecration of the Lord's day, and the 
 drunkenness and sensuality of the times. Doubtless the 
 times were very iniquitous, but such testimony as this 
 biographer brings forward is extremely uncertain. If 
 some of the sermons now preached in this nineteenth 
 century, true pictures, too, of a large number if these 
 sermons were published for a future century, the same 
 views might be taken of our present time as our biog- 
 rapher would have us take of the eighteenth century ; 
 yet we believe the Church in every branch is increasing 
 in power to overcome evil.
 
 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 439 
 
 Whitefield and the Wesleys deeply loved the souls 
 of men, and by the powerful principle of "love" they 
 were mighty in overthrowing the citadels of sin wher- 
 ever erected. The human heart, with its tenderest 
 sympathies, not steeled and petrified by indulgence in 
 evil habits, was aroused by the clarion call of these 
 earnest preachers "to flee from the wrath to come." 
 Mr. Whitefield's preaching was wonderful ; his eloquence 
 elicited admiration from the fastidious Walpole ; it 
 opened purses of gold in the pockets of those who had 
 never before been moved by "melting charity." He 
 (Whitefield) could look down at Kingwood upon the 
 faces of twenty thousand colliers, begrimed with the 
 coal dust of Bristol, and see, as he preached, the "tears 
 making white channels down their blackened cheeks." 
 All the phenomena of strong, spiritual excitement fol- 
 lowed their preaching. 
 
 Charles Wesley was the poet of this Methodist 
 movement. He wrote beautiful hymns, and sang them 
 sweetly. The singing of hymns among the early 
 Methodists was a source of much religious joy, as it 
 has be.en ever since to all devout congregations. But 
 John Wesley was the leading spirit, the great practical 
 organizer of the body that became very numerous^even 
 before his death, and is now numbered by millions in 
 England and America. 
 
 John Wesley lived from 1703 to 1/91, nearly ex- 
 tended through the century. When Whitefield com- 
 menced to preach in the fields, Wesley "could not be 
 reconciled to his strange ways." He" -struggled for a 
 long time against the admission of laymen as preach- 
 ers, until his great anxiety for the instruction of the 
 ignorant and for the salvation of souls overcame his
 
 44O ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 scruples. His father was an admirable man, and a 
 regular clergyman in the Church of England ; and had 
 reared him with very strict and straight notions of 
 clerical propriety. His mother, too, was a model 
 wife and mother. She, like her sons, was very anxious 
 to enlighten the ignorance of her humble neighbors. 
 She would encourage them to assemble in her kitchen 
 for prayer, and she would read short, stirring sermons 
 to them, uniting with them in psalmody ; these exer- 
 cises she would have in the absence of her husband, 
 who would be called from home on parochial duty. It 
 seems he had some doubts of these irregular meetings. 
 She, in writing to her husband on this subject, said, 
 showing her great regard for her marriage vow, "If 
 you do not approve of my work, command me to de- 
 sist. " The Wesleys had been nurtured in a pure and 
 holy atmosphere, with great reverence for the tradi- 
 tions of their church, and no wish to violate any of the 
 sanctities of their religious education, but their hearts 
 were aglow with zeal for the benefit of their fellow 
 men. 
 
 John Wesley clung to the last, passionately, to the 
 Church of England, and looked on the members of the 
 body he had formed as a lay society in full communion 
 with it.* He censured the Moravians, who had been 
 his early friends in the new movement, because he 
 thought they endangered its safety by paying too little 
 attention to forms. He also withdrew from White- 
 field on account of his strong Calvinism. 
 
 It is said that when a young man he had been re- 
 buked by the Bishops for his too narrow churchmanship. 
 Of all Protestant churches, the Methodist Society, or 
 
 * Green's History of Wesley.
 
 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 44! 
 
 the Methodist Episcopal Church, is the most rigid in 
 its organization, and most absolute in its government. 
 The whole body is placed under the absolute govern- 
 ment of a Conference of ministers. The members of 
 this church are grouped into classes ; they are gathered 
 into love-feasts. So long as John Wesley lived he had 
 the whole direction of the new religious society. 
 
 The Wesleys, John and Charles, seem to have been 
 regarded with much kindness by Gibson, Bishop of 
 London ; also by Seeker, afterwards Primate. The 
 Wesleys did not quarrel with Church and State, but 
 were only zealous to overcome sin and Satan. The 
 action of the Methodists upon the Church was admir- 
 able. It aroused men from lethargy.. Poets like 
 Cowper, and preachers like Cecil and John Newton, 
 stirred the cathedrals, churches and chapels into life.* 
 
 The hymn "Jesus, Savior of my soul," written by 
 John Wesley, and the hymn of Toplady, "Rock of 
 Ages," are chanted by Protestants of every name, un- 
 mindful of the differing points of doctrine that animated 
 a warm controversy between these two holy men. 
 Toplady was an Evangelical minister of the Church of 
 England, of Calvinistic tendencies. The beautiful 
 hymns of the Presbyterian, Isaac Watts, were written 
 about this time. Philip Doddridge, too, wrote his 
 great work entitled "Rise and Progress of Religion in 
 the Soul." 
 
 Near the close of the eighteenth century Robert 
 Raikes, a regular attendant at Gloucester Cathedral, 
 established Sunday-schools. He gathered in the chil- 
 
 * In Walpole's day, says Mr. Green, the English were idle and life- 
 less. In our time no body of religious ministers surpasses them in 
 piety, in philanthropic energy, or in popular regard.
 
 442 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 dren of the poor and neglected. He hired rooms for 
 the schools in 1781, and employed poor women to 
 teach them to read, at a shilling a day. This move- 
 ment was very popular, and in a short time Sunday- 
 schools were connected with all the churches in the 
 large towns. Raikes was a man of liberal education 
 and an earnest worker. 
 
 The labors of Hannah More, by her writings and 
 by personal example, called the attention of the edu- 
 cated classes to the poverty, ignorance and -crime that 
 existed among the agricultural laborers. She journeyed 
 from parish to parish to establish schools for the in- 
 struction of women and girls. She wrote religious 
 tracts, that she might in some degree neutralize the 
 effect of the infidel tracts that were constantly being 
 sent over the channel from France, to be distributed 
 among the masses. It was^ about this time that Clark- 
 son and Wilberforce began a crusade against the slave- 
 trade. And Cowper wrote : 
 
 Slaves can not breathe in England, 
 
 When they touch our shores their shackles fall ; 
 
 Then why abroad ? 
 
 Among the many philanthropists of this time, John 
 Howard stood foremost in his active sympathy for the 
 most wretched of men. The felon in his cell attracted 
 his Christian sympathy. He sought constantly to 
 alleviate calamity in every form. For many years 
 of his life he devoted himself to the cause of gaol 
 and prison reform. He presented a bill to the House 
 of Commons in 1774, containing a mass of information 
 with regard to abuses in prisons. Parliament attended 
 to his petitions, and passed bills for the better manage- 
 ment of prisons, in adopting means for the health and
 
 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 443 
 
 comfort of the prisoners. The House of Commons 
 thanked Howard for his humane zeal. He caused 
 copies of the new improved prison laws, at his own ex- 
 pense, to be sent to every gaoler in the united kingdom. 
 After examining all the principal penal establishments 
 of England, he also visited those of France, Germany, 
 Holland and Belgium. The result of his laborious re- 
 searches was a work of profound interest ' ' on the state 
 of English prisons, and an account of some foreign 
 prisons." 
 
 We will here quote from a speech of Burke, who 
 eloquently sums up the public services of this good 
 and great man. "He has visited all Europe, not 
 to survey the sumptuousness of palaces, or the 
 stateliness of temples ; not to make measurements of 
 the remains of ancient grandeur, nor to form a scale of 
 the curiosity of modern art ; not to collate medals nor 
 to collect manuscripts ; but to dive into the depths of 
 dungeons; to plunge into the infections of hospitals ; 
 to survey the mansions of sorrow ; to take the dimen- 
 sions of misery, depression and contempt ; to remem- 
 ber the forgotten ; to visit the forsaken, and to compare 
 and collate the distresses of men in all countries." 
 
 John Howard was an intelligent, scientific physi- 
 cian, and seems to have taken "the great Physician " 
 as his model and exemplar in ministering to the bodies 
 and souls of men. He died, at the age of sixty-four, 
 from a fever contracted from a hospital patient in 
 Kherson, on the Black Sea. Did Protestants canonize 
 their saints, Howard, the Good, would be entered high 
 upon the lists with those who have lived to bless and 
 serve mankind. Man delights to record the names of 
 the great and good on tablets of brass and marble ; but
 
 /]/|/| ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 these are perishable. The scroll of history perpetuates 
 them from age to age ; but when ' ' time shall be no 
 longer," the names of the saints of the Most High 
 shall be found written in the "Lamb's Book of Life."
 
 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 445 
 
 CHAPTER XLIV. 
 "WHAT SOUGHT THEY THUS AFAR?" 
 
 We must now cast our eyes upon our American 
 shores, and ask what has the Church done here? 
 What is the present state of the Church in our land ? 
 The numerous temples, whose spires point heavenward, 
 from Maine to California, proclaim that we are a reli- 
 gious people. We must go back to the early estab- 
 lishment of Christian Churches throughout this land, 
 but it must needs be a mere outline. Large bodies of 
 Congregationalists, or Independents (as they were 
 called in Cromwell's time), settled in New England in 
 the seventeenth century. Their peculiar feature was a 
 rejection of Episcopacy, of the Book of Common 
 Prayer, and all the ritual of the Church of their 
 mother country. Each congregation was united by a 
 covenant, submitting themselves to a pastor of their 
 own choice, and exercising discipline through certain 
 ruling elders. Their doctrinal views were those of 
 Calvin, but in later days their Calvinism has been much 
 modified. They came to the New World, to the wil- 
 derness, "for freedom to worship God," and to effect 
 a more perfect reformation than had been achieved in 
 their native land. We believe there were many of 
 these whose hearts were governed by strong, personal 
 religion. Of their earnest piety there are abundant 
 records, landmarks deep and broad.
 
 446 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 But the consciences of these men, or of their rulers, 
 seem to have been moulded more in the stern prin- 
 ciples of the law than in the tender love of the gospel. 
 Their self-will in matters religious was great. The 
 lives and writings of their early governors and magis- 
 trates, are full of strong, personal religion. But they 
 had not learned from their own persecutions lessons of 
 toleration. Numerous sectaries soon pressed into the 
 New England colonies. Baptists, Quakers, Church of 
 England men, were all dealt with harshly. Quakers were 
 treated with great severity. Banishment and imprison- 
 ment were the punishments most frequently resorted to. 
 "For the security of the flock we pen up the wolf, 
 but a door is left purposely open, whereby he who in- 
 terferes with our religion may depart at his pleasure." 
 The Puritans were at first too busy to occupy their 
 thoughts with the instruction and conversion of the 
 Indians. About 1634, John Elliot crossed the Atlantic 
 to become the apostle of the Indians. Elliot was a 
 man of primitive piety and zeal ; he had been thor- 
 oughly educated at Camtrridge, and he labored much 
 in mastering the difficulties of the Indian language, of 
 which there are many dialects. For the support of 
 missions to the Indians a large fund had been collected 
 in Cromwell's time. After the Restoration, this fund or 
 trust was directed, through the influence of Clarendon, 
 to the purpose for which it was intended.* 
 
 * NOTE ON UNITARIANISM. Unitarianism has taken deep root, 
 during the last century, in New England, especially in Boston. The 
 creed of Unitarians is not easily denned, as they disavow the right to im- 
 pose creeds. There are, therefore, many shades of faith in the Unitarian 
 body. They all agree in the subordination of the Son to the Father. 
 Arianism, in the early ages of the Church, was so much like Trini- 
 tarianism that it was not always easy to detect the difference. Modern
 
 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 447 
 
 The honorable Robert Boyle, a distinguished 
 philosopher and Christian, was placed at the head of 
 this trust for the improvement of the Indians, the funds 
 of which were mainly expended at this time in print- 
 ing the Bible, and other religious books, of Elliot's 
 translating, in the Indian tongue. His labor and ex- 
 ample were not without fruit. About a century before 
 this time, the venerable and admirable Las Casas, Bishop 
 of the Roman Catholic Church, had labored in the wilds 
 of Central America to Christianize and enlighten the 
 Indian tribes of that region. So we see that when the 
 love of Christ constrains us, Christians of every name 
 will labor in His cause and suffer for His sake. "When 
 Thou hadst overcome the sharpness of death, Thou 
 didst open the kingdom of heaven to all believers." 
 
 At the close of the seventeenth century many well 
 directed efforts were made for the propagation of the 
 gospel among the heathen natives of New England. 
 In the year 1685, the Bishop of London persuaded Dr. 
 Blair to go as his Commissary to Virginia. For fifty- 
 three years he zealously discharged its duties. By him 
 the project of training for the ministry the English and 
 Indian youth was revived, and through his labors 
 brought at last to a successful issue in the establish- 
 ment of the college of "William and Mary."" Had 
 Dr. Blair been made a Bishop instead of a Commissary, 
 
 Unitarianism is more outspoken. Dr. Priestley in the eighteenth cen- 
 tury, and Socinus in the sixteenth, were distinguished teachers of a 
 modified Unitarianism. Dr. Channing exercised much influence over 
 his brethren in withdrawing them from controversial divinity. Dr. 
 Channing was an eloquent sermonizer, and a devout, learned man. 
 Theodore Parker, of Boston, and James Martineau, of England, have 
 been leaders in what is called " A New School of Thought." Uni- 
 tarians have been active in works of benevolence.
 
 44-8 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 how different might have been the history of the 
 Church Episcopal in the eighteenth century ! It is 
 probable that it was during the administration of Dr. 
 Blair that the substantial brick churches were built in 
 Virginia that still endure to attest the care of the 
 mother-church for her colonial children. The writer 
 of these lines has worshiped in a church with the date 
 1706 affixed to the walls. Dr. Bray was sent to Mary- 
 land as commissary soon after Dr. Blair. Dr. Bray 
 was a man of rare devotion. He abandoned "the 
 prospect of large English preferment, to nourish the 
 infant church under many difficulties in the spiritual 
 wastes of Maryland." 
 
 New Amsterdam, or New York, as it was called 
 after its cession to the British, was finally given up to 
 the English at the treaty of Breda, in 1667 The gar- 
 rison chapel was now devoted to the use of the Church 
 of England. "In 1696, another church was built 
 called ' Trinity. ' It was endowed by Gov. Fletcher 
 temporarily, and in perpetuity by his successor Lord 
 Combury. " This then was the beginning of the 
 famous Trinity of New York city, which has been en- 
 abled by her wealth and by God's blessing to plant so 
 many branches from the parent tree. In 1679, a peti- 
 tion from a large body of people in the town of Boston 
 was presented to Charles II., "that a church might be 
 allowed in that city for the exercise of religion, accord- 
 ing to the Church of England, bearing the name of the 
 King's Chapel." It was found that throughout the 
 populous district around Boston, there were but four 
 clergymen who called themselves ministers of the 
 Church of England. This being reported to the 
 Church at home, several of the Bishops set to work to
 
 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 449 
 
 adopt some means to increase the number of mission- 
 aries and excite a zealous missionary spirit. A charter 
 of incorporation was obtained as "The Society for the 
 Propagation of the Gospel," in June, 1701, under the 
 Archbishop of Canterbury as their president. Many 
 great names in the English Church appear in the cata- 
 logue of their first and warmest supporters. Among 
 these names were Beveridge, Wake, and Sharp, Gibson 
 and Berkeley. The last mentioned Bishop, Berkeley, 
 lived after this time in Newport, Rhode Island, two or 
 three years. He came to America with the hope of 
 carrying out a benevolent scheme he had formed 
 of establishing a college in the Bermudas. Not- 
 withstanding the efforts of his friends in England 
 to aid him, they were all thwarted by Sir Robert 
 Walpole, the premier, who was averse to strength- 
 ening the Church, and cared nothing for religion or 
 morals. 
 
 In Trinity Church, Newport, Rhode Island, where 
 Berkeley often preached, is to be seen the organ that he 
 presented to this church after his return to the Old 
 World. Through the influence of Queen Caroline, 
 wife of George II., Berkeley was made Bishop of 
 Cloyne, in Ireland. He gave to Yale College a Library 
 of 880 volumes. Atterbury said of Berkeley: "So 
 much knowledge, so much piety, so much innocence 
 and humility, I should have thought confined to angels, 
 had I never known this gentleman." Berkeley was 
 celebrated as a philosopher. He believed in and taught 
 the strange theory of the non-existence of matter. 
 Berkeley had an implicit trust in revelation, and never 
 dreamed that his theories would be used as weapons of 
 skepticism. Berkeley, until his death in 1763, never
 
 45O ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 ceased to urge his countrymen to the discharge of their 
 duty to the American colonies. 
 
 Bishops Butler, Sherlock and Gibson labored in 
 vain with the court and ministry to send over a Bishop 
 or Bishops to overlook and minister to the plantations 
 in America.* But Walpole's government was dead to 
 all appeals founded upon moral and religious principles. 
 In Virginia, as in England, the Methodist Society had 
 been formed in communion with the Church of Eng- 
 larid. Mr. Asbury, in America, a leader of the Meth- 
 odists, had kept the young exhorters under his charge 
 from assuming the power of ordained men. But after 
 the American Revolution, Wesley, at the age of eighty- 
 two, was persuaded (seeing that the mother-church 
 had not yet sent a Bishop) to set apart Dr. Coke as a 
 Bishop or Superintendent, and gave him authority to 
 ordain Francis Asbury to the same office. Dr. Coke 
 had been educated at Oxford, and was a Presbyter of 
 the Church of England. In company with Asbury he 
 traveled from one end of this country to the other, 
 preaching and administering the sacraments. They 
 then began to lay the foundations of the goodly struct- 
 ure which now occupies so large a place and portion in 
 our land. 
 
 The first Wesleyan Conference was held in England 
 in 1744. In this Conference, as in all subsequent Con- 
 ferences, Wesley urged the importance of adhering to 
 the established Church. Besides the two Wesleys, 
 there were present f four ordained ministers of the 
 Church of England and four lay preachers. He would 
 say to his hearers : " Look all around you ; you can not 
 unite with the Presbyterians, Baptists, Quakers, or any 
 
 * Wilberforce. t At this first Conference.
 
 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 451 
 
 others, unless you hold the same opinions with them ; 
 but the Methodists do not insist upon this or tliat opin- 
 ion they think and let think. This liberty of con- 
 science is our glorying, and a glorying peculiar to us." 
 Wesley, however, must have yielded at the last his 
 opinion with regard to the necessity of ordination by a 
 Bishop, or he would not as a Presbyter have assumed 
 the power of ordination. He was doubtless betrayed 
 into this irregularity by an ardent love for the souls of 
 men, believing that with the name and authority of 
 Bishop, an officer known from the earliest ages of the 
 Church, more good could be effected. He was doubt- 
 less disgusted with the slowness and want of earnest 
 zeal in the establishment, which delayed so long in 
 sending an officer so necessary for godly discipline in 
 the Episcopal Church. 
 
 Bishop Meade says, in speaking of the Episcopal 
 Church of Virginia: '.'The authority of a Commis- 
 sary was a very insufficient substitute for the super- 
 intendence of a faithful Bishop. For nearly two cen- 
 turies did the Episcopal Church in Virginia try the ex- 
 periment of a system whose constitution required such a 
 head, but was actually without it. No such officer was 
 there to watch over the conduct and punish the vices 
 of the clergy." The Bishop of London was, of neces- 
 sity, only the nominal bishop. It is evident that the 
 Episcopal Church, without such an officer, is more 
 likely to suffer than any other Christian Society, be- 
 cause our own church makes this office indispensable 
 to some important parts of ecclesiastical government 
 and discipline. 
 
 The Episcopal Church in Virginia commenced with 
 the first settlement of the first colony. The code of
 
 45 2 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 laws of that colony was drawn up at a time when re- 
 ligion, as Bishop Taylor expresses it, ' ' was painted upon 
 banners divine, moral and martial" the laws being 
 enforced sometimes in that day by civil pains and pen- 
 alties, which we would fain forget. Oppression and 
 arbitrary rule in this colony (we mean in its first his- 
 tory) is connected alone with one name, that of Argall, 
 who in 1616 became governor for three years. He 
 was removed by the Captain General Yeardley, and the 
 wrongs of the colonists redressed. 
 
 So long as the heroic Smith remained with the 
 colony, the hostilities of the Indians were restrained, 
 and the injudicious acts of some members of the Coun- 
 cil overruled. One of the first acts of Smith arid his 
 associates, after landing at Jamestown, was the erection 
 of a rude church, made by fastening poles in the 
 ground, with the sails of their vessels as a roof. Their 
 first church, built of logs, was destroyed by fire ; but as 
 an evidence of their religious zeal, they soon erected 
 another. A very erroneous idea of the first settlers at 
 Jamestown, Virginia, has been adopted by some. We 
 would not detract an iota from the pious faith that 
 governed the Pilgrims of Plymouth in 1620; but if 
 there is any truth in history, the little band that landed 
 in Virginia in 1607 contained a large proportion of pious, 
 noble souls. It was declared by some of them that 
 their chief motive in crossing the sea was to instruct 
 and convert the Indians. See the pious exercises of 
 Rolfe, as related by Bancroft. In all the trials of 
 Smith, in contending with the treachery and hostility 
 of the Indians, he was supported by the zealous aid of 
 the Rev. Mr. Hunt. There were three earnest min- 
 isters of Christ among the earliest settlers at James-
 
 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 453 
 
 town Mr. Hunt, Mr. Bucke, who came over with 
 Lord Delaware, and Mr. Whitaker. The name of 
 Whitaker is connected with the romantic story of the 
 first Indian convert, Pochahontas, whom he baptized 
 into the Church of Christ. 
 
 "It was the great happiness of Virginia," says 
 Wilberforce, in his History of the Church in Virginia, 
 "that the company who managed her affairs looked far 
 beyond commercial profit." The first care of Mr. Ed- 
 ward Sandys and Sir Nicholas Ferrar was to provide 
 for a settled population by promoting female emigra- 
 tion and colonial marriages. They founded very early 
 a college for both English and Indian youth. They set 
 apart ten thousand acres of land for the support of this 
 college." But though thus happy in the character of 
 some of her early settlers, and especially in her early 
 clergy, it must not be supposed that the infant church 
 flourished, without many drawbacks and discourage- 
 ments. That there was much sincere piety among those 
 who incorporated the forms of the Episcopal Church 
 in the colony of Virginia, I doubt not, says Bishop 
 Meade, nor do I question the piety and fidelity of some 
 of the pastors and people during their whole subse- 
 quent history; but it must be acknowledged that her 
 spiritual condition was specially defective during a large 
 part of the eighteenth century. Not more than one- 
 half of the congregations were supplied with ministers, 
 the rest of them being served by lay readers. There 
 was at this time very defective preaching, and some of 
 the clergy were addicted to all the fashionable vices of 
 the day. 
 
 In the Church of Virginia there were few who 
 made soul-stirring appeals to men "to flee from the
 
 454 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 wrath to come." The devoted. Mr. Jarrett, and a few 
 others, were faithful watchmen upon "the towers of 
 Zion." 
 
 The war of the Revolution was approaching, and 
 with it the partial eclipse of the light that had shone so 
 brightly during the seventeenth century. The attach- 
 ment of some of the clergy to the cause of the king 
 subjected the Episcopal Church to suspicion, yet the 
 great commander of the American armies was her de- 
 voted friend. The dispute about* church property 
 came on ; she was deprived of all the glebe lands that 
 had been bestowed upon her by the mother-church of 
 England. Many of her church buildings, erected in 
 the early times, were occupied by the Baptists and 
 other sects. The chief cause of the evils that came 
 upon the Episcopal Church must have been the un- 
 faithfulness of her clergy. 
 
 When the War of the Revolution began in 1775, 
 Virginia had ninety-one clergymen officiating in one 
 hundred and sixty-four churches and chapels ; at its 
 dose, it is stated, that only twenty-eight ministers were 
 found laboring in the best parishes of the State. The 
 flame of devotion was kept burning in many excellent 
 families by attention to the services of prayer in the 
 prayer-book, by teaching the children regularly the 
 catechism, and requiring them to commit to memory 
 portions of scripture. Also, the morning and evening 
 hymns of Bishop Ken, of Cowper and Wesley. 
 
 The morning service, when there was no public 
 worship in the neighborhood, was read on Sunday in 
 many households. Such families were effective auxil- 
 liaries in the resuscitation of the Church.
 
 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 455 
 
 How often, says Bishop Meade, in looking at the 
 present (1855) comparative prosperity of our Church, 
 do we say, "Surely our Lord must have loved this 
 branch of the holy Catholic Church, or he would not 
 have borne so long with her unfaithfulness, or so 
 readily have forgiven her sins."
 
 456 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 CHAPTER XLV. 
 
 CONSECRATION OF BISHOPS OF THE P. E. CHURCH FOR THE 
 UNITED STATES. 
 
 ' ' Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord, or 
 who shall stand in his holy place? He that hath clean 
 hands and a pure heart ; who hath not lifted up his soul 
 to vanity, nor sworn deceitfully. " We come now to the 
 successful efforts of the faithful in strengthening the 
 things that seemed ready to perish. The Episcopal 
 churches in America had felt, in consequence of their 
 imperfect organization, that their beloved Church, 
 "little by little, was drooping into decay." Candi- 
 dates for orders were compelled to cross the sea for or- 
 dination, in order to obtain the episcopate. 
 
 Connecticut, New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia, 
 now resolved to make an effort to obtain consecration 
 for a Bishop from abroad. Dr. Griffith, a Presbyter of 
 the church in Alexandria, Va., was selected for that 
 diocese ; but so depressed was the pecuniary condition 
 of the friends of the Church in that vicinity (it was 
 directly after the war), that suitable arrangements for 
 his departure were not made until two years after his 
 election. Meanwhile delicate health had supervened. 
 Samuel Seabury, of Connecticut, who had suffered per- 
 secution in his own State for his devotion to Episco- 
 pacy, determined to cross the sea to obtain that which 
 he and the whole Church, scattered and disjointed, as 
 it was, so ardently coveted. Seabury received from
 
 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 457 
 
 three Scotch bishops Petrie, Skinner and Kilgour 
 "a free, valid and purely ecclesiastical Episcopacy." 
 His consecration took place in Aberdeen, 1784. 
 
 In 1787, Wm. White was consecrated Bishop of 
 Pennsylvania, and Samuel Provoost, Bishop of New 
 York, by the Archbishop of Canterbury, at Lambeth 
 Palace. Dr. Madison, of Virginia, received consecra- 
 tion from the same prelate, at Lambeth, in 1790. 
 Madison entered upon his duties with zeal. He admits 
 that the depressed state of his church was chiefly due 
 to the want of zeal in her clergy. Bishop Madison 
 made an effort to bring back the followers of Wesley. 
 It was too late. They had severed the tie. 
 
 After a few visitations of Bishop Madison through 
 his diocese, he seemed to become discouraged with the 
 languor of church affairs. The duties of the College of 
 William and Mary, of which he was now President, 
 absorbed much of his attention. At the Convention 
 which met in 1805 he called for a suffragan or assistant 
 Bishop. This call received no attention, and no con- 
 vention met again until after Bishop Madison's 'death 
 in 1812. During this interval, however, a young man 
 was ordained to the Diaconate by Bishop Madison, 
 who was called the Apostle of Virginia, and certainly 
 won this title by his great ability, devotion and energy 
 in the cause of Christ and his Church. 
 
 But Mr. Meade, the young man to whom I have 
 alluded, may speak for himself, as I have near me a 
 volume in which he recounts some of his early labors 
 and struggles to resuscitate the Church of his fathers. 
 ' ' My earliest recollections of the Church are derived 
 from my attendance at a stone chapel in Frederick 
 county (then the backwoods of Virginia), whither I
 
 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 went either behind my father on horseback, or with my 
 mother and the children in an English chariot. My 
 father had lost, during the war of the Revolution, 
 nearly all his property. In this war he had served as 
 aid to General^ Washington. At the close of the war 
 my father removed to the fertile and beautiful valley of 
 Frederick, lying between the Blue Ridge and Allegheny 
 Mountains. My father had taken an active part in the 
 erection of this house of God.* It was about seven 
 miles from our home. The clergyman was Mr. Bal- 
 maine. He had been a chaplain in the United States 
 Army. He was very attentive to his clerical duties, 
 and preached alternately at Winchester, where he lived, 
 and in the chapel. The churches were about ten miles 
 apart. When there was no service at the chapel, my 
 father read the prayers at home in the assembled fam- 
 ily ; also a sermon. When a death occurred among 
 the servants, he performed the burial service himself, 
 and read Blair's Sermon on Death the following Sun- 
 day. ' ' It was in the stone chapel that I officiated during 
 the first twenty-five years of my ministry. At the age 
 of seventeen I was sent to Princeton College, where, 
 of course, I had no opportunities of acquiring- any 
 further knowledge of my own Church at that time, as 
 there was then no Episcopal church at Princeton. " He 
 had been receiving, during his sojourn at Princeton, 
 admirable letters from his mother and his elder sister, 
 Mrs. Page, encouraging him to enter the ministry of 
 the Episcopal Church, as they discovered from his let- 
 ters the serious turn of his mind. 
 
 Before he left Princeton, when but nineteen years 
 of age, the first honors were awarded to him, shared 
 
 *The stone chapel.
 
 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 459 
 
 by two others, in a class of forty. While at college 
 he says, "I had only one or two religious associates, 
 and but few helps to advancement in the divine life. I 
 took pleasure, however, in reading a few pious books, 
 and was engaged in a warfare with my body. " He 
 speaks of some of the books that enlightened his mind 
 at this time. These were the sermons and lectures of 
 Bishop Porteus, Wilberforce's Practical View, and the 
 works of Mrs. Hannah More. He thinks these books 
 were largely instrumental in producing evangelical 
 views among the influential families in Virginia. The 
 books most in use before this time, at least among Mr. 
 Meade's friends, were Blair's Sermons, The Whole 
 Duty of Man, Sterne's Works, The Spectator, and some- 
 times Tillotson's Sermons, which were of the highest 
 grade then in use. Of course we mean the religious 
 works that were in popular use. 
 
 This was a very literary age, and some of the pro- 
 fessors at Williamsburg were men of great erudition. 
 But the pulpit needed much reform, for the sermons, 
 for a long time, had been almost entirely moral essays, 
 with the exception of the holy Mr. Jarrat's teaching, 
 and a few others. 
 
 In February, 1811, Mr. Meade proceeded to Wil- 
 liamsburg, a distance of-2OO miles, performing the jour- 
 ney on horseback. He went thither to receive ordina- 
 tion from Bishop Madison. He describes the church 
 building at Williamsburg as in a desolate condition. 
 
 Bishop Madison was the President of William and 
 Mary at this time. Though regarded as a pious and 
 learned man, he seems to have been more engaged with 
 the philosophical and literary studies of the professor's 
 chair than with the sacred duties of the bishopric.
 
 460 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 This institution at Williamsburg, of which we have 
 spoken, was the Alma Mater of Jefferson, Madison, and 
 many other noble sons, some of whom were very dear 
 to the writer of these lines. Mr. Meade, after receiv- 
 ing his ordination to the Diaconate, proceeded to Rich- 
 mond. He was much discouraged at the condition of 
 the church buildings, as well as the low state of piety 
 that ,he witnessed in both these cities. Less than a 
 year after Mr. Meade's visit to Richmond, a large 
 church was erected in Richmond called the Monu- 
 mental Church, so called because it was built on the 
 site of a theatre burned in December, 1811. It was 
 considered as a monument to the loved and lost, as 
 well as a temple for the worship of God. Mr. Meade 
 commenced his ministry in the "stone chapel" in 
 Frederick, but in a few months he took charge of 
 Christ Church in Alexandria. He made salutary 
 changes in the habits of the church people of Alexandria. 
 Members of Congress came over from 'Washington to 
 hear the young gifted preacher. Among these were 
 John Randolph and James Milnor. 
 
 Mr. M. was a distinguished lawyer from Philadel- 
 phia. His connection with Meade began at a time 
 when his religious character and new purposes of life 
 were receiving their direction. He had now the privi- 
 lege of such spiritual teaching as was rare in these 
 days. How largely Mr. Milnor was indebted to this 
 association with Mr. Meade, for those clear views 
 which determined him to relinquish a profession which 
 had secured to him honor and wealth, and to devote 
 the rest of his life to the ministry of the gospel, is one 
 of those disclosures reserved for the last day. Mr. 
 Meade's pen, too, was often employed in preparing
 
 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 461 
 
 manuals of instruction for the young and prayers 
 for families. His influence was so practical that 
 "Family Prayer" became the general rule in congre- 
 gations where he ministered. 
 
 In the spring of 1812 Bishop Madison died. The 
 first voice that was raised to rouse and rally the supine 
 members of the Church was that of the young Deacon 
 that ministered in Alexandria. He, in conjunction with 
 the Rev. W. H. Wilmer, wrote to the Rev. Dr. Buchanan, 
 of Richmond, requesting him to call a Convention in 
 May. Mr. Wilmer had come to Alexandria as pastor 
 of St. Paul's Church. 
 
 When Mr. Meade was ordained to the priesthood, 
 the ordaining was performed by Bishop Clagget, of 
 Maryland, in Alexandria. The ordination sermon was 
 preached by Mr. Wilmer. At the Convention in 1812 
 a professor in William and Mary College was nominated 
 to the Episcopate. He received the majority of votes 
 of the clergy, but the lay delegates, together with Mr. 
 Wilmer, refused to vote, on some technical ground. 
 Mr. Meade, with his accustomed moral courage, said 
 with much pain that his refusal to vote was not from 
 anything connected with the proceedings, but from an 
 honest conviction of the unworthiness of the Bishop- 
 elect. The professor, however, who had been elected, 
 feeling perhaps his own unfitness for so responsible and 
 so holy an office, sent in, soon after his appointment, 
 his resignation, which was accepted. The honest con- 
 scientiousness of Mr. Meade and others, in their re- 
 fusal to vote for Dr. Bracken, and his consequent resig- 
 nation, opened the way for the entrance of the honored 
 and beloved Richard Channing Moore. He came to 
 Virginia from the diocese of New York. " He soon,"
 
 462 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 says Mr. Meade, ' ' became as one of us, and the people 
 and clergy of Virginia loved him more and more unto 
 his life's end." 
 
 In 1814, Dr. Moore was declared to be duly elected 
 to the Episcopate of the Diocese of Virginia. With 
 Mr. Moore's consecration, hope sprung in the hearts 
 of many who had been hitherto despairing. The 
 efforts of Bishop Moore were unremitting to build up 
 " the waste places " of the Diocese committed to his care. 
 He had many qualifications for the work of revival. 
 His imposing, venerable presence,* his melodious voice, 
 his fervid, eloquent preaching, his evangelical doctrine, 
 his peace-loving temper, and above all, his warm love 
 and zeal for the cause of the Master, and for the inter- 
 ests of his Church, contributed to make this servant of 
 God eminently successful. 
 
 The Church greatly, revived and increased under his 
 ministrations. He exerted a hallowed influence over 
 his clerical and lay associates. His parochial engage- 
 ments with the Monumental Church in Richmond pre- 
 vented him from crossing the Allegheny Mountains or 
 visiting the more remote parts of the State.f He 
 visited North Carolina when it was without a Bishop, 
 after the death of Bishop Ravenscroft, in 1830. A 
 large number of able, devoted men were now found 
 among the clergy of Virginia. 
 
 *The life-like portraits of Bishop Moore attest his unusual personal 
 advantages. The writer of these lines had in her youth the privilege of 
 studying her Bible lessons with the daughters of Bishop M. in his well- 
 furnished library. 
 
 tThis section of the State, now separated and called West Virginia, 
 has happily a diocese of her own. Under the^ energetic and zealous 
 iffmts of her present Bishop, the Rt. Rev. G. W. Peterkin, the 
 Church, with the blessing of God, will be greatly strengthened and 
 extended.
 
 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 463 
 
 The Theological Seminary at Alexandria prospered. 
 Dr. Keith, Dr. Wilmer and Mr. Norris, noble sons of 
 learning and piety, were among her Professors. Mr. 
 Meade was justly regarded as the father of the semi- 
 nary at Alexandria. Though, as we have said, Bishop 
 Moore was unable, from engagements and increasing 
 infirmities, to visit West Virginia, yet he sent some 
 excellent clergymen to that portion of the diocese at 
 an early day. 
 
 We must now return to Mr. Meade, who was the 
 assistant Bishop of Richard Channing Moore for the 
 last twelve years of his life. After the erection of a 
 church at Milwood, Clarke county, the stone chapel 
 (of which we have spoken) was appropriated to the 
 colored people. This example of providing church 
 buildings for the slaves was followed in different parts 
 of the State. Mr. Meade, many years before his 
 death, liberated several families of his slaves and sent 
 them to Pennsylvania. He was an active member of 
 the Colonization Society. 
 
 Bishop Meade's sister, Mrs. Anne R. Page, of 
 Clarke county, Va. , was, it is believed, the first person 
 in her native State who agitated the question of pre- 
 paring slaves for freedom by suitable education. This 
 lady devoted the best years of her life to the. instruc- 
 tion of her own slaves. She afterwards sent them, fully 
 provided with necessaries, to Liberia. An interesting 
 memoir of this servant of God was written and pub- 
 lished many years ago by the Rev. C. W. Andrews. 
 " In a future world," says Gurley, in his Lifje of Ash- 
 man, when speaking of Mrs. Page and Mrs. Custis, 
 "it may stand revealed that from the sacred retirement 
 of a few devout ladies in Virginia, who, at the Savior's
 
 464 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 * 
 
 feet, had learned better lessons than this world can 
 teach, emanated a zeal and charity in behalf of the 
 colored race, which has widely spread, and has inspired 
 ministers and statesmen with eloquence in their 
 cause." 
 
 In 1829, Mr. Meade was made assistant Bishop of 
 Virginia. On the death of the Rev. Channing Moore, 
 in 1841, the assistant was made Bishop of Virginia, and 
 in 1842, John Johns, of Maryland, was made assistant 
 Bishop. Bishop Meade was engaged for thirteen years, 
 during eight months in each year, in traveling over the 
 State on horseback or in an open carriage. In after 
 years, routes for traveling were easier, and the labor 
 devolving upon the Bishop was performed in a shorter 
 period. 
 
 The writer of these lines often heard the statement 
 that Mr. Meade never received any compensation as 
 Bishop for his varied and arduous services until Bishop 
 Johns was associated with him. Then a change of 
 circumstances occurred. We can appeal to his own 
 written statement on this subject : " During the twenty- 
 five years that I officiated in my parish in Frederick 
 county, Va. (now Clarke), my salary did not exceed 
 $250 or $300. I have been blamed for this ; but in 
 justice to my parish I must say that while I did not 
 press my own claims, having a farm that yielded a 
 sufficient support, I distinctly told my congregation of 
 about thirty families that I should expect them to do 
 more for other objects. According to my desire, my 
 people for twenty-five years (at the end of which I gave 
 up the charge) have annually sent out of the parish 
 $1,000 for charitable purposes." This was a noble ex- 
 ample of disinterested beneficence.
 
 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 465 
 
 Mr. Meade was almost an ascetic in his way of 
 living. He discouraged ostentation and luxury in every 
 form. He lived in a refined, cultivated, hospitable 
 neighborhood, but his household and belongings were 
 marked by severe simplicity. His sermons on self- 
 denial were very effective, because ' ' he practiced what 
 he preached." 
 
 We will close this long article on the Church in 
 Virginia by quoting a few lines from Bishop Meade's 
 writing in regard to his churchmanship : "I have fre- 
 quently read over the arguments in favor of Episco- 
 pacy and concurred with entire satisfaction in the 
 words of our consecration service. To those reading 
 the Scriptures and the Holy Fathers, it evidently ap- 
 pears that from the Apostles' time there have been 
 three orders of ministers. More than this our Church 
 requires not even her Bishops to believe,* and he who 
 would demand more may be conscientious, may be 
 scriptural, but he has gone beyond the Church ; he has 
 departed from the spirit of the Episropal Church of 
 England or America. Whether God did positively or- 
 dain this form of church government as essential to the 
 existence of a Church, what deviations from it would 
 render ordination invalid, are points about which the 
 most wise and learned and devoted Bishops have dif- 
 fered. I would that all embraced what I believe to 
 
 * Reply to a letter in Johns' Memoir of Meade. 
 
 NOTE. Though the writer of these sketches has chiefly spoken of 
 the Bishops of the P. E. Church, her heart turns with deep interest to 
 noble Presbyters who have borne the burden and heat of the day. In 
 memoriam is deeply engraven. May we mention C. W. Andrews, J. 
 P. McGuire, James Chisholm, Dr. Sparrow but their name is legion. 
 Not only to these known, loved, honored, of our communion, but to all 
 the true and faithful, though called by other names.
 
 466 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 have been the Apostolic form. With none other would 
 I be satisfied myself; but I dare not say God hath ever 
 in this point rejected those whom he hath accepted and 
 so highly blessed in others. I have the consolation of 
 knowing that I herein agree with a noble company of 
 Bishops and other ministers, whose labors in the gos- 
 pel, and whose zealous attachment to the Church, I fol- 
 low at a distance." 
 
 As an evidence of the enthusiasm of Bishop 
 Meade's character, he states that when he read a work 
 of Soame Jenyns on the "Atonement," he was so 
 penetrated with the truth that Christ was indeed the 
 sacrifice for the sins of the world, that he rose from 
 his bed several times during the perusal, that he might 
 praise God for enabling the author to testify so clearly 
 and powerfully to so important a truth the corner- 
 stone of the Christian system.* 
 
 * Before we leave the subject of "the Bishops of Virginia," of 
 whom perhaps strangers might say we have already said too much, we 
 must testify to the matchless lightning-like eloquence of Bishop Johns. 
 It electrified his hearers.
 
 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 467 
 
 CHAPTER LXVI. 
 
 HOBART, GRISWOLD, EASTBURN, CHASE. 
 
 Bishop Hobart was the great energizing spirit that 
 infused life and activity into the Episcopal Church in 
 the State of New York. He was the head of the 
 High Church party, but full of zeal for his Master's 
 service. Bishop Hobart was specially active in founding 
 a theological seminary in New York City.| The result ot 
 his efforts is the General Theological Seminary. 
 About the same time that Dr. Hobart was made bishop 
 of New York, Alexander Viets Griswold was made 
 bishop of what was then called the Eastern diocese, 
 consisting of the States of Massachusetts, Rhode 
 Island, New Hampshire and Vermont. They* were 
 consecrated by Bishop White, of Pennsylvania, assisted 
 by the bishops of New York and Connecticut. Mr. 
 Griswold had labored as deacon and presbyter in three 
 parishes in Massachusetts. Besides his clerical labors, 
 in order to eke out a support for a large family, he was' 
 compelled to devote portions of his time to teaching 
 and farming. "No ten years of my life," he said, 
 "have been happier than the time passed in those 
 three parishes." 
 
 In 1836 Griswold became the presiding bishop. 
 The last act of Mr. Griswold was the consecration of 
 Mr. Eastburn. Mr. Griswold was what is termed a 
 
 * Hobart and Griswold.
 
 468 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 moderate churchman. He wrote * some valuable ser- 
 mons. Bishop Griswold was the father-in-law of the 
 distinguished Dr. Stephen Tyng, and the grandfather 
 of Rev. Dudley A. Tyng and Stephen Tyng, Jun., so 
 conspicuous for religious zeal and ability. 
 
 Philander Chase was the pioneer bishop of the 
 West. He was a native of New Hampshire, and a 
 Congregationalist in his religious views. After exam- 
 ining a prayer-book with great care, he was led to the 
 conviction that he ought to enter the ministry of ' ' the 
 Church of the Book." He was ordained in St. George's 
 Church, New York, in May, 1798. For some years 
 he devoted himself to missionary labors in Western 
 New York. He afterwards went South for his wife's 
 health. While there he organized a church in New 
 Orleans. 
 
 Mr. Chase came to Ohio in 1817. A diocese hav- 
 ing been formed in Ohio, he was elected its bishop, 
 and was consecrated in St. James' Church, Philadel- 
 phia, February 11, 1819. He now formed a design of 
 founding a college and theological seminary in Ohio. 
 With energetic perseverance he carried out his plan, 
 though through much opposition and difficulty. He 
 Went to England in 1823, where he collected $30,000. 
 He purchased 8,000 acres, giving he names of this 
 benefactors, Lord Kenyon to the college, and Gambier 
 to the site on which a village is built. Some troubles 
 arising between the bishop and his clergy some differ- 
 ence of opinion as to the disposition of funds he re- 
 signed his jurisdiction in Ohio as bishop, and his ad- 
 ministration of the affairs of the university in 1831. 
 The General Convention gave their assent to this step. 
 
 * Published.
 
 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 469 
 
 He was elected bishop of Illinois in 1835. Again he 
 went to England in behalf of the education of the 
 West, and collected money enough to enable him to 
 found another institution of learning, which he called , 
 Jubilee College, in Peoria county, 111. This college 
 was opened in 1847. Bishop Chase spent the remain- 
 der of his life in Illinois. 
 
 As we have merely intended, in these Annals, to 
 sketch the outlines of work and character of those 
 bishops who laid the foundations of our church broadly 
 and deeply in our beloved country, our task is almost 
 done. We well remember the consecration of a bishop 
 for Louisiana in 1838. It took place in Cincinnati. 
 The service had commenced when we entered. The 
 sweet and singularly sonorous voice of Meade, and the 
 earnest impressive tones of Bishop Smith were heard 
 above the rest. The refined and still youthful form of 
 Leonidas Polk was the very symbol of purity. Bishop 
 Mcllvaine grandly preached the consecration sermon. 
 The bishop-elect had been one of his converts, when 
 Mcllvaine was chaplain at West Point. We remem- 
 ber he said, ' ' The church delights to call her servants 
 from the most humble positions to fill the highest 
 places in her gift." He said this in relation to the 
 post Mr. Polk occupied when elected to the Episcopate. 
 Mr. Polk was a young man of large wealth. After be- 
 ing in the ministry for a few years he went to Europe. 
 On his return, finding himself without a parish, he 
 went to Tennessee, his native State, where he had a 
 large church erected * for the especial use of the colored 
 people. He was the pastor of a congregation of 
 negroes when called to take a bishop's place. The 
 
 * At his own expense.
 
 47 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 sequel to his history is very sad. When the civil war 
 commenced, as he had had a military education, he 
 believed it to be his duty to lay aside his sacred robes 
 - and take up the sword. Fatal mistake ! He soon 
 perished, and his beautiful life was quenched in blood. 
 
 We can not dismiss this subject of the early bishops 
 without speaking of Bishop Payne, who devoted the 
 best years of his life to the most uninteresting of all 
 mission fields, at least in a worldly point of view, the 
 western shore of Africa. But in another aspect, ex- 
 clusive of the claim that all souls have upon the Chris- 
 tian heart, the long service of her children in this 
 country, ought to invoke a peculiar and strong interest. 
 We make our extracts, with regard to Mr. Payne, from 
 a letter written by himself to an old college friend, in 
 1874, a short period before his death, from his old 
 home in Westmoreland county, Va. 
 
 "As we have never met," says Mr. Payne, to his 
 correspondent, " since our separation at college, forty- 
 one years ago, I will briefly relate my subsequent his- 
 tory. Leaving Williamsburg in 1833, thinking myself 
 called to the ministry, I entered the theological semi- 
 nary nearly Alexandria. After three years' residence 
 there I was ordained. Believing that as a good soldier 
 I should go where my services were most needed, I 
 sought what I believed to be the most needy portion of 
 the missionary field. In the spring of 1837 I sailed for 
 Cape Palmas latitude 4 north in West Africa. I ex- 
 pected to live there about ten years. I remained thirty- 
 three ! After being in Africa fifteen years I was elected by 
 the General Convention missionary bishop of Cape Pal- 
 mas and the parts adjacent. Beginning at Cape Palmas 
 with eight communicants, I, with other missionaries,
 
 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 471 
 
 gathered six hundred. I ordained about a dozen col- 
 ored ministers. In 1869, my health so entirely failed 
 that I returned to the United States, and in 1871 re- 
 signed my position. I am now living in my native 
 county, Westmoreland, having in it Wakefield, the 
 birthplace of the Father of his country. The parish 
 Washington being vacant, I was invited to take charge 
 of it. My wife, her sister, a nephew and niece consti- 
 tute my family. I have a comfortable home in the 
 upper part of this county. I have named my home 
 'Cavalla,' after the home in which I passed thirty 
 happy years in Africa. Will you believe it?" Oct. 
 19, 1874. 
 
 One more little incident with regard to Bishop John 
 Payne. He was frequently invited to preach after his 
 return to his native county. On one occasion, when 
 he was preaching at Yeocomico church, a gentleman, 
 advanced in years, approached the chancel to par- 
 take of the Lord's Supper for the first time. This* 
 gentleman was a man of exemplary Christian morals, 
 and had much influence in his neighborhood. He had 
 resisted until now the most eloquent appeals to partake 
 of the Lord's Supper. The congregation were stilled 
 by deep emotion when this beloved, honored man, so 
 long known by them all, approached the chancel. This 
 earnest old man from Africa could now add another 
 leaf to the chaplet of immortelles he had gathered in 
 the far-off land. There are many honored names in 
 the episcopate, and also among our presbyters (some 
 noble presbyters of blessed memory) that our limits 
 will not permit us to mention, north and south, east 
 and west. We have heard sermons from Presbyterians, 
 
 * Hon. Willoughby Newton, of Westmoreland county.
 
 4/2 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 Methodists and Baptists that made our hearts to glow 
 with thankfulness that God had raised up such wit- 
 nesses to his truth. 
 
 We remember laymen of different ecclesiastical 
 names who did much to recommend religion by their 
 excellent conduct to all around them. Especially does 
 memory dwell* on one beloved and exemplary lay- 
 man,! who, for a series of years kept alive the 
 flame of devotion among his neighbors (when no 
 clergyman was at hand) by reading to them, in a "for- 
 est sanctuary," the prayers of the church and very 
 admirable sermons. The missionary bishops of the 
 Northwest have our most cordial sympathy. At the 
 close of the civil war, the conciliation of Bishop Hop- 
 kins, of Vermont, must not be forgotten. He wrote 
 brotherly Christian letters to Bishop Atkinson and 
 other Southern Bishops. So potent is Christian love, 
 that not a scar remains of the wounds made by differ- 
 ing political or sectional sentiment. Differing religious 
 opinions, however, have presented some phases more 
 difficult to treat. 
 
 About the year 1833, there was a movement at Ox- 
 ford, England, called the Tractarian movement. Drs. 
 Pusey and Newman, and others well known in England, 
 began to publish a series of tracts connected with the 
 faith and practice of the Church. These tractarians 
 labored in their writings to bring the Church, as they 
 said, more in accordance with the usages of the primi- 
 tive ages of the Christian Church. The leaders of this 
 movement lost their positions in the University of Ox- 
 
 * Memorict prodere. 
 
 *Col. Edward Colston, of Berkeley county, in the Valley of Vir- 
 ginia.
 
 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 473 
 
 ford. Dr. Pusey continues in the communion of the 
 English Church, but Newman, Manning and many 
 others entered the Church of Rome. The Ritualistic 
 movement, both in England and America, is the result 
 of "Tractarianism." The Ritualists allege that they 
 wish only to give impressiveness and beauty to the 
 service by the introduction of more music and richer 
 dresses. But it is believed that they symbolize in some 
 of their innovations doctrines that are opposed to the 
 standards of Protestantism and of the Episcopal 
 Church. Some of the Ritualists believe that our pres- 
 byters are real priests, in the Jewish and Roman Cath- 
 olic sense, and that when they offer the consecrated 
 bread and wine, they offer real sacrifice. This view 
 seems to Protestants to contradict our reason and com- 
 mon sense, as well as the plain, clear words of Script- 
 ure. The literal words of our Lord, but still more, 
 the voice of priestly authority, induced many faithfnl 
 souls to receive this view ; yet all down the ages there 
 have been voices lifted up in revolt against it. The 
 delicate lines of distinction drawn by the Ritualists, 
 between their views and the Romanists' view, are not 
 easily grasped.
 
 474 
 
 CHAPTER XLVII. 
 
 An adverse circumstance in the history of the Epis- 
 copal Church is to be found in the defection of Bishop 
 Cummins. He was the assistant bishop in the diocese 
 of Kentucky. Mr. Cummins was a preacher of re- 
 markable eloquence, of pure morals and holy conduct. 
 He became dissatisfied with some expressions in the 
 prayer-book, connected with the baptismal service. 
 Mr. Cummins became a schismatic and founded an- 
 other church, which he called the Reformed Episcopal. 
 This church retains the Book of Common Prayer, with 
 few alterations. 
 
 Dr. Muhlenburg once proposed, we believe, to our 
 General Convention to permit some alternating words 
 in the baptismal service. Had the suggestions of this 
 godly, liberal man been heeded, this schism perhaps 
 might have been avoided. No church is infallible. 
 There have been transient divisions in this country in 
 nearly all the Protestant bodies. The Presbyterians, 
 who, by their uncompromising principles for what they 
 deem right, and by their pulpit ability, have drawn so 
 many of the most intelligent classes into their churches, 
 especially in Kentucky, separated forty years ago into 
 what was called Old and New School. These differ- 
 ences were doctrinal. The breach is now healed and 
 they commune together. The Methodists, too, have 
 had their divisions. During the civil war they were 
 divided into Northern and Southern Methodists. Their 
 differences were political or sectional. The Methodists,
 
 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. ' 475 
 
 through their zeal and wise church government, are 
 very numerous. The writer of these lines remembers 
 the thrilling eloquence of some of their preachers in 
 the early days. The Baptists are very numerous ; 
 they include a large number of differing sects, but all 
 agreeing in one point in the mode of baptism and in 
 the exclusion of infants as subjects of baptism. The 
 sect of Baptists (called Christians) who embrace the 
 tenets of the late Alexander Campbell, are very numer- 
 ous in the West, particularly in the State of Kentucky. 
 Some very distinguished men have been connected with 
 this communion. 
 
 In 1792, when Kentucky separated from Virginia, 
 there were some Episcopalians among her emigrants ; 
 but these " few sheep in the wilderness" had no pastor 
 to gather them into their once loved fold. Marshall 
 says in his History of Kentucky, in speaking of the 
 Episcopal Church : "This church requires an educated 
 ministry. Her form of worship is highly decorous, 
 and her discipline calculated to make good citizens." 
 This is but a cold commentary on a liturgy bought by 
 the blood of the martyrs. 
 
 1798 Mr. Moore was admitted to Holy Orders by 
 Bishop Madison. He ministered to a congregation in 
 Lexington, Ky. , and was made President of Transyl- 
 vania University. The first minister of any name who 
 offered prayer and praise to the living God in Kentucky 
 was the Rev. Mr. Lythe, an Episcopal clergyman, who 
 was chaplain to a proprietary legislature. This service 
 was held under an elm tree. Mr. Lythe presented a 
 bill to this legislature: "To prevent Sabbath breaking 
 and profane swearing." This legislature met near Har- 
 rodsburg in 1795.
 
 476 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 Yet, while Episcopalians, according to the histo- 
 rian, waited for educated men, the Baptists, with the 
 New Testament in their hands, ignorant of what the 
 Fathers taught, drew multitudes into their connection. 
 For half a century the Baptists had the chief control 
 in the spiritual vineyard of Kentucky. The first Epis- 
 copal Council of Kentucky assembled in Lexington in 
 1829. The parishes of Louisville and Danville were rep- 
 resented by three clergymen and nine zealous laymen. 
 
 Bishop Brownell, of Connecticut, and Ravenscroft, 
 of North Carolina, visited the struggling church in 
 1829, and Meade of Virginia, in 1831, went through 
 the State from Maysville to Hopkinsville, in the per- 
 formance of church work. 
 
 In 1832 Kentucky claimed a bishop for herself. B. 
 B. Smith, the rector at Lexington, was elected bishop 
 at a Council in Hopkinsville. He was consecrated in 
 New York, St. Paul's Chapel, October, 1832. In the 
 summer of 1833 the cholera raged in Lexington. This 
 scourge took away two of his presbyters, three candi- 
 didates for Holy Orders, 'and fifty communicants from 
 the episcopal diocese. Bishop Smith faced the pesti- 
 lence with great bravery. His courage and devotion 
 to all the people within his reach, at this trying crisis, 
 were long remembered. Bishop Smith was very active 
 in the cause of education. He lectured in many of 
 the little towns in Kentucky to arouse the people to 
 introduce common schools. We remember long years 
 ago hearing his sonorous voice lifted in behalf of com- 
 mon schools, after he had driven some miles through 
 cold and darkness. 
 
 Louisville is the stronghold of episcopacy in Ken- 
 tucky. This city abounds in charitable institutions. "The
 
 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 477 
 
 John N. Norton Memorial Infirmary" has been recently 
 reared with funds left by this man of blessed memory, 
 whose praise is in all the churches. 
 
 Bishop T. U. Dudley is now the bishop of the P. 
 E. Church in Kentucky. He has made many friends 
 for his church by his eloquent zeal in the pulpit, and 
 by his pen in behalf of noble enterprises. While we 
 believe in the sins of heresy and schism, yet it behooves 
 all Christians to remember what our Lord said to his 
 disciples when they complained that certain persons 
 performed miracles in Jesus' name, still they follow not 
 with us, and we forbade them. The Master said to 
 them, "Forbid them not, for they who are not against 
 us are on our part." In these words our Lord forbids 
 compulsory measures for opinions' sake and casts a de- 
 fense around liberty of heart and conscience. All 
 bodies of Christians, with their leaders, who seek in 
 Christ's name -to cast out the demons of selfishness, dis- 
 honesty, impurity, intemperance and all rice to such 
 the hand of Christian fellowship should be extended. 
 They may not follow with us, but we must rejoice in 
 the work of all who earnestly seek to elevate hu- 
 manity. 
 
 Though the Episcopal Church has extended widely 
 and prospered well in this nineteenth century, yet it is 
 still a little flock in our country \vhen compared with 
 the Methodists, Baptists, Romanists and Presbyterians. 
 England, as a great commercial nation, has become the 
 agent of extended missionary operations. She has carried 
 Christianity, and with it the Anglican Episcopal Church, 
 to the four quarters of the globe. She has sent her mis- 
 sionary bishops to India, Africa, Australia and to her 
 possessions in North America ; even to New Zealand,
 
 4/8 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 so lately known to civilization. The English Episco- 
 pate was introduced by Bishop Selwyn into New Zeal- 
 and. 
 
 "The churches of the United States, " says Dr. 
 Schafif, "send more men and money for the conversion 
 of the heathen than any other nation, except the Eng- 
 lish." These two branches of the Anglo-Saxon race, 
 as they have control over the seas and commercial in- 
 tercourse of the world, are evidently intended by Prov- 
 idence to propagate Bible Christianity to the end of 
 the earth. Of the immense sum sent last year by the 
 American Missionary Society, the Presbyterians sent 
 one-fourth. 
 
 There is at Rome a great college called the Propa- 
 ganda, where every language of the world is taught, 
 to qualify missionaries for their work. The Roman 
 Church, with its seeming uniformity, embraces a great 
 variety of sentiment and discipline in her monastic or- 
 ders. In the many denominations of Christendom 
 there is much seeming division, yet there are really 
 many points of agreement. In the Greek, Roman, 
 Anglican and in the American Episcopal Church, the 
 same Creeds are used the Apostles' Creed and the 
 Nicene Creed ' They are agreed in the ministry of 
 three orders ; also in the use of a liturgy. 
 
 Protestant churches agree substantially in points of 
 doctrine with each other. This is proved in the ^work 
 now carried on, with great harmony, since 1870. We 
 mean the revision of our English Bible. "This revis- 
 ion," says Dr. Schaff, "will be a monument of the spir- 
 itual unity and exegetical consensus of English-speak- 
 ing Christendom." The largest ecclesiastical establish- 
 ments in the world are those of the Greek Church.
 
 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 479 
 
 There are said to be sixty-five millions of members in 
 the East. The Patriarchs, of Constantinople, Antioch, 
 Alexandria, Moscow, rule over many Dioceses and 
 Bishops. This Church is not represented in this, coun- 
 try. 
 
 The Greek Church objects to one clause in the 
 Nicene Creed the procession of the Holy Ghost from 
 the Son. There are three strange races in our land. 
 These are not the descendants of Japheth. The negroes, 
 the Indians and the Chinese have presented difficult 
 problems, not only to the government of the United 
 States, but to the Church. Who could have foreseen that 
 the wicked slave trade, which brought to these shores, 
 and to the Islands, so many thousands of Africans 
 would ever exemplify the paradox of the Psalmist, 
 "The wrath of man shall praise thee." Enslaved 
 millions have been civilized and Christianized, who 
 would not have been reached in their own country. 
 
 This is no defense for slavery. No, no ! but it is a 
 side of the diagram that ought not to be overlooked. 
 It proves that God, who sees the end from the begin- 
 ning, can overrule the sin and cupidity of one race 
 to the benefit of another. The civilization and Chris- 
 tianity of these poor people may be very imperfect, 
 but is far, very far, above the degrading heathenism of 
 their ancestors. 
 
 For a long course of years missionaries have been 
 sent to China ; the Jesuits have been particularly active 
 in this field. Since the opening of the ports many 
 years since, missionaries from every Protestant Church 
 have found a place in that vast empire. Missions have 
 been established in Japan with much success. Now a 
 door is opened wide for Christianizing the Chinese within
 
 480 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 our own borders. How wonderful are the ways of 
 God 1 Let the earth rejoice ! The Lord reigneth ! 
 May our people professing to be Christian improve the 
 opportunities thus presented. May no narrow, na- 
 tional policy hinder the good work ; but, alas, race preju- 
 dice is an obstacle hard to surmount. 
 
 "Spiritual light," says Bishop Lee, "is dawning 
 upon Mexico. Within ten or twelve years a Reformad 
 Church, called the 'Church of Jesus,' has been opened 
 in the city of Mexico." This movement claims sym- 
 pathy from all who love pure primitive Christianity. 
 This church in Mexico * has received Episcopal orders 
 from our Protestant Episcopal Bishops. 
 
 NOTE ON JAPAN. A late writer, an Englishwoman, gives us some 
 facts as to the work of Christian missionaries in Japan. She speaks of 
 the intelligent zeal of the C. M. S. ; also of American missionaries. 
 The mission stations of Osaka, Hioga and Sunda have all been opened 
 by direct medical missionary effort. The writer complains of the small 
 mission force sent to Japan. "Did our Father," she asks, "make the 
 salvation of millions depend upon a church selfish, tardy and niggard in 
 men and money ? " Will we not be excused in giving a sketch of a Japan- 
 ese convert ? " Neesima, an intelligent Japanese, educated as a Sun Wor- 
 shiper, saw at Tokio some Christian tracts in the Chinese tongue. He read 
 them with interest, and at once received the belief of a Creator who had 
 claims upon all his creatures. He had a strong sense of filial duty, 
 but he now felt that the Christians' God required him to leave his par 
 ents and country. He went to Yedo, and went on board of a ship, 
 hoping to learn from the American captain more of the new religion. 
 The trade of Neesima was shipbuilding. He soon found that the cap- 
 tain knew little of religion. He, however, set out with him for Bos- 
 ton, studying English in the New Testament on his way thither. He 
 was associated with Christians, in whom Christianity was a life as well 
 as a creed. He gave up his trade and determined to devote himself to 
 his countrymen, in teaching them the truths of the New Testament. 
 He studied both at Andover and Amherst, and is now striving to ele- 
 vate his Japanese countrymen." 
 
 * Since these lines were written about Mexico, some adverse cir 
 cumstances have shadowed the advance of the "Church of Jesus" in 
 Mexico.
 
 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 481 
 
 Lo, the poor Indian ! It is frequently said that the 
 Indian race, the original lords of our wide domain, 
 are fast dying out. It is said in some late reports that 
 the number of Indians (exclusive of Alaska) in the 
 United States is but 251, coo. 
 
 There was much interest manifested in the early 
 settlement of this country by the English for the con- 
 version of the Indians, but this strange people, through 
 all their tribes, seem to have been singularly inaccessi- 
 ble to changes in their condition. From the little log 
 church at Jamestown, Va. , where the baptism of Poca- 
 hontas, 275 years ago, was performed by the Rev. Mr. 
 Whitaker, to the present time, the number of converts 
 might almost be counted, so small -has been the rem- 
 nant embraced in the Christian fold. We suppose that 
 Bishop Whipple, within a few years past, has done 
 more for this people in these States than any other in- 
 dividual since the days of John Elliott. Archdeacon 
 Kirby has ministered to the Indians for twenty-nine 
 years past in British North America. He supposes 
 there are 10,000 Christians in that desolate land. We 
 must not forget, in this summary, the efforts made by 
 French Roman Catholics to Christianize the Indians. 
 
 After the settlement of Canada by the "French, mis- 
 sionary stations were established among different tribes 
 by devoted, earnest men. Before the Pilgrims anchored 
 at Cape Cod, Jesuit priests had penetrated in Eastern 
 Maine. Marquette, Joliet and La Salle had erected 
 the cross on the great rivers of the West. Commercial 
 enterprise was connected with these missions ; but of 
 the noble Champlain it is said that he esteemed the sav- 
 ing of a soul more than the conquest of an empire. 
 The Christianity of the Indians in Canada, and also in
 
 482 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 Mexico is, we presume, the result of the early French 
 and Spanish missions. It is mixed with much igno- 
 rance and superstition, but we can safely trust these 
 wandering children, if they live up to the light they 
 have, to the Great Spirit who will have compassion upon 
 them in the days of their ignorance. The light of 
 Christianity, as we have seen, has fitfully gleamed on 
 the path of the red man at different periods. Their 
 savagery, however, when let alone by Christianity or 
 civilization, is terrible. Dr. Whately says there is no 
 instance of a self-raised nation from savage life. Is 
 not this fact an argument for the primeval civilization 
 of man? Sin degraded man to savagery. Mighty 
 efforts are now being made to convert the nations. 
 
 "Many," says the language of prophecy, "shall 
 run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased." 
 But amid much hope there are some substantial fears. 
 One writer tells us that from the great influx of 
 Roman Catholics in this land, they must ultimately 
 triumph, whereby civil and religious liberty will be 
 endangered, if not destroyed. So far as civil liberty 
 is concerned, we believe Roman Catholics appreciate 
 political rights as much as Protestants. The Roman 
 Church teaches many errors, mixed up with the truth ; 
 but we trust there are many within her fold who look 
 above and beyond the vanities connected with her 
 worship ' ' to the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin 
 of the world." 
 
 The church of Xavier and Fenelon must contain 
 good Christians, though some of her Popes, deeming 
 themselves infallible, have added to her faith doctrines 
 not taught in the Scriptures and unknown in the purer 
 and earlier ages of the Church. Far more to be
 
 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 483 
 
 dreaded than Romanism is the spirit of skepticism, that 
 would question and explain away all the mysteries that 
 our finite minds can not fully comprehend. Some fore- 
 tell the approach of an age of unbelief. They inquire, 
 are not points of doctrinal faith yielded now that were 
 once held dear? To^this position it may be replied 
 that Biblical criticism is much better understood in the 
 nineteenth century than in the sixteenth" century. Some 
 of the leaders that dominated religious thought in the 
 early part of the Reformation, especially Calvin, who 
 systematized and attempted to fit in the doctrines of 
 the Bible to "suit a preconceived system. Calvin was a 
 grand logician and metaphysician, but, like the great 
 Augustine in the fourth century, his theory seemed, to 
 common minds, to sacrifice God's mercy or love t6 
 his sovereignty. The Christian of to-day thinks more 
 for himself, and humbly trusts to his private judgment 
 in studying the sacred oracles. He knows that all men 
 are finite. He is willing to leave these hard questions to 
 God, knowing that He alone is the great Artist and 
 Metaphysician who can reconcile and solve the prob- 
 lems of God's sovereignty and man's free will. " Canst 
 thou, by searching, find out God?" cries the Patriarch. 
 "Canst thou find out the Almighty to perfection?" 
 The scientist may explore at will the secrets of the 
 material univeise, but he can not explain the spiritual 
 side of man's nature. 
 
 We know that our Father in heaven is a God of 
 Love, and that in the name of Jesus Christ all bless- 
 ings that are promised will be freely vouchsafed to those 
 "who do justly love mercy and walk humbly with 
 their God." From the time that our Lord said to his 
 disciples on the mount, "Ye are my witnesses to the
 
 484 ANNALS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 uttermost parts of the earth ; go teach all nations, 
 baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son and 
 Holy Ghost," this work has gone forward. For three 
 centuries it was a grand and glorious light to the na- 
 tions of the world. 
 
 In the days of Constantine there was a partial 
 eclipse of this glory. This was caused by "the friend- 
 ship of the world." Desolating wars and the inroads 
 of savage hordes, threatened civilization and Christian- 
 ity with extinction. But this could not be. The 
 promise of our Lord could not fail. The Church 
 breasted the waves of the turbid waters* and now it 
 securely rests upon the Rock of Ages. The earth 
 shall be filled with the knowledge of the Lord, as the 
 waters cover the sea. 
 
 " Let all the saints terrestial sing 
 
 With those to glory gone, 
 For all the servants of our King 
 In earth and heaven are one."
 
 ALPHABETICAL INDEX. 
 
 Aramaic, or Syriac Language, 57. 
 
 African Martyrdoms. 
 
 Arius, 113. Nicene Council, 107, 108. 
 
 Alexander Seyerus, 84, 85. 
 
 Ambrose, Bishop of Milan, 137, 138, 139. 
 
 Alexander VI. (Borgia), 268. 
 
 Augustine, St , Bishop of Hippo in Af- 
 rica, 146, 148 
 
 Arianism Settled by Theodosius, A. D. 
 380, 163. 
 
 Augustin, Missionary to the Saxons in 
 England, 175, 176. 
 
 Anselm of Canterbury, 216. Ammianus, 
 119. 
 
 Apocalypse, 63. Andalusia, 183. Apos- 
 tles, 56. 
 
 Avignon, captivity of Boniface VIII., 
 283. Alcuin, 180. 
 
 Abbeys of the Middle Ages, 157, 158. 
 Athanasius, 116. 
 
 Anthony, 153. Aiban, British Martyr, 
 97. Abelard, 217. 
 
 Articles of Lambeth, 403. Armenia, 96. 
 
 Alexandria, 57. Antioch, 30, 31, 57. 
 Adrian, Emperor, 64, 68. 
 
 Adrian's Dying^Words, 69. (Note; Ala- 
 ric, 150. Agrippa, 28-95, 449. 
 
 Atterbury, 436. Asbury, 450. Abbott, 
 419. Aurelius, 71. Aurehan, 79. 
 
 Aquinas, 280. Alhambra, 283. Albi- 
 genses, 201. 
 
 Bernard, St., 217. His hymn, 218. Beren- 
 garius, 260 (note). 
 
 Bancroft, 410. Beranger. Baptists, 362. 
 Bishops U. S., 456. 
 
 Barret, 403. What is Reprobation ? 
 
 Bacon, Francis, 380. Burlei^h, 390. Bur- 
 gundy, 414. 
 
 Beni, 414. Basis, 133. Benedict, 160. 
 Bede, 179, 180. 
 
 Bishops of Antioch, 91. Belisarius, 189. 
 Bertha, 173. Britons, 175. 
 
 Boniface, Missionary to the Germans, 
 184. Boniface VIII. (Pope), 248. 
 
 Becket, 239. Basil, 59, 117 Butler, 450. 
 Berkeley, 449. Bray, Blair, were Com- 
 missaries, 447. 
 
 Brick Churches (built by the Mother 
 Church), 448, 450. Byzantine Temples, 
 180. 
 
 Besa, 356. 
 
 Cyprian, 87. Cyril of Jerusalem, 118, 
 (valuable historian). Cyril of Alexan- 
 dria, (fierce persecutor). 
 
 ('hryi'istuiii (the golden mouthed), 41, 
 67. Cid, 280. Caliphs, 284. 
 
 Circus of Nero, 48. C lenient, Bishop of 
 Koine, (>2 A. I)., 102. Constuiitinc, 
 105, 109, 113. 
 
 Constantinople built by Conitantine, no, 
 in, 280. Charlemagne, 183. 
 Confessional, 287. Crusades, 221. 
 Council of Constance, 266. Chaucer, 
 
 260. Cromwell, Thomas, 330. Crom- 
 well, Oliver, 430. Corpus Christi, 249. 
 Chivalry, 287. Christianity a Greek 
 religion for three centuries, 145. Chris- 
 tianity Latin from St. Augustine's 
 time, 148, 149. City of God, Augus- 
 tine's work, 140-156. 
 
 Chillingworth, "Take away this perse- 
 cution," 431. 
 
 Calvin, 400. Colet, 282. Cowper, 460. 
 Cranmer, 399. Cartwright, 331. 
 
 Controversy on the ministry, 331. Cart- 
 wright and Whitgrift, Church build- 
 ings, 71. Colonization Society^ 463. 
 Commissary, 447. 
 
 Corinthus, 52. Chase, 460. Mcllvaine, 
 successor to Chase in Ohio, and the 
 eloquent Bedell, and the gifted, devout 
 Jaggar, Bishop of Southern Ohio, now 
 the Bishop of Northern Ohio Cum- 
 mins, 474. 
 
 Chapter 46th, Church in Ohio ; 47th. 
 Church in Kentucky. 
 
 Christianity (in Japan), Chinese, Indi- 
 ans, 480. Skepticism, 483. 
 
 Civilization primeval (according to 
 Whately), Sin makes Savagery, 482. 
 
 Donatists, 102, 104. Diocletian, 54, 91. 
 Dante, 281. Decretals false, 181 (ninth 
 century). Death of Julian, 130. Dun- 
 stan, 209. Dominic, 203. Decius, 85, 89. 
 
 Elizabeth, Queen of England, 380. Edict 
 
 of Milan, 100 A D., 376 
 Eneas Sylvius, 278 (afterwards Pius II.) 
 
 Ephraim, 117. 
 Erasmus, 318, 320 Eusebius, 212. Eth- 
 
 elbert, 173. Eucharist, 247. 
 Episcepacy (Milman's view), 374, 362, 
 
 363. Erastus, 320. 
 Elagatalus, 83. Elders at Ephesus, 52. 
 
 John Elliot, 446 (crossed the sea in 1634 
 
 to teach the Indians). 
 
 Felix, 42. Festus, 43. Fratricelli, 281. 
 
 St. Francis, 203. 
 Funerals, 250. Fabiola, 250. Fenelon, 
 
 411. Falkland, 414. 
 Frederick- Barbarossa, 205. Ferdinand 
 
 and Isabella, 287. 
 
 Gregory I., 172, 175. Gregory VII., 
 
 (Hildebrand), 198, 211, 212. 
 Gregory X., 237 Gregory Nyssa, 117. 
 
 Gregory Nananzen, 139. 
 Gelerius, 95. Greek Church, 480. Gen- 
 
 seric, 169. Gnostics, 53, 52. 
 Gratian, 133. Gibbon, 101. Griswold, 
 
 472, 471. Grindal, 389, (noble man!) 
 GarrisonffCtiapel, 448, was given to the 
 
 English for worship by the Dutch after 
 
 the treaty of Breda. 
 Gu yon, Madame, 411, 418. Godfrey 
 
 Bouillon, 229. Gladiators, 114.
 
 ALPHABETICAL INDEX. 
 
 Helena, mother of Constantine, 108. Ho- 
 
 aiiis of Spain, 109, (presides at the 
 
 Council of Nice). Huss, Martyr of 
 
 Hohemia, 265. Hooker, 383. 
 Howard, 443. Hymns of Ken, CoWper, 
 
 Wesley, 454. Hymn of St. Bernard, 
 
 217. 
 Homoousions, 196. Hypatia Greek, 163. 
 
 Henry IV., German Emperor, 210. 
 Henry II. of England, 239. Hallain, 
 
 867. Hilda Abbess, 177. 
 
 Innocent I , i6a. Irensus, Martyr Bish- 
 op of Lyons, 49, 70. Ignatius, Martyr 
 Bishop of Antioch, 68. Indians, 481. 
 Inquisition, 286. 
 
 Indulgencies, 296. Iconoclasm, i88.J Isa- 
 bella, 236. lona, 177. Independents, 445. 
 
 Japan, 480. Julius, Bishop of Rome, not 
 at the Nicene Council, 109. James- 
 town, 445, (three good clergymen at 
 the settlement in 1607). 
 
 Jerome of Prague, 267. Jerome, 152, 
 (translator of the Vulgate) in a cell at 
 Bethlehem. 
 
 Joscphus, 38. Jews, 63. Justin, Mar-, 
 tyr, 72. Jansenists, 412. 
 
 Jewel, 382. James I., vain and vacil- 
 lating, 408. 
 
 Knox, 375. Koran, 237. Knights Tem- 
 plar, 205. Knights Teutonic, 206. 
 Knights Malta, Thomas a Kempis, 281. 
 
 Lanfranc, 215. Leo I , Pope, 166, 168. 
 Leo, Emperor, Leo X. Pope, 296. 
 
 Luther, 296, 297. Louis IX. (the good 
 king of France), 236, 237. 
 
 Louis XIV., 419. Latimer, 343. Loyo- 
 la, 430 St. Lawrence, 90. 
 
 Laud, 390. Labarum (Constantine's), 
 99. Lateras, 243. 
 
 Letter of Clement, Bishop of Rome, 62. 
 Latin Church (lost its unity), 279. 
 
 Leicester (opposed to the Church of 
 England, 392. Grindal's Letter to the 
 Queen, 392. Lombards, 192. (Charle- 
 magne overturns the power of the 
 Lombards and makes Pope Hadrian 
 king, 192) A. D. 774. 
 
 Matilda, 216 (niece of Edgar Atheling). 
 Monachism, 154. St. Martin, 144, 145. 
 
 Monica, mother of St. Augustine, 146 
 Mystics, 281. St. Maur. 260 (preserver 
 of literature). Madison (Bishop), 460, 
 461. Bishop Moore. 462 (he built up 
 the waste places). Meade. 460 461,462. 
 
 Melchiades, 98. Magnentius, 98. Moth- 
 er of Churches, 61 (Jerusalem). 
 
 Magyars, Martin V , 265. Moravians, 
 400. 
 
 Melanchthon, 296. Moors, 28.'. Monks 
 (the word " monk " first appears in the 
 fourth century), 154. 
 
 Nicholas V , 296. Nero, 48. Nicholas 
 I., 81. Nestorius, 163. Nicomedia, 91. 
 
 Nominalists, 244. Newman, 465. Nar- 
 ses, 169. 
 
 Odoncer, 188. Omar, 125. Origen, 80. 
 
 Orders, i, 2, 3, 60. 
 Oldcastle or Lord Gotham, 260 (martyr). 
 
 Peter the Hermit, 234. St. Paul, 24. 
 St. Peter, 25. 
 
 Pliny's Letter to Trajan, 66. Pragmatic 
 Sanction, 239. 
 
 Petrarch, 281. Parker, 380. Polycarp, 
 74, 76. Parthian War, 76. 
 
 IVIai;ius, 164. St Patrick, 178. Pepin, 
 11)1. Ponthinus, 0,8. 
 
 Port Royal, 419. Port Royal Authors, 
 420. G. W. Peteikin, 462 (note). Mem- 
 oir of Mrs. Poge, by C. W. Andrews, 
 463. Propaganda, 475. Prophesyings, 
 
 399- 
 
 Puritan, 391, 390. Priscillian, 144. Par- 
 liament of Paris, Polk, 465,467. Payne, 
 467, 468. Pauline, Petrine, Apolline 
 parties. 
 
 Quakers, 443, Fox, Barclay, Penn, lead- 
 ers. 
 
 Rome, 62. Rienzi, 271. Raymond, of 
 Toulouse, 272. Rudolph, 213. 
 
 Radagaisus, 149. Raikes, 418. Ritual- 
 ism, 470. 
 
 Seryetus (martyr), 370. Sybilline Books, 
 
 Silas, 36. Segismund, 264. 
 Savonorola, 268. Sclaves, 187. Sermons 
 
 of Leo I., 168. Sylvester, 98. 
 See of Rome, Stilicho, 150. Saladin, 
 
 232. Sherlock, 412. 
 
 Temple ot' Jerusalem, 124. Teutonic 
 Nations, 187. Theodosius, 142. 
 
 Tenth Persecution, 75. Tertullian, 61, 
 58. Te'zel, 296. Titus, 50. Theodo- 
 sian Code, HO. 
 
 Talavera, 293. Torquemada, 289. Three 
 Questions, 62. Toplady, 450, author 
 of the hymn, " Rock of Ages." Tomb 
 of Beckett (note), 241. Theories of 
 the Visions of Constantine, 90. Tra- 
 jan's Persecution, 64. True Church, 
 129. 
 
 Ulphilas, 135. Ulphilas Bible, 136. Uni- 
 versal Bishop, 170. Usher. 
 
 Valentinian I., 131. Valentinian II.. 133. 
 Valens, 133. Vatican, 48, 296. Vale- 
 rian, 87. 
 
 Whipple, 476. Wesleys, John and 
 Charles, Whitfield, 450. 460. Wickliffe, 
 263, 255. Wesselius, 282. 
 
 Ximenes, 236. 
 
 Zenobia, qo. Zuinglius, 297. Ziska, a 
 famous Bohemian captain, 275. Zozi- 
 mtis, mi.
 
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