servances. Augustine to join in Christian fellowship with his recent converts, and assist him in the work of evangelization. But this church differed from the newly-established one in some forms and obThe monks of Bangor, a place famous then for its monastery, took an active part in these conferences, but nothing satisfactory was settled. The ancient church of Britain refused to pay authority to the decrees of the head of the new one for they had been told, that, if Augustine rose at the approach of the Welch bishops, they should obey him; if he sat, they were to disregard him. Augustine happened to be seated when they entered, and consequently they refused to submit to his authority. On such a trifle could they make matters of conscience to rest! Augustine, forgetting the meekness that became his profession, exclaimed, "If you will not have peace with brethren, you shall have war with enemies!' Is it not melancholy that all, or chief part, of this strife arose about so trivial a thing as the celebration of Easter? The monks of Bangor were afterwards cruelly put to death in an invasion of the Pagan Saxons from the north. This crime has been laid upon Augustine and Gregory, but they were both dead before it took place; and there was no motive to induce Christians, who dissented from them in the time of observing Easter, or in the ceremony of baptism, to urge Pagans to the destruction of their brethren. After filling his arduous post for thirteen years and six months, Gregory died, A. D. 604. Mr. Milner supposes that if he had lived in our days, he would have mourned over his beloved England, he would have been ready to say, these people are enemies to their own good; he would have pitied them, wept, and consoled himself with his usual refuge, the views of a better world, and have done what good was still in his power, by the example of a holy life, by painful preaching and by pious writings. I do not wish to depreciate a character he has extolled; what presumption would it be for me, with imperfect knowledge and scanty light, to think of doing so; but I must say I do not think, from my knowledge of the times and character of Gregory, that his beloved England, enlightened and free as she is, would be beheld with the sentiments he ascribes to him. I rather think, if Milner's favourite bishop possessed the enlightened and pious mind he attributes to him, that he would behold with surprise and joy his beloved England, liberated from the trammels of superstition, and enjoying the pure light of the Gospel of truth. We are, perhaps, too proud of our privileges, but it is surely well to enjoy with thankfulness; to 'rejoice, though with trembling.' The English church may require a stricter discipline, yet who would exchange it for Gregory's discipline, and Gregory's superstition? This bishop has left many excellent writings; our own beautiful litany is supposed to have been originally written by him, but altered and improved by various reformers. As far as this century reaches, we have evidence that amid many growing corruptions, the church had not yet imbibed the Romish doctrine of transubstantiation. I have just met with a passage in the writings of an African bishop which explains the view Christians then had of the sacrament of the Lord's Supper: in it he affirms that the bread is not properly his body, nor the cup his blood, but that they contain the mystery, or symbols of the body and blood of Christ. I could not forbear transcribing this, before I closed the history of the sixth century. CENTURY VII. STATE OF CHRISTIANITY IN THE EAST; RISE AND IF Christianity spread in the West, and the isles there seemed to "wait for His law," it sadly and deeply, and far more than proportionally declined in the East. I have before told you that the dispute for pre-eminence between the bishops of Rome and Constantinople, produced the schism of the Greek and Latin churches. Of the Latin church we have been speaking in the last story, and therefore I need not tell you that it was a purer and more Christian church than the other. Christianity, indeed, seems to have been reduced, in the Eastern churches, to a miserable system, hardly deserving the name. The warning given to the Ephesians in the Apocalypse of St. John, should be carefully had in remembrance by the most favoured church of God. 66 Remember, therefore, from whence thou art fallen, and repent and do the first works; or else I will come unto thee quickly, and will remove thy candlestick out of his place, except thou repent." These warnings were neglected, and the threatenings have been fulfilled; the candlesticks indeed have been removed from their place. The instrument for this work appeared A. D. 609, in the person of the impostor Mahomet, who planned his wide-spreading and dreadful superstition in the deserts of Arabia. This singular man, though possessed of high natural endowments, was an illiterate barbarian.' At first he appeared as a teacher only in his own family, but when he extended that teaching to his people and neighbourhood, he swept Christianity from the places where it had been planted by the first teachers of its sacred doctrines, and where it had flourished for five centuries. The sword,' said Mahomet, is the key of heaven and hell; a drop of blood shed in the cause of God, a night spent in arms, is of more avail than months of fasting and prayer: whosoever falls in battle, his sins shall be forgiven.' Such a creed was well suited to those to whom it was preached, and we must wonder more at the skill of the contriver, than at the success of the contrivance. The policy of Mahomet, as well as his arms and seductive doctrines, contributed to his success. "A house divided against itself cannot stand," said the lips of Truth and Wisdom. The Christian church, or that which now bore the name, was rent |