his standing in a perpendicular posture, and which, having no close cover, exposed him to all the inclemencies of the wind, the rain, and the sun. He afterwards contrived to raise himself from his supine posture, and continually stood upright, covered with a garment of skin, with only a small aperture in his box sufficient to allow him to draw his breath, and stretch out his hands to heaven. His cotemporary, James, not less disposed to austerity, fed entirely upon lentils, dragged about a load of heavy iron chains, bound about his waist and neck, from which several others were suspended. In the course of three days and nights, in which he offered up incessant prayers, this admired maniac was so covered with the snow as to be scarcely discernible. Pretended miracles were perpetually reported, and they were referred to by some of the fathers of the church, not only as examples of Christian perfection, but as infallible authorities for the validity of particular doctrines.

An increasing veneration for the Virgin Mary had taken place in the preceding century, and very early in this, an opinion was industriously propagated, that she had manifested. herself to several persons, and had wrought considerable miracles in support of the substantial party. Her image, holding in her arms the infant Jesus, was honoured with a distinguished situation in the church, and in many places invoked with a peculiar species of worship.

Every splendid appendage which had graced the heathen ceremonies was now interwoven into the fabric of Christianity. That which had been formerly the test of Christianity now became a Christian rite; incense, no longer considered as an abomination, smoked upon every Christian altar. The services of religion were even in daylight performed by the light of tapers and flambeaux. The discovery of relics was proportioned to the desire of obtaining them. No fewer than the remains of forty martyrs were found by the credulous Pulcheria, the sister of Theodocius. This princess, on approaching the place where these bodies, according to the revelation with which she had been favoured, were deposited, had the ground broken open. The princess then approached, and discovered a considerable quantity of

precious ointment, and two silver boxes, which contained the inestimable relics of the martyrs. These she honoured with a magnificent shrine, and deposited it near the remains of the holy Thyrsus, who she believed had thrice appeared to her for the purpose of discovering the place where the martyrs were interred. The undecayed body of the prophet Zachariah was likewise said to have been found in consequence of a revelation from himself, after it had been interred about twelve hundred years. The pretended remains of Stephen, of Nicodemus, of Gamaliel, and of several others, made their appearance about the same time; but the exhibition in detail of such knavery and folly as accompanied these transactions, would afford little amusement and still less profit. The account of the seven persons who fled from the persecution of Decius into a solitary cave near Ephesus, where, after a repose of an hundred and ninety-five years, they awaked as vigorous and in appearance as youthful as when they entered it, is familiar to all.

The compliance with every pagan superstition which could be at all reconciled with Christianity, was extended, on all occasions, to the utmost excess. Amongst others, the Christians attempted to obtain a knowledge of futurity, by methods similar to those employed by the pagans, who used to divine by opening the books of Virgil, and the first verses which arrested their attention were interpreted into a prediction of their destiny. Instead, however, of divining by the Sortes Virgiliana, the Christians made use of a Bible for the same purpose; and the practice was carried so far, that many of the inferior clergy found in it a very lucrative trade.

The ceremonies of the church grew in proportion as the life of religion was lost. The clergy failed not to make themselves important, and the ignorance of the times, and the established superstitions, regarded them only as capable of approaching the Deity, and obtaining favourable responses from him. A pomp of worship, garments, utensils, and altars, awed the vulgar into reverence, and a round of perpetual loud-sounding services night and day kept up the semblance of fervent devotion. The churches were loaded with ornaments. Solid silver encased and enshrined the rotten

bones, bodies, and relics of the saints. Public penance was now cunningly dispensed with, and private confession to a priest substituted in its stead. Thus to receive absolution was convenient for the culprit, and the practice gave importance to the ghostly father.

Notwithstanding the depravity and corruption which pervaded the clerical body, the whole was not contaminated. Instances of disinterested virtue illuminated the dreary and dismal annals of the fifth century. We behold with veneration and with pleasure the liberal Deogratias, bishop of Carthage, selling the costly plate of the church for the ransom of a number of captives. Nor was this a solitary instance of public and private virtue: it was even exceeded by Acacius, bishop of Amida, who ransomed seven thousand Persian captives perishing with hunger. The erudition, piety, and truly Christian charity of Atticus, bishop of Constantinople, who distributed liberally, not only to the orthodox, but to the necessitous heretics; the still greater mildness of Proclus, his friend and disciple, towards the heretics, and his active as well as passive virtues; the piety, simplicity, and affability of Licinius, a Constantinopolitan prelate, are instances of human excellence worthy of imitation.

Augustine was evidently a bright and shining light, adorning the fifth century. In conduct he was exemplary; sound in the faith, and zealous for its purity. We hear of four hundred and forty-six bishops assembled with him in Africa, then apparently the garden of the church. These and some of their flocks may be supposed men of like minds with himself. Their situation in life was probably indigent, devout, and simple, like the people to whom they ministered, and with whom much of the power of godliness yet rested. And, no doubt, in other parts of the empire, many resembling these were found, far from the greater sees, the constant objects of ambition and avarice, and distant from the councils of polemic bitterness and contention; men who shunned unprofitable disputes, intent on the edification of their flocks.

The labours of St. Patrick in Ireland were said to be attended with such effects on that wild people, as to give hope that something better than nominal Christianity was produ

ced. But the legendary tales of these popish apostles are to be received with much hesitation.

Not only among the catholics, but with the reputed heretics also we may expect to find men of a right spirit, and truly devoted to the Lord Jesus Christ, notwithstanding the hasty anathemas denounced against them.

The grievous sufferings of many, through the incursions of the barbarians, or the savageness of Arian persecutors, could not but greatly tend to drive the faithful to seek their rest in the great shepherd of Israel; whilst those who yielded their bodies to stripes, imprisonment, and death itself, for the preservation of a good conscience, gave the most unequivocal evidence that they knew in whom they had believed.

Century VI.

The general state of the outward church in this century was dreadful. The progress of barbarism advanced rapidly. Goths and Vandals reigned. A momentary triumph of Justinian was succeeded by fresh swarms of Lombards, who fixed their empire over the degenerate Romans, and ruled them with a rod of iron. Yet the conquerors themselves by degrees melted down into the same mass with the vanquished, adopted their religion, and exchanged the ritual of heathenism for Christianity, from which its features were now scarcely to be distinguished. Wondrous conversions of whole nations, Germans, Gauls, Britons*, encreased the

* Towards the close of this century, Bertha, the believing wife of Ethelbert, one of the most considerable of the Anglo-Saxon princes, excited in her husband a favourable opinion of her own religious faith. This was greatly increased by the arrival of Augustine, the monk, who travelled on a holy mission into Britain, in the year 596. This monk, aided by the labours of his forty companions, whom Pope Gregory associated with him in this mission, had the happiness to complete in

fame of the monkish apostles, who ministered baptism to them by thousands. Though continuing to live in all their former savageness of manners, licentiousness, and ignorance, the repetition of a formula, and the sign of the cross admitted them with facility within the pale of the church: except the change of names, little perceptible difference appeared between the Christian converts and the pagans.

Pretended miracles multiplied under such priests and people, and produced admiration, nay almost adoration, of the sacerdotal order, who were said to be solely invested with this high privilege. But all the power of monarchs, and all these wholesale conversions, hardly replenished the ravages made by the Saxons in Britain, the Lombards in Italy, and the Huns in Thrace and Greece. In Persia the desolations were still more dreadful, and reduced the profession of Christianity very low. The conversion of the Anglo-Saxons by Augustine, of the Irish by Columbas, of the Alans, Bohemians, and some savage hordes near the Euxine sea, added comparatively but little to the nominal fold which had been wasted by war and the sword.

The internal state of the church was dark and gloomy. Ignorance and superstition advanced with rapid strides.

Ethelbert the conversion which Bertha had begun. He preached, he persuaded, he threatened, and his labours were so successful that Christianity reared her triumphant fabric upon the ruins of paganism. Heathen temples were converted into Christian churches; Christ Church was formed into a cathedral, and the monk whom Gregory had invested with full spiritual power over all the British and Saxon clergy, assumed the title of Archbishop of Canterbury. Upon his arrival in Britain, Augustine found the christians of Britain attached to the tradition of the eastern churches, respecting the time of celebrating Easter, and differing also from the practices of the church of Rome in the performance of some baptismal rites. This variation was warmly and haughtily condemned by the arrogant monk; but the British clergy would not submit to his imperious decrees. They refused even to acknowledge him as their archbishop, and would not be prevailed upon to change their ancient ceremonies. During six hundred years, the Britannic church never acknowledged any subjection to the power of the Romish prelates.