tioner, that, throwing aside his sword, which he held ready drawn, he fell at the martyr's feet, requesting that he might either die in his stead, or suffer with him. By the time they reached the summit of the hill where the execution was to take place, the martyr being athirst, a fountain sprung up, in answer to his prayers, to refresh him, and then sunk back into the earth. Alban soon received the stroke of death, and his noble spirit was crowned with immortality and glory. The soldier who refused to perform the executioner's part was himself condemned to death, and he who executed the sentence. was struck with blindness.

Such is the account we have of our British protomartyr, as it is amplified in the narrative of Bede. In Gildas we have nothing of the miraculous spring, and the judgment of God on the executioner. Superstition and credulity had made some progress from the age of Gildas to the days of Bede. Weak and credulous as the British Christians were in the days of the former, they were but mean adepts in the art of fictitious embellishment. In the course of another century there was room for further improvements; and, in proportion as the simple memorials of genuine history were lost or obscured, fiction was to supply the room of truth for the edification of the church.

Many Christians, of both sexes, received the crown of martyrdom, although their names are not mentioned. As to Julius, or Julian, before-mentioned, and Aaron, whether they were of Roman or British descent cannot be determined. The former is perhaps the same as Sulien, to whom some of our churches are dedicated. The other martyr, called Aaron, should perhaps more properly be named Caran, or Garan, for Jewish names seldom prevailed among the ancient Christians. These were, in all

probability, two of the pastors of the church, and perhaps one of them the very person who was the guest of Alban at Verolamium. That holy man, to whom the British Chronicle, as we have before seen, gives the name of Amphibalus, is said both to have been a resident of Isca Silurum, and to have resorted there after his escape from Verolam. He, by his zealous endea-* vours, confirmed many of the languishing Christians in the faith, and gained over several new converts: hence arose the legend of the thousand martyrs.

The following appears like the many marvellous tales invented by the Romish monks: That a number of Christians went in search of Amphibalus, to the west, and found him engaged in preaching to the unconverted Britons. This zealous multitude were determined upon bringing this famous teacher of Christianity back again to Verolamium; but, before he and them were permitted to enter the city, they were all put to death. The number of those who thus suffered are said to be no less than one thousand. But, besides this, the same round number of persons are mentioned as suffering on account of their religion in some part of Wales. But as the storm soon blew over, and it does not appear that it raged with any great violence in this island, the accounts which speak of such a host of martyrs must be considered as utterly fabulous, the device of the monks of the middle ages. This persecution, in all probability, extended only to a few of the most zealous professors of Christianity. What confirms this is, that in those old Welsh fragments of the British saints and martyrs, we have no account of any who suffered in the Dioclesian persecution; and, by every thing which we can find, the Roman citizens were the only sufferers. The native Britons were still under the government of their own

princes, and left to follow their own domestic regulations, provided they acknowledged themselves subject to the supreme rule of the Romans.

We have before observed that, first of all, owing to the usurpations of Carausius and Alectus, the British church escaped the provincial persecutions raised by Galerius; and then, owing to the mildness of Constantius, the storm never raged violently here. In Spain and Gaul the persecution raged to that degree that the emperors flattered themselves they had utterly extirpated the Christian religion, as appears by certain monuments, the inscriptions on which are preserved in Gruterus, containing these words :-NOMINE CHRISTIANORUM DELETO; upon another, SUPERSTITIONE CHRISTI UBIQUE DELETA. When Constantius attained the imperial dignity, the persecution was immediately put a stop to in the western provinces: this good prince, during the two years in which he enjoyed the supreme power, proved a father to the Britons, and the Christian church among them. Their places of worship, under his auspices, were rebuilt, after being laid waste during the persecution, and the Christians who had given way to their weakness, and their fears in the hour of temptation, now resumed their courage, and made open profession of their religion.

Constantius contented himself with the name of Emperor, and refused the actual government of Italy and Africa, taking Britain and the adjoining parts of the Continent under his administration. He was a prince of many excellencies; he lived with little ostentation, and did not apply the public revenues to support private extravagance, and that not from a principle of parsimony, but from his love of moderation. As he ruled with clemency, he died much lamented by his British subjects. He was interred at York, where he died, and which he had made his residence.

CHAPTER IV.

History of the British Church during the Fourth Century.

Government of Constantine-Arianism-MonachismLow State of Religion.

WHILE the Emperor Constantius lay ill at York, his son Constantine, who had been watched over very narrowly by the family of Maximian, made his escape from Rome, and arrived in Britain before the death of his father, by whom he was declared his successor in the western empire. The army in Britain approved of the choice which Constantius made of his illustrious son to succeed him; and therefore on his death Constantine was, without hesitation, proclaimed emperor. Maximian shewed a disposition to oppose the election of Constantine, out of regard to his own family: but he durst not refuse to send him the imperial purple.

Historians and antiquaries are not agreed respecting the native country, and the mother of Constantine the Great. British tradition considers him as a native of this country; and affirms that his mother Helena was the daughter of Coil, one of our native chieftains, who, on account of his descent, is numbered among the titular kings of Britain. But it has been denied that either his mother was a British lady, or that he was born in Britain. Archbishop Usher has investigated the subject

very minutely; and I shall state the result of what the learned primate has said.

A passage in Eumenius, the rhetorician, has been cited to prove that Britain gave birth to this great prince-O! happy Britain, now blest beyond every country in that thou first beholdest Constantine Cæsar. This place is, with propriety, applied to mean that the writer of it congratulated this island as fortunate, in having the honour to give birth to so great a prince. As to the interpretation that this was the country where he was created Cæsar (a title of dignity next to the imperial) by his dying father, that prince had received the honour before he at that time came over to Britain; and therefore the words of the orator would rather apply to Gaul; Constantine being made Cæsar some time before his father's death, as is shewn from Eusebius. One of the panegyrists of this emperor compliments him, "that whereas his father Constantius had liberated Britain from slavery, (that is, from the domination of the usurpers,) he had enobled that island by originating from it."

Not only our British chronicle, but all the best of our old writers, agree in this; and even Polydore Virgil, though an Italian, affirms that Constantine was born in Britain, of a British mother; and that, as he was made emperor in Britain, he made his native country to partake of his own glory. The British legates also in the councils of Constance, and of Basil, as one point of honour in favour of their country, pleaded that it was the land which gave birth to Constantine the Great; affirming that he was born at York.

The enemies of Constantine, it is true, upbraided him with being the fruit of an illicit commerce. Julian confidently asserted that he was born of an ignoble woman, on the borders of Persia, when his father was deputed