for supposing that many of the incumbents of the parish of St. Alban's were How beauti

able and energetic men.

fully simple history is, when one does not attempt to explain it away!

We have now proved, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that the Church founded by Lucius about the middle of the second century was no other than our own Church of England, and that it never in any way had anything whatever to do with Rome. As we shall see later, Romanism never showed itself in England until Augustine introduced it in the sixth century. When the reader studies later volumes of this series, he will see how heresies, errors, and schisms devastated the Church in the Middle Ages, and he will not fail to contrast that sad period with the times of the British Church, when

purity of doctrine reigned serenely, peacefully, and undisturbed throughout this happy island. The ancient British Christian was a grand old man, and kept firm to his creed and his doctrine. There is, indeed, nothing that the Anglican historian can point to with greater pride, than the unsullied beauty of his Church during those early centuries, when Rome had never as yet breathed upon this land with the foul blast of its noxious and pestilential errors.

The Arian madness, having corrupted the whole world, infected this island also. . . . All the venom of every heresy immediately rushed into the island, ever fond of something new,

and never holding firm to anything.

In his time, Pelagius, a Briton, spread far and near the infection of his perfidious doctrine against the assistance of Divine grace.

They would not correct their madness, but, on the contrary, their folly was rather increased by contradiction, and they refused to embrace the truth."

* There is a gem in the crown of the Church of England, which is wanting in that of every other Church in the world. This gem is its comprehensiveness. We may even call it one of the marks of the True Church; for it is undoubtedly a mark of the Church of England, and since the Church of England is the True Church, compre

hensiveness must be a mark of the True Church. It is, therefore, an immense gratification to the historian of the early British Church to be able to bring forward ample evidence of its comprehensiveness during the second, third and fourth centuries of the Chris

tian era. To prove conclusively that the early British Church showed the strongest characteristics of the Established Church of to-day, is one of our highest privileges.

In order, then, to be able to compare the comprehensive spirit of the early British Church with our own, it will be well to consider for a moment the grasp of the latter at the present day. It gathers to its large motherly heart, high church, higher church, highest church, broad church, middling church, low church, lower church,

and lowest church. Some of its children believe the Communion to be bread and nothing else; some believe it to be the body of Christ; others believe it to be in a sort of a way the body of Christ and in a sort of a way common bread. There are those, again, who believe it to be the body of Christ if consecrated by a member of the Order of Corporate Reunion, and common bread if consecrated by an ordinary clergyman. A large number think it very doubtful what it is. Some of our clergymen use leavened bread and some unleavened bread. Some mix water with the wine, and others do not. Of those who do, some mix it in the church and some in the vestry. If all this does not show the mark of a True Church, I should like to know what does!