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stand up near him and to sing psalms with him in expectation of his approaching dissolution. And as he was singing with them he made a sudden pause, and exclaimed aloud: Hush! do you not hear how the praise of God sounds in heaven?' And as he applied the ear of his heart to this praise of God which he perceived mentally, the holy soul departed from the body." To this narrative Gregory added a word of exhortation to his flock: "Behold the end of this man who bore with resignation the sufferings of this life. But I beseech you, my beloved brethren, consider what ground of excuse shall we find in the day of strict account, we, who although we have had worldly good, and the use of our limbs, are yet slow in good works, while this poor man who wanted the use of his hand could yet fulfil the Lord's commands. Even if it should not please the Lord to exhibit against us the apostles, who, by their preaching, brought crowds of believers into his kingdom, nor the martyrs, who shed their blood when they entered their heavenly fatherland; yet what shall we say when we see this Servulus, whose limbs were lamed by disease, without his being prevented from the accomplishment of good works?" Let us compare with this Servulus, whose life was not in vain, even in a disabled, helpless body, and who effected more for the glory of God and the true interests of his brethren, than others who lived in the splendour of the world, and in greater activity; let us compare with him, I say, those noble Romans, of whom the younger Pliny gives an account, who in a lingering and desperate illness ended by their own bands, with the tranquillity of philosophers, a life which appeared to them useless and unworthy. We would not condemn those noble spirits who were not favoured with the privilege of knowing the gospel. But where do we find the true dignity of man, the true elevation founded on humility, which therefore nothing can drag down or deprive of its crown?

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PART IV.

SKETCHES FROM THE HISTORY OF MISSIONS IN THE MIDDLE AGES.

CHAPTER I.

GENERAL REMARKS ON THE HISTORY OF MISSIONS IN THIS PERIOD.

THE operations of Christianity are certainly always the same as far as they depend on its peculiar nature and its relations to human nature; but it makes a difference whether Christianity first of all effects an entrance among nations who have hitherto been entirely unacquainted with it, either on the stand-point of barbarism or of a certain culture proceeding from other religious elements, or whether it connects itself with a Christian tradition already existing. Even in the latter case it will always have to renew the combat with the same counteraction of the nature of the old man, which among nations as yet entire strangers to Christianity comes forward openly and uncovered; but where a Christian tradition exists, is recognizable only as concealed under a Christian exterior. And even among nations with whom Christianity has already gained an entrance, there are always classes of persons who in their rude and neglected state have remained almost alien to the influences of Christianity, and hence require a fresh missionary agency; so that the distinction of a home and a foreign mission is, under such circumstances, a correct one.

In reference to foreign missions, it is necessary to distinguish the various stand-points of the people to which the missionary agency is directed; whether they are altogether a rude people, or such who already possess a certain marked culture; but the principle of Christianity will be always able to prove its transforming power, whether, through the divine

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life which is engrafted on the rude stock of the natural man, the seed of all human cultivation is at the same time imparted, or whether a new transforming spirit is infused into an already existing cultivation. In this last case, Christianity will find its point of connection in a national culture already expressed; but this must be purified, transformed, and animated anew by that spirit of a higher life of which everything not yet born of the Spirit is destitute; in the former case, Christianity will communicate the first impulse and generative power of every kind of culture, such as may correspond to the peculiar genius of the nation. Of this we have a specimen in the operation of Christianity during the period of its first appearance; the other is shown in the effects of Christianity among the nations of Germanic origin, in whom Christianity prepared the peculiar culture of the Middle Ages.

If on the stand-point of antiquity the existing contrarieties between nations appeared invincible, and mental culture the privilege of certain races, Christianity, on the contrary, leads us to distinguish between what is founded in the original nature of man as he came out of the hands of his Creator, and what proceeded first of all from sin. It teaches us that as all nations are descended from one common origin (Acts xvii.), and have received in virtue of this descent the same nature destined to be the image of God; therefore also, by virtue of redemption and regeneration, this image is restored in all, and whatever has been the result of depravity through sin (the ground of all contrarieties and divisions) must be overcome. And Christianity is able (of which the history of missions is constantly giving proofs) to realize that which it puts forward as its idea, aim, and requirement; although the differences in the mental endowments of nations and individuals continue, Christianity can communicate to all the same higher life; it can equally in all produce the consciousness and effect the realization of that on which alone the true dignity of man depends. But by what means has Christianity accomplished this? What was the peculiarity of the process of culture everywhere put in action by it? It is one of our Lord's sayings that new wine must not be put into old skins, nor a new piece of cloth into an old garment, but all must become new. The same law applies to the education of nations as to that of individuals. It is not the method of Christianity to reform

and to mould from the outside-to begin with combating barbarism and vice first of all in single outbreakings-lest the unclean spirit thus driven out should return with seven others more wicked than himself, and the last state of the man be worse than the first (Luke xi. 26). Christianity did not begin with forcing the old nature into an outward discipline or moral training; it did not impress on the nations a culture already complete, and cast in a foreign mould, as has happened in other attempts at culture, which repress the fresh life of individuality, and contain in them the germ of malformation: on the contrary, attaching itself to the consciousness of sin, by which man feels himself separated from God, or arousing this consciousness where it was dormant, it imparted to those who had it the joyful tidings of redemption, from the appropriation of which was developed the new life of faith and love, the antagonist of all barbarism and false culture, and the mainspring of all true culture.

That such was the operation of Christianity, Athanasius bears witness in an age when this new creation began to show itself among the tribes of Germanic origin, who by their wars were brought into connection with the Roman empire. “Who among men,”* he says, “ could ever tra

* Τίς πώποτε ἀνθρώπων ἠδυνήθη διαβῆναι τοσοῦτον, καὶ εἰς Σκύθας, καὶ Αἰθίοπας, ἢ Πέρσας, ἡ ̓Αρμενίους, ἢ Γόθους, ἢ τοὺς ἑπέκεινα τοῦ ὠκεανοῦ λεγομένους, ἢ τοὺς ὑπὲρ Υρκανίαν ὄντας, ἢ ὅλως τοὺς Αἰγυπτίους καὶ Χαλδαίους παρελθεῖν, τοὺς φρονοῦντας μὲν μαγικὰ, δεισιδαίμονας δὲ ὑπὲρ τὴν φύσιν καὶ ἀγρίους τοῖς τρόποις, καὶ ὅλως κηρύξαι, περὶ ἀρετῆς καὶ σωφροσύνης καί τῆς κατὰ εἰδώλων θρησκείας, ὡς ὁ τῶν πάντων κύριος, ἡ τοῦ θεοῦ δύναμις, ὁ Κύριος ἡμῶν Ἰησοῦς Χριστὸς, ὃς οὐ μόνον ἐκήρυξε διὰ τῶν ἑαυτοῦ μαθητῶν, ἀλλὰ καὶ ἔπεισεν αὐτοὺς κατὰ διάνοιαν τῶν μὲν τῶν τρόπων ἀγριότητα μεταθέσθαι, μηκέτι δὲ τοὺς πατρῴους σέβειν θεοὺς, ἀλλ' αὐτὸν ἐπιγι νώσκειν καὶ δι ̓ αὐτοῦ τον πατέρα θρησκεύειν. Πάλαι μὲν γὰρ εἰδωλολατροῦντες Ἕλληνες καὶ βάρβαροι κατ ̓ ἀλλήλων ἐπολέμουν, καὶ ὡμοὶ πρὸς τοὺς συγγενεῖς ἐτύγχανον. Οὐκ ἦν γάρ τινα τὸ σύνολον οὔτε τὴν γῆν οὔτε τὴν θάλασσαν διαβῆναι χωρὶς τοῦ τὴν χεῖρα ξίφεσιν ὁπλίσαι, ἕνεκα τῆς πρὸς ἀλλήλους ἀκαταλλάκτου μάχης. Καὶ γὰρ καὶ ἡ πᾶσα τοῦ ζῆν αυτοῖς διαγωγὴ δι ̓ ὅπλων ἐγίνετο, καὶ ξίφος ἦν αὐτοῖς ἀντὶ βακτηρίας, καὶ παντὸς βοηθήματος ἔρεισμα· καίτοι, ὡς προεῖπον, εἰδώλοις ἐλάτρευον, καὶ δαίμοσιν ἔσπενδον θυσίας, καὶ ὅμως οὐδὲν ἐκ τῆς εἰδώλων δεισιδαιμονιάς ἠδυνήθησαν οἱ τοιαῦτα φρονοῦντες μεταπαιδευθῆναι. Ὅτε δὲ εἰς τὴν τοῦ Χριστοῦ διδασκαλίαν μεταβε βήκασι· τότε δὴ παραδόξως ὡς τῷ ὄντι κατὰ διάνοιαν, κατανυγέντες, τὴν μὲν ὠμότητα τῶν φόνων ἀπέθεντο, καὶ οὐκ ἔτι πολέμια φρονοῦσι'

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verse so large a portion of the earth among the Scythians, Ethiopians, Persians, Armenians, or Goths, or those who are situated beyond the ocean, or those above Hyrcania, or finally, the Egyptians and Chaldeans, who practise magical arts, and are unnaturally superstitious and rude in their manners; who could address them concerning virtue, and temperance, and idolatry, but the Lord of all, the power of God our Lord Jesus Christ, who not only addressed men by his disciples, but persuaded them in their minds to lay aside the rudeness of their manners, no longer to worship the gods of their respective countries, but to acknowledge him, and through him to worship the Father? For in ancient times the idolatrous Greeks and barbarians made war with one another, and were cruel to their own kindred; nor in general could any one travel by land or water without arming his hand with the sword, on account of their incessant fightπάντα δὲ αὐτοῖς εἰρηναῖα, καὶ τὰ πρός φιλίαν καταθύμια λοιπόν ἔστι. Τίς οὖν ὁ ταῦτα ποιήσας, ἢ τίς ὁ τοὺς μισοῦντας ἀλλήλοις εἰς εἰρήνην συνάψας, εἰ μὴ ὁ ἀγαπητὸς τοῦ πατρὸς υἱὸς, ὁ κοινὸς πάντων σωτὴρ Ἰησοῦς Χριστὸς, ὃς τῇ ἑαυτοῦ ἀγάπῃ πάντα ὑπὲρ τῆς ἡμῶν σωτηρίας ὑπέστη; καὶ γὰρ ἄνωθεν ἦν προφητευόμενον περὶ τῆς παρ ̓ αὐτοῦ πρυτανευομένης εἰρήνης, λεγούσης τῆς γραφῆς· Συγκοψουσι τὰς μαχαίρας αὐτῶν εἰς ἄροτρα καὶ τὰς ζιβύνας αὐτῶν εἰς δρέπανα, καὶ οὐ λήψεται ἔθνος επ ̓ ἔθνος μάχαιραν, καὶ οὐ μὴ μάθωσιν ἔτι πολεμεῖν. (Jes. ii. 4.) Καὶ οὐκ ἄπιστόν γε τὸ τοιοῦτον, ὅπου καὶ νῦν οἱ τὸ ἄγριον τῶν τρόπων βάρβαροι ἔμφυτον ἔχοντες, ἔτι μὲν θύοντες παρ ̓ αὐτοῖς εἰδώλοις, μαίνονται κατ' αλλήλων, καὶ χαρὶς ξιφῶν ουδεμίαν ὥραν ἀνέχονται μένειν. Ὅτε δὲ τῆς τοῦ Χριστοῦ διδασκαλίας ἀκοούσιν, εὐθέως ἀντὶ μὲν πολέμων, εἰς γεωργίαν τρέπονται· ἀντὶ δὲ του ξίφεσι τὰς χεῖρας ὁπλίζειν, εἰς εὐχὰς ἐκτείνουσι. Καὶ ὅλως, ἀντὶ τοῦ πολεμεῖν πρὸς ἑαυτοὺς, λοιπὸν κατὰ διαβόλου καὶ τῶν διαμόνων ὀπλίζονται, σωφροσύνῃ καὶ ψυχῆς ἀρετῇ τούτους καταπολεμοῦντες. Τοῦτο δὲ τῆς μὲν θεότητος τοῦ σωτῆρός ἐστι γνώρισμα· ὅτι ὃ μὴ δεδύνηνται ἐν εἰδώλοις μαθεῖν οἱ ἄνθρωποι, τοῦτο παρ ̓ αὐτοῦ μεμαθήκασι τῆς δὲ δαιμόνων καὶ εἰδώλων ασθενείας καὶ οὐθενείας ἔλεγχος οὐκ ὀλίγος ἐστὶν οὗτος Εἰδότες γὰρ ἑαυτῶν δαίμονες τὴν ἀσθένειαν, διὰ τοῦτο συνέβαλον πάλαι τοὺς ἀνθρώπους καθ ̓ ἑαυτῶν πολεμεῖν, ἵνα μὴ παυσάμενοι τῆς κατ' ἀλλήλων ἔριδος, εἰς τὴν κατὰ δαιμόνων μάχην ἐπιστρέψωσιν. ̓Αμέλει μὴ πολεμοῦντες προς ἑαυτους οἱ Χριστῷ μαθητευόμενοι, κατὰ δαιμόνων τοῖς τρόποις καὶ ταῖς κατ ̓ ἀρετὴν πράξεσιν ἀντιπαρατάσσον ται, καὶ τούτους μὲν διώκουσι, τὸν δὲ τούτων ἀρχηγὸν διάβολον κατα παίζουσιν, ὥστε ἐν νεότητι μὲν σωφρονεῖν, ἐν πειρασμοῖς δὲ ὑπομένειν, ἐν πόνοις δὲ καρτερεῖν, καὶ ὑβριζομένους μὲν ἀνέχεσθαι, ἀποστερουμένους δὲ καταφρονεῖν· καὶ τό γε θαυμαστὸν, ὅτι καὶ θανάτου καταφρονοῦσι, καὶ γίνονται μάρτυρες Χριστοῦ.Athanas. de Incarnat. § 51, 52.