recalling Arius from one exile, and sending Athanasius into another. Constantius had made it in his turn. In the now divided empire, it was the settled policy of the Emperor of the East to encourage the expulsion of Catholic bishops from their sees on any pretext whatever. In such conditions, with the Church throughout the East distracted within itself, and the state favoring the anti-Catholic side, how were faithful men to know one another in the darkness of that black and bitter night? What token could they give to one another to prove their title to one another's support?

When things are going dreadfully wrong, it is a disposition of human nature,-it is often one of the chief temptations of human nature,—to think that some machinery must certainly be devised that will compel them to go right. Sometimes new machinery will meet the difficulty. Sometimes it will not. Sometimes the new device would cure one evil and set up another. Athanasius seems to have thought that new machinery was now a necessity. He had appealed to Rome himself. Of course he had. He was tortured with false accusations and a false conviction; he was deprived of his see; he saw an Arian intruder persecuting the flock which it had been his to feed and tend. Of course, when Athanasius was banished into the Western Empire, he sought out the

chief bishop of that part of the world, and told his story and exhibited his proofs, and cried out for brotherly sympathy and help. .He received them. Julius, Bishop of Rome, was a strong and zealous man. He called together a council of fifty Italian bishops at Rome and laid the case before them. They joined with him in pronouncing the vindication of their brother of Alexandria. They wrote to the East, acknowledging the communion of Athanasius and refusing that of his opponents.

It is to be observed just here that all this was extra-judicial. Athanasius was never condemned by any council of his own Egyptian bishops, but by the council of Tyre, which had no warrant in any Catholic precedent for touching his case at all. So Athanasius had protested, and he appeared before the council only because the emperor commanded it, as a matter of his civil allegiance, and because it seemed the best way of meeting the case.

Now, as one council of bishops without jurisdiction over him had proclaimed him guilty of many offences, Athanasius was glad to have another council that was no court examine his case and declare in the same extra-judicial way his entire innocence. But this experience would naturally suggest to one who had suffered as Athanasius had, and who felt the awful sinking fears for the future of Eastern Christianity that Athanasius

must have felt, what a thing it would be to introduce into the Church's judicial system some check which would either prevent unfair trials, or make sure that if bishops were put out of their places unjustly, some disinterested central authority would proclaim the shameful fact to all Catholic Christendom and unite all Catholic Christendom in behalf of the oppressed.

It was at this juncture that the Emperors Constantius and Constans agreed in summoning the bishops of the Eastern and Western Empires, respectively, to a council at Sardica* to see if peace might be restored to the Church. Vain hope! But one hundred and seventy bishops could be assembled, and they came together only to fall hopelessly apart. Most of the delegates from the East were Arianizers. These with two kindred spirits of the Western delegation withdrew to Philippopolis, refusing to hold communion with men who would hold communion with Athanasius.

Most of the Western bishops with a few Eastern, Athanasius being one, remained in council at Sardica, and took thought for the Church's welfare.

The modern town of Sophia, rising into political importance as the capital of Bulgaria, and centre of many of the dangerous movements that make the Eastern Question" critical, is the lineal descendant of ancient Sardica, the new town lying a little north of the remains of the older one.

II.

SARDICA'S REMEDY.

We have seen the coalition of Arian treachery and imperial worldliness against the faith and order of the Church. We must now examine the Sardican scheme for defeating it It is contained in the canons numbered 3, 4, and 5 in the Greek version. We will consider them in order.

Canon 3 is first noteworthy for being a conglomerate of three distinct subjects. One of the Latin versions, indeed, makes three separate canons out of it. The first two parts are of an old-fashioned sound. No bishop is to perform episcopal acts in any province but his own, unless invited by some of the bishops that belong there. Again, if two bishops are at variance, they must not appeal to any bishops outside their province to settle the quarrel. This latter item is worthy of attention. The Sardican Council had no idea of any natural right of bishops that felt themselves wronged to appeal to Rome, nor of Rome to hear them. But why are these provisions so curiously bunched with one which provides for a case in which a bishop may carry his wrong outside of his province, and bishops from outside the province may interfere with its affairs?

It is, I think, without doubt, an apologetic way of introducing a kind of legislation of which the

Church was known to be jealous. They do not wish to have it supposed that they mean to overturn all the "ancient customs" so solemnly safeguarded by the sixth canon of Nicæa. They are proposing to change one of them very seriously. Then they take pains to put into the same decree with their innovation, reiterated demands that otherwise the "ancient customs" shall be kept. The part of the canon that introduces appeals to Rome must be quoted at full length. Its style is cumbrous, and its Greek so bad that one feels that it must be some stenographer's, who had trouble with his notes, but I will translate it as fairly as I know how.

"If it shall appear that a bishop has been condemned, and he claims that he is not unsound, but has a good case that his trial be even renewed again, if it please your charity, let us honor the memory of Peter the Apostle, so as that letters be written from those who judged the case to Julius, the Bishop of Rome, so that if need be a second court inay be constituted by means of the bishops living neighbors to the province (in question); and let him appoint judges himself. But if it cannot be established that the case is such as to require a re-trial, the decision once made is not to be annulled, but the existing settlement is to stand."

Now, here are several things that need to be