is devoured before it. Carthage and Hippo, already laid waste by Genseric, and all those ancient churches, are consumed. In A. D. 710, the Saracens land at Gibraltar; all Europe is threatened with desolation; Spain is overrun, and in A. D. 725 the hordes of Islam have penetrated into France and captured Autun. But here God raises up Charles Martel, who strikes the Saracens with a decisive blow at Tours, and finally, laud be to God! he drives them out of France. He dies in A. D. 741, but in the next year his grandson, whom we call Charlemagne, is born, destined to settle the Carolingian line of kings in France, and in many particulars to revolutionize Europe and the world. It is important to recall all these facts, if we would comprehend the degradation of the East, the epoch of the Council of Frankfort, and the blessings we owe to the Venerable Bede, to Egbert, and to Alcuin.

16. ISNIK AND DAN.

We see, perhaps, in this review, how it came to pass that Irene's clergy could yield to her corruptions. It was testifying against Mohammed and the Nestorians. But go now to miserable Isnik, that once was Nicæa, and see to what God has reduced her, just as, of old, he gave his temple to the flames, and to long years of ruin, under the Chaldeans. The tribe of Dan has lost its name in Israel because it introduced the contempt of the second commandment, and polluted truth with idols.1 So Nicea is blotted out.

1 Compare Gen. xlix. 16, Rev. vii. 8, and Judges xviii. 30.

17. FRANKFORT ONCE MORE.

We may now come back to Frankfort. God is faithful to His promise: "When the enemy shall come in like a flood, the Spirit of the Lord shall lift up a standard against him." Surely, if ever there was a flood of iniquity and desolation, it was now poured out in fire and fury upon the churches. Alcuin and Frankfort were the standard of the Lord against Mohammed and against Adrian, as well as against Irene. But Frankfort is not immaculate. It admitted into the Nicene symbol those words, and the Son,- which, true as they are, are no part of the creed. Here the Easterns find, justly, a ground of complaint against us. At Nicæa, the fathers would not tolerate the introduction of an iota into their testimony. The Greeks complain that we owe to this innovation all the additions to the Creed which have been made by the Popes. Here is our mistake; "Ephraim shall yet say, What have I any more to do with idols?" till then "let not Ephraim envy Judah, nor Judah vex Ephraim." But for the rest, in the spirit of Alcuin, let us adopt the thrilling words of a modern Anglican, worthy to be named with Alcuin himself, the holy Bishop Ken. Hear his faithful testimony in his last will and testament:

"As for my religion, I die in the Holy Catholic and Apostolical Faith professed by the whole Church before the disunion of East and West; more particularly I die in the communion of the Church of England, as it stands distinguished from all Papal and Puritan innovation, and as it adheres to the doctrine of the cross."

That is my standpoint, young gentlemen. It enables you to comprehend the entire spirit of these Lectures.

18. THE BLESSED RESULTS.

Note then as concerning Frankfort: (1.) It is an index of "the goodness and severity of God," in dealing with a degenerate Christendom. (2.) It is a token of His fidelity in "reserving to himself" many millions of men who "had not bowed the knee to Baal." (3.) It shows us just where the churches stood on the eve of the great disruption; how terribly the Latin churches had been diminished; how marvellously the Church of England. had been raised to influence, and was permitted at this crisis to sow the seeds of her subsequent restoration, and to bear a testimony which she was destined to reclaim as her heritage forever. (4.) At the same time, it marks a great epoch in the ecclesiastical history of France; it proves that as yet Rome, however exaggerated her pretensions, was not the seat of a Paparchy; it renews the spirit of Irenæus and Hilary; it creates what was afterwards called Gallicanism. (5.) It enables us to comprehend the more modern Councils of Constance and of Basle, so far as they asserted what was true to antiquity. (6.) But especially should we note the hand of God, who thus closed up the period of Ecumenical Councils just when they were no longer likely to prove true to their charter in the Scriptures; when they had stooped down from the Gospels and the adorable Trinity to fables

and to Icons. It was Divine fidelity to the promise that interposed and saved all subsequent corruptions of truth from any claim to catholic consent. And (7.) I cannot but add that we see the same hand in giving us of the West something to confess with shame, when we remonstrate with the Easterns. "Tu qnoque !" they may reply; "there is a beam in your own eye."

19. CHARLEMAGNE.

When Charles Martel struck the Saracens, it was God who stayed the ravages of the enemy, and for a time said, "Thus far, but no further." How great he waxed, ruling the Franks under nominal kings of the long-haired race, - how his. son Pepin the Short deposed them and reigned in their stead, and how Charles succeeded as king and founded the Carolingian line,- are not all these things written in school-books? But look at him with whose name the epithet "Great" has been so incorporated that it is all one word. At Aixla-Chapelle I have seen a group of peasants singing their German hymns before daybreak, under the dome that once covered his remains. They stepped aside, and I read upon the slab which had been trodden by their rough shoes, CAROLUS MAGNUS. It was there that his remote successor, Barbarossa, opening the sepulchre three centuries after his burial, saw his gigantic skeleton sitting on a throne, crowned and decked in imperial robes, his falchion in his grasp, and the Gospels opened upon his knees. They still show one of the bones.

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of his terrible arm: our measure called a foot is said to come from his giant foot, twelve inches long. Like Constantine, this Titan was one of those mysterious beings who perform all the Lord's good pleasure, while only seeking their own. Marvellous is this economizing of man's free will by the omnipotence of the All-wise and All-good. In such characters we are pretty sure to find evil and good mingled in vast proportions. This mysterious creature, who fascinates and astonishes and overawes, is yet, in some aspects, a ferocious barbarian, a moral monster. Nevertheless, on the whole, he was a benefactor of the world. He seemed to forecast the destinies of Europe; he tamed barbarous tribes; he encouraged learning; he shaped the destinies of mankind for ages after him. As for his religion, like Jehu, he had a zeal for God, and he "drave furiously." The Church has felt his influence, for woe or weal, ever since he lived. It would be of no use to prejudge him; as to motives, no doubt they were mixed. If he was very cruel, not less so was Theodosius. Like Cyrus, like Alexander, he was an "arrow of the Lord's deliverance"; he was the saw and the hammer in the hand of the Almighty.

20. CHRISTMAS DAY, A. D. 800.

We have seen him helping the saintly Alcuin to humanize and Christianize the Franks, to tame the ambitious Adrian, to rebuke Irene and her degenerate bishops; and now we must follow him

1 See Note T'.