ation, were sentenced to be burnt
at the stake.

So much deadlier a thing was heresy deemed than evil-living on the part
of the clergy, that, previous to the reign of Henry VII., Bishops, who
had no power to imprison priests even though convicted of adultery or
incest, had, as Mr. Froude points out, power to arrest every man on
suspicion of heresy, and to detain him in prison untried. Constantine
was the first Christian Emperor who had recourse to this system; and it
was against the Arians, who rejected the doctrine of the Trinity, that
his enmity was directed. Death was the penalty for any one guilty of
concealing an Arian book. Of course the Arians, in their turn, were
equally ready to draw the sword. In those passionate and contentious
times it was hard consistently and constantly to be orthodox. Justinian,
whose laws against heretics were more severe than those of Constantine,
and who was hailed by the Church as "the most Christian Emperor,"
actually died a heretic. A controversy arose as to whether the body of
Christ was or was not liable to corruption. A new sect of course was
formed, known as the Corruptibles and the Incorruptibles. The latter
were considered heretics. Justinian gave them his support, and was on
the point of persecuting others of a different way of thinking when he
died. One of his successors, Theodosius, was just as ready to persecute
the holders of equally unimportant opinions. He it was who put down the
Tascodragitae, "who made their prayers inwardly and silently, compressing
their noses and lips with their hands, lest any sound should transpire."

Fortunately for our readers, religious London is not thus minutely
divided and subdivided. We have still absurd squabbles, that for
instance whether Mr. Mackonochie was kneeling or only bending, being
pre-eminently so; yet on the whole in Western Europe and among the German
races the tendency is more and more to practical, and less and less to
speculative life. In another way also may the comparatively speaking
undisturbed orthodoxy of Western Europe be accounted for. For the
orthodox there have been cakes and ale, and even the ass knoweth his
owner and the ox his master's crib. Nothing so keeps men from religious
speculation as a good endowment. In his "History of Latin Christianity,"
Dean Milman very significantly writes: "The original independence of the
Christian character which induced the first converts in the strength of
thei