ut because 'Athanasius was a very unpopular name among us.'"

"One swallow does not make a spring," said Charles.

"This clergyman," continued Sheffield, "was a friend of the most
High-Church writers of the day."

"Of course," said Reding, "there has always been a heterodox school in
our Church--I know that well enough--but it never has been powerful.
Your lax friend was one of them."

"I believe not, indeed," answered Sheffield; "he lived out of
controversy, was a literary, accomplished person, and a man of piety to
boot. He did not express any feeling of his own; he did but witness to a
fact, that the name of Athanasius was unpopular."

"So little was known about history," said Charles, "this is not
surprising. St. Athanasius, you know, did not write the Creed called
after him. It is possible to think him intemperate, without thinking the
Creed wrong."

"Well, then, again; there's Beatson, Divinity Professor; no one will
call him in any sense a party man; he was put in by the Tories, and
never has committed himself to any liberal theories in theology. Now, a
man who attended his private lectures assures me that he told the men,
'D'ye see,' said he, 'I take it, that the old Church-of-England mode of
handling the Creed went out with Bull. After Locke wrote, the old
orthodox phraseology came into disrepute.'"

"Well, perhaps he meant," said Charles, "that learning died away, which
was the case. The old theological language is plainly a learned
language; when fathers and schoolmen were not read, of course it would
be in abeyance; when they were read again, it has revived."

"No, no," answered Sheffield, "he said much more on another occasion.
Speaking of Creeds, and the like, 'I hold,' he said, 'that the majority
of the educated laity of our Church are Sabellians.'"

Charles was silent, and hardly knew what reply to make. Sheffield went
on: "I was present some years ago, when I was quite a boy, when a sort
of tutor of mine was talking to one of the most learned and orthodox
divines of the day, a man whose name has never been associated with
party, and the near relation and connexion of high dignitaries, about a
plan of his own for writing a history of the Councils. This good and
able man listened with politeness, applauded the project; then added, in
a laughing way, 'You know you have chosen just the dullest subject in
Church-history. Now the Councils begin with the Nicene Creed, and
embrace nearly all doctrinal