se were followed by Justin Martyr--who in his
"Apologies on behalf of the Christians" gives a full account of their
manner of life, and worship, and ordinances--and Irenaeus, and Clemens
of Alexandria, who lived between A.D. 120 and A.D. 200. Of the next or
third century, we have many books by Tertullian, Origen and Cyprian,
giving full accounts of the faith and laws of the Christians, their
social life and their worship. And in the fourth century, the
historian Eusebius wrote his History of the Church from the days of
our Lord down to the reign of Constantine, the first Christian
Emperor; and many of the great theologians and defenders of the faith
flourished, whose names may well be "household words" with Christians
of all ages, such as Athanasius, Ambrose, Jerome, Chrysostom, and
Augustine.

From these or other ancient authors we learn that Christianity rapidly
spread to the northern parts of Africa, to which country many of them
belonged; to France, and to Britain, where there was a scattered
British Church whilst the Romans still held the country.

In course of time, the two great capitals of the Roman Empire
naturally assumed the chief importance in the history of the Church;
and Rome became the chief see of the Western or Latin-speaking Church,
and Constantinople of the Eastern or Greek-speaking Church[25]. And
from that time forward, down to the Reformation period, the history of
the Church is contained in numberless writings of successive authors,
in the decrees of Popes, in the records of the great monastic orders,
in the works of the Schoolmen, and in the chronicles of the various
historians. And last, though not least, we find it imperishably
recorded in the cathedrals, and abbeys, and parish churches, which
tell of the inventive genius and taste and skill of our pious fathers
in the middle ages[26].

But our interest naturally attaches itself chiefly to our own country,
and to the records we possess of the Church of England. The Roman
troops were withdrawn from Britain about the end of the fourth
century; and in the course of the next two hundred years, the various
tribes of heathen Saxons who invaded our shores overcame the
resistance of the Britons and settled in England; and, by their
victorious advance, the few that survived of the British Christians
were driven to take refuge in the mountains of Wales and the western
counties. Toward the close of the sixth century the attention of
Gregory the Great