n the spirit of any but the
strongest of men; with all his sore trials, he was never weary of well
doing. He was called upon to rule the Church of Rome at one of the very
darkest of its many times of trial. Pestilence was rife; it had carried
off his predecessor. Italy was overrun by enemies. The celibate life had
for long found so many adherents, that defenders of the country were few;
children were not born to fill the gaps of pestilence and war. Husbandry
was abandoned. The distress was so great, so universal, that the
conviction was held in the highest quarters that those were the fearful
sights and great signs heralding the end of the world.

And even more than by these secular troubles was he that then ruled the
Roman Church tried by ecclesiastical difficulties. Arianism, so far from
being at an end, dominant or threatening wherever the Goths and the
Lombards were; and where were they not? Donatism once again raising its
head in Africa, and lifting its hands of violence; controversies a hundred
and fifty years old, about Nestorianism, breaking into fresh life,
threatening fresh divisions of the seamless robe of Christ. He thus
described the church he ruled:--"an old and shattered ship; leaking on all
sides; its timbers rotten; shaken by daily storms; sounding of wreck."

He it was that in the midst of trials much as these, his own ship on the
point of foundering, touched the spring that launched the English Church.
Moving very slowly at first; seriously checked now and again; brought up
shivering once and more than once; the forces round it not playing their
part with a will; some of them even opposing; it still went on and
gathered way. As time went on, it took on board one source of strength
that most had stood aloof; for many centuries the British Church has
formed part of the ship's company. And still the ship goes gallantly on,
gathering way; the Grace of God, we hopefully and humbly believe,
sustaining and guiding it; guiding it, through unquiet seas, to the
destined haven of eternal peace and rest.

The man who in the providence of God touched the spring, was Gregory, the
Bishop of Rome. Let God be thanked for him.

OXFORD: HORACE HART. PRINTER TO THE UNIVERSITY

PUBLICATIONS

OF THE

SOCIETY FOR PROMOTING CHRISTIAN KNOWLEDGE.

_HISTORY OF INDIA._

From the Earliest Times to the Present Day. By Captain L. J. TROTTER. With
eight full-page Woodcuts on toned paper, and numerous smaller Wood