They did this faithfully, and stayed many years
in Ethiopia; and they used to look out for any Christian sailors or
merchants who visited the country, and to hold meetings with such
strangers and others for worship, although they were distressed that
they had no clergy to minister to them. At length the young prince grew
up to manhood, and was able to govern his kingdom for himself; and then
AEdesius and Frumentius set out for their own country, which they had
been longing to see for so many years. AEdesius got back to Tyre, where
he became a deacon of the Church. But Frumentius stopped at Alexandria,
and told his tale to the bishop, the great St. Athanasius (of whom we
shall hear more by-and-by); and he begged that a bishop might be sent
into Ethiopia to settle and govern the Church there. Athanasius,
considering how faithful and wise Frumentius had shown himself in all
his business, how greatly he was respected and loved by the Ethiopians,
and how much he had done to spread the gospel in the land of his
captivity, said that no one was so fit as he to be bishop; and he
consecrated Frumentius accordingly. To this day the chief bishop of the
Abyssinian Church, instead of being chosen from among the clergy of the
country, is always a person sent by the Egyptian bishop of Alexandria;
and thus the Abyssinians still keep up the remembrance of the way in
which their Church was founded, although the bishopric of Alexandria is
now sadly fallen from the height at which it stood in the days of
Athanasius and Frumentius.

Constantine used his influence with the king of Persia, whose name was
Sapor, to obtain good treatment for the Christians of that country; and
the Gospel continued to make progress there. But this naturally raised
the jealousy of the magi, who were the priests of the heathen religion
of Persia, and they looked out for some means of doing mischief to the
Christians. So a few years after the death of Constantine, when a war
broke out between Sapor and the next emperor, Constantius, these magi
got about the king, and told him that his Christian subjects would be
ready to betray him to the Romans, from whom they had got their
religion. Sapor then issued orders that all Christians should pay an
enormous tax, unless they would worship the gods of the Persians. Their
chief bishop, whose name was Symeon, on receiving this order, answered
that the tax was more than they could pay, and that they worshipped the
true God al