more free to pursue heavenly studies. He was privileged to see visions; it was reported that he 'fell into a trance during which his soul is supposed to have quitted his body from evening till cock-crow' (I, 104). In one of his visions, which came to him when he was ill, he was caught up to heaven, and saw and heard heavenly things. He saw angels, and heard them sing sweet psalms, foretelling how the saints would go from strength to strength, till every one of them appeared before God. He experienced the conflict between demons and angels, who fought for his soul. The devils began to shoot fiery darts against his soul, but the armed angel shielded him. Then began a controversy between the angels and the demons; both claimed the soul of Fursey. The angels expostulated, Why hinder us in our journey? This man was no party to your ruin.' The demons replied that Fursey had consented to evil and therefore should go to punishment. The fight became furious. Fursey had spoken evil words, said the devils; the angels replied that more deadly sins must be proved to justify condemnation. The matter becomes theological. God cannot forgive sins unless the sinner forgives other men. The angel declares that the saint never avenged himself. The devils reply that the scripture requires more than abstention from vengeance; it asks forgiveness from the heart; whereupon the angel aptly retorts that judgment in this matter rests with God.

6

Another fight ensues in which the angels are victorious. Then the angel shows the saint a vision of four fires; the first of. which will burn those who loved 'leasing'; the second, the covetous; the third, the quarrelsome; the fourth, the fraudulent. The four fires were united as one continuous fire. Fursey sees that the fires draw near him and he is afraid. The angel then assures him that the fires cannot burn those in whose souls the fire of sins has not been kindled. As everyone burns in the body through unlawful lusts, so, when discharged from the body, the soul shall burn in the degree which it has deserved.' The angels who escort the saint protect him in the fire. One cleaves for him a pathway through it; two others on either side defend him from the flames. Again the devils enter upon controversy; they accuse the saint of faults, of

deficiency in love, of failing to rebuke sin; but the demons are put to confusion. A great brightness breaks upon the saint's vision; he is encompassed by angel hosts; the souls of the holy draw near him; the terror of the fire falls away from him. He is in a serene heaven; great light shines through the heights around him; and four companies of angels sing 'Sanctus, Sanctus, Sanctus, Dominus Deus Sabaoth.' The vision ended, Fursey returns to earth and resumes his body, having learned much of his own sinfulness.

The germ of true spiritual conceptions may be found amid the grotesque picturings of these visions. The spirit of man, even in its most foolish imaginings, reveals something of its nobler nature. Like the folk-lore legends of all nations, these dreams show how the soul of man gropes after truth. However childish such dreams may seem, they are never insignificant when they are sincere; and, as a rule, the visions of the monks of this age possess at least the mark of sincerity.

In the midst of legends and myths, national life was growing; certain foundations were being laid. Many mistakes were made; time was lost; and confusions followed when mistakes were being corrected, for the growth of national life leaves many ruins behind. Great ideas inspired great structures, but later experience proved them to be impracticable. Men of strong imagination dreamed some dream of far-reaching, perhaps universal order, but their dreams remained, like outlived follies or dismantled abbeys, splendid warnings to later ages. Men are always dreaming of an organisation of human affairs which will ensure human harmony. Their efforts, like those in the plains of Shinar, fail to reach heaven, and usually leave another Babel to mark their failure. Instead of indulging universal fancies, it is wiser to mark the path which the story of the past has marked out and to follow it. That path leads, I have no doubt, to universal harmony; but it leads us first of all to nationality. It is in the vigour and free completeness of national life that we shall find the right road to world-wide order; it is in the independence and free variety of national Churches that we shall strike the road to the reunion of Christendom. Vaticanism, like

Prussianism, is the enemy of true union, for it seeks to put the yoke of the Church upon the necks of others. Nationalism makes nationality elsewhere impossible; the Catholicism of the Curia destroys true Catholicity.

Canon Scott Holmes, whose careful and laborious work adds another regret to the sense of loss occasioned by his early death, has traced the subtleties with which Roman ascendency first beguiled and then betrayed religious freedom. He describes the way in which the first recognition of Roman authority took place. Rome took advantage of the discords elsewhere, and, posing as peacemaker, prepared the way for the claims which afterwards robbed the Gallican Church of her liberties. It is well to note the slow and subtle shifting of the ground of Roman influence. Her great position as the metropolis of the world gave Rome a natural advantage. What was fashionable in Rome, authorised by Roman custom or Roman Law, seemed to carry with it something of the fascination which belongs to the majesty of the once imperial city. The political and social greatness of Rome dominated the provincial mind; the ascendency of Rome was natural, because Rome was great in population, in riches and in governing power. In such times an episcopal see derived its importance from the civil position of the town' (p. 363). This is intelligible; but there came a time when the Bishop of Rome needed credentials of a more abiding character. Riches were proverbially fleeting; population might decline, and the seat of empire might pass away.

A dispute in France offered an opportunity which Papal ambition was ready to seize. It is significant that discord respecting church organisation provided this opportunity, and brought about a close relationship with the Roman See. The bishops in towns of importance exercised influence, and in some degree authority, over the bishops of smaller places; in this way the Bishop of Vienne had a measure of authority over the province which extended from Vienne and Geneva to Arles, and cut off the province of Narbonensis Prima, which reached from Toulouse to Nîmes, from the province of Narbonensis Secunda, over which the Bishop of Marseilles exercised some kind of supervision. But Arles possessed a measure of historic prestige; it had become in 400 A.d. the official capital of Gaul. As the centre of government

it gave to its bishop an importance and precedence which could not be ignored. Patroclus, the Bishop of Arles, was a man of restless ambition; if he could make Arles an archbishopric, he could claim a position greater than Vienne could claim, in spite of its being the capital of seven provinces. Patroclus therefore betook himself to Rome with the view of getting Zosimus, the Bishop of Rome, to lend the weight of his approval to the project. But the plea on which Patroclus rested, namely, the official dignity of Arles, did not appeal to Zosimus, whose mind turned to ecclesiastical claims of another kind than the civil importance of a town. The current talk in Rome was not of her former greatness as the Imperial City; arguments were to be found which would enable the Bishop of Rome to look down upon the dignity of Constantinople. The Primacy of St Peter was now the favourite text' (p. 363). To suit his plea to the prevailing fashion, Patroclus must invest Arles with some Apostolic glory. So he apparently invented a legend. Christianity had been brought to Arles by a Roman missionary named Trophimus; this Trophimus, it was declared, was no other than Trophimus the Ephesian, the companion of St Paul. This was enough for Zosimus; the ambition of Patroclus was gratified by the approval of the Roman See; and Arles was given metropolitical rights over Vienne and Narbonne. But trouble arose. The claim of Roman authority was opposed; the Church in Gaul was in revolt against the autocratic action of the Bishop of Rome' (p. 365). The story, writes Canon Scott Holmes,

'is of importance as illustrative at once of a valuable chapter in the history of the organisation of the Church in Gaul, and of the growth of Papal authority which was the more unwelcome because of that evident coercive tendency which was due to the secular power conferred on the bishops of Rome by the civil authority.'

If Churches were content to take credit for services rendered, instead of claiming an authority which cramps national development and destroys national liberty, reasonable men would readily concede such claims. No student of Church history will deny that Rome possessed a wonderful and natural gift of organisation; the Roman

Empire developed it, and the Roman Church inherited it. When we confine our attention to the work of organisation, we shall find in France and in England evidences of the vigour and intelligence, as of the great and useful influence, of Rome. The conversion of Britain and Gaul cannot historically be attributed to Rome; the missionaries whose loving zeal made the Gospel known in these countries came from the East, and were reinforced by the saintly men who came from Ireland and Scotland. But it was the hand of Rome which was mainly instrumental in drawing the sporadic work into more settled order; dioceses were formed, archiepiscopal provinces established. The roughly sown lands were divided; well-defined boundaries were made; clear and well-grown hedges marked off holding from holding; an air of cultivation, care and order was seen everywhere, to prove the organising genius of Rome.

In protesting, then, against the autocratic action of Rome, the Gallican bishops were defending freedom, perhaps at the cost of efficiency. The idea of giving to Arles a position of primacy was possibly wise; it was certainly a step towards a more perfect organisation; but the acceptance of Papal direction was a step towards servitude. The resistance to Rome at the time was superficially foolish, but fundamentally wise; the Gallican bishops were wrong in what they refused, but they were right in the grounds on which they refused. The struggle was like the struggle of John Hampden; good grounds for the need of the money demanded might be proved, but to yield to the demand was fatal to freedom. The ambitions of Rome were continually growing; specious pleas in justification were readily put forward. If historical evidence were needed, it could be based upon imperial decrees or grants, for which policy or superstition or both were responsible; if documentary evidence were required, it could be produced, because forgery justified by piety was a virtue. So the process went forward, till at last claims which at first were due to worldly, sordid or unworthy influences came to be regarded as claims whose sanctity was such that it seemed sinful to deny them. Worldly power assumed the garment of sainthood, and even elect souls were deceived, while the rank and file of men obeyed through fear of