intercourse confined to such occasions, or limited to any time; it is always open to resort-none can find the want of ready access in this diocese, for episcopal advice and counsel, and for every aid which a prompt and ever vigilant attention from the chief pastor of it, can supply.

Nor do the Cathedral Chapters of the land want the character and living image of a council near at hand in every diocese.

If a word of cautionary exhortation could now be thought further needful, it may be borrowed from what should be the sense of human imperfections with respect to men and governments; a feeling which should bespeak much candour, and no less discretion, when men give their counsel and furnish their objections to the public. It would be well to consider at all times heedfully what the public ear is, and to how many chambers by those avenues the sound descends. If the suggestions of an eager spirit shall be marked with petulance, or accompanied with any tone of disrespect or angry feeling, such strictures will be caught up greedily where the worst use may be made of them; and will be added to the common stock of bitter and unfruitful cavils, serving only to augment the growth of envy and to swell the murmurs of discontent.

But I will detain you, my Reverend Brethren, no longer. If the tide of time, in all ways, runs

C

hard against me, it shall be my stay, that having sought to strengthen bonds of union among ourselves, and to enlarge them, if we could, to others, I feel assured that I shall have your full concurrence in that endeavour, and in every good design.

APPENDIX.

ARCHBISHOP SPOTSWOOD gives a very distinct account of what is deserving of regard respecting the planting of Christianity in Scotland. He sets aside the claims of Baronius made in favour of Pope Victor and the Roman see; and for a sufficient reason, that when the dispute was raised by the Romish emissaries concerning the time of keeping Easter, the Scots refused to relinquish their ancient usage.

"If our conversion," saith Spotswood, "had been wrought by Pope Victor, how came it that our Church was not fashioned to the Roman in outward rites, especially in the observance of Easter, whereof Victor was so zealous as to excommunicate all the churches of the East for their want of conformity to the Roman in that point?" He adds, "I verily think that under Domitian's persecution, when the Apostle St. John was relegated to Pathmos, some of his disciples have taken their refuge hither, and been the first preachers of the Gospel in this kingdom; and this I am induced the rather to believe, because in the hot contention moved about Easter, some two hundred years after, I find our Church did still retain the custom of the oriental, and maintain their practice by the authority

of St. John, from whom they pleaded to have received the faith."

He goes on to state what King Donald did in behalf of religion, and his endeavours to root out the druids, adding, that "after his death religion for many years was little or nothing promoted."

He goes on to the persecution raised by Dioclesian, "which brought many Christians from South Brittain into Scotland, who were kindly received here by Cratilinth, and had the Isle of Man given them for their remaining, and revenues sufficient assigned for their maintenance. In this isle King Cratilinth erected a stately church to the honour of our Saviour, which he adorned with all necessary ornaments, and called Sodorense fanum, that is, the temple of our Saviour. Hence it is that the Bishops of the isles are styled Sodorenses Episcopi; for so long as that isle remained in the possession of the Scots, the Bishops of the isles made that church their cathedral. After their dispossession, the island of Iona, commonly called Hecombekil, hath been the seat of the Bishops, and continueth so to this day."

"In this isle Amphibolus sate first Bishop; a Brittain born, and a man of excellent piety; he lived long, preaching carefully the doctrine of Christ, both among the Scots and the Picts; and after many labours taken for promoting Christian religion, died peaceably in the same isle."

He then considers the origin of the name of Culdees given to the priests, according to Hector Boethius, which brings him to the testimony of the same Boethius, "who,” saith he, "out of antient annals reports, that these priests were wont, for their better government, to elect some one of their number, by common suffrage, to be chief and principal among them, without whose knowledge and consent

nothing was done in any matter of importance: and that the person so elected was called Scotorum Episcopus, a Scots Bishop or a Bishop of Scotland. Neither had our Bishops any other rule before the days of Malcolm, who first divided the country into dioceses; appointing to every Bishop the limits within which they would exercise their jurisdiction. After that time, they were styled either by the countries where they had the oversight, or by the city where they kept their residence."

He returns then to Cratilinth," in whose reign," saith he, "the Christian religion prospered exceedingly," and his kinsman and successor kept, as he observes, the same

course.

He then comes to the persecution under Maximus, a Spaniard, but of Roman education, "who presuming to bring the whole isle under his power, did practise secretly with the Picts for rooting out the Scots." The consequence of which was a battle, in which "the king and the most part of his nobility were slain." "This defeat," says

he, 66 was followed by a rigorous edict, which was so precisely executed, as neither man nor woman, young nor old, were permitted to stay; nay, not a churchman (though all of that profession were of good esteem among the Picts at the time); thus all the Scots went into exile, betaking themselves, some into Ireland, others into the countries of Denmark, Norway, and Sweden; only some few churchmen, after they had long wandered from place to place, got privately into Iona, one of the west isles; where, living in a poor condition, they laid the foundation of a monastery." He adds, "it is uncertain how long they continued in exile; Boethius thinks forty-two years; returning in the year 422. Herford, king of the Picts, received them kindly, gave them his own palace with certain lands ad