Sketches of Church History.

Waiapu Church Gazette, Volume I, Issue 9, 1 March 1911, Page 141

Sketches of Church History.

In these calm peaceful days it is difficult for any of us, more especially for the young, to realise that there really was a time when Christians were persecuted m the most awful and unjust and revolting manner possible ; when all classes, from the noble to the peasant, and from the Bishop to the latest neophyte, were called upon to die painful deaths for love of the " new religion " and their Divine Master, Jesus Christ. Yet so it was, and Christians were made scapegoats for all sorts of crimes falsely attributed to them, As, for instance, when the

Emperor Nero, wishing to rehuild a part of Rome, caused the city to he set on fire, and then to appease the populace declared it was the work of " the Christians," and illuminated his palace gardens with their bodies soaked m pitch or oil. S. Peter and S. Paul suffered martyrdom under Nero. The Emperor Trajan caused Ignatius, the aged Bishop of Antioch, to he thrown to the wild beasts m the Collosseum at Rome, and Polycarp, the Bishop of Smyrna (appointed by S. John himself), was burnt alive. A number of persons, men, women, and children, who had met for worship m the secret recesses of the catacombs under the city of Rome, were walled up alive, and Sixtus, Bishop of Rome, was executed. A few days later his chief (Deacon Laurence), was fried alive on an immense gridiron, on the Viminal Hill, at Rome. There were, m all, ten great perse-: cutions of Christians m those early days, during which thousands of innocent men, women, and children were ruthlessly slaughtered m the endeavour to stamp out the "new religion," yet m spite of all the church grew. It grew because God's Holy Spirit enabled the persecuted to bear a wonderful witness for Him and His truth, and so m very deed, the " blood of the martyrs became the seed of the Church." But this is going back m point of time, for all these persecutions took place before the year 319. Still it is well to remember that the Faith we sometimes think so lightly of, was such a real thing to thousands of saints of old time, that they were "faithful unto death," even when that death meant the most frightful that the malevolence of man could devise. Let us now turn to those famous saints of the church from whom we immediately derive our own Christianity, and let us also remember that the church, of which they. were such noble members, is the same Catholic Church of which you and I are members to-day. Aiban was a rich young Roman, living m England at a place called Verulani. Being converted to Christianity by a refugee priest, he was executed, and the town and cathedral of S. Albans are called after him. S. Germanus had just baptized numbers of the British or Welsh, when the fierce Picts swooped down upon them. Germanus gathered his converts together, unarmed, and all m their white baptismal robes, and as the Picts rushed on, their fierce onset was stayed by a grand burst of

"Alleluia, Alleluia, Alleluia," resounding like thunder, which so dismayed them that they fled. S. Patrick was the son of a deacon, and was carried off one day and sold to Milchu, King of Nqrth Dalaradia, and sent by him to tend sheep on the lonely Irish mountains.. For six long years was Patrick m servitude, but at last escaped to his parents. Those six years had convinced the youth of his mission, and at the age of twenty-two, Patrick began to earnestly prepare himself for his great work by arduous study of the '* scriptures m vaiious monasteries. Being eventually made deacon, and then priest, he was at last consecrated as Bishop of the Irish. Space forbids an account of his labours, but he was m very deed the " Apostle to the Irish, and helped by S. Bridget, and loyally supported by other holy men and women, succeeded m converting the fierce and idolatrous Irish to the sweet and peaceful religion of Jesus Christ, and Ireland became an "Isle of Saints," from whence Missionaries were sent to Iceland, to the Faroe Islands, to Scotland, and all over Europe. In 563 S. Columba set out for Scotland from Ireland. With twelve friends he founded the monastery of lona, where for a long time the Kings of Scotland were crowned over the famous stone which now rests under the Coronation Chair m West-, minster Abbey, and which is soon to be used again for the Coronation of George V., our sailor King. Tradition has it that this stone is the one which Jacob had for a pillow at Bethel (Genesis xxviii., 18). After much laborious missionary work the good Columba fell asleep on Whitsunday, 597. -A.WJt.