Ancient British History.

Christianity itself ; but I venture to think that the time will conic when mankind will forget Spanish inquisitions and Bartholomew massacres in the contemplation of the still greater outrages which have been systematically perpetrated by the Church of " Rome in the general interests ot humanity , by the wilful destruction and falsification of the records , and the blotting out as it ivere , from the page of human knowledge , of the lessons and the heroisms

stored up through long ages of human experience for the enlightenment and guidance of mankind . When Augustin received the reply ofthe bishops , he addressed to them words of which the significance remains to this day , "II you will not have peace from your brethren you shall have war from your enemies ; if you will not preach life to the Saxons you shall receive death at their hands . " Edilfrcd , King of

Norihumbria , afc the instigation of Augustin , forthwith poured fifty thousand men into the Vale Royal of Chester , the territory ofthe Prince of Powys , under whose auspices the conference had been held . Twelve hundred British priests of the t ' niyersity of Bangor having come out to view the battle , Edilfrcd directed his forces against them as they stood clothed in their white vestments and totally unarmedwatching the progress of the battle—they

, ivere massacred to a man . Advancing to the university itself , he put to death every priest and student therein and destroyed by fire the halls , colleges , and churches of the university'itself , thereby fulfilling , according to the words of the great . Saxon authority , called the Pious Bede , the prediction , as he terms it , of the blessed Augustin . The ashes of this noble monastery were still smoking its librariesthe collection of having been

; , ages , wholly consumed , and nought could be seen but the ruined walls , gates , and smouldering rubbish ofthe great University of Bangor when the British force returned to gaze upon the hallowed spot , after having all but annihilated in fair conflict the spoilers .

To convey to you some idea ofthe state ofthe British church at this time 1 cannot do better than quote the description given by Sir AVinston Churchill , the father of the Great Duko of Marlborough : —¦ " I take Bangor , endowed by King Lucius , to be as the first , so the greatest monastery that ever was—I say not in this island , but in any part of the world ; whose foundations were laid so deep , that none of the Roman emperors in the following

centuries , though for the most part violent persecutors , could undermine it , the religious continuing safe in the exercise of their religion , until the entrance of those accursed pagans , tho Saxons . " This description applies to this monastery long before Augustin fulfilled , as before mentioned , his own prophecies—its colleges , libraries , & c , are said to have covered a square of five miles from gate to gate ; and being the national university for agriculture , "

theology , science ancl literature , where the learningand the national records of ages were chiefly preserved , it was unquestionably a master stroke of Romish policy to uproot such an institution . This was a necessary preliminary step to that systematic perversion of the early liistory of Britain , which the Saxon monks immediately set about , and which they and their successors have faithfully prosecuted , and with extraordinary success upheld even to the present day . The art of printing , by which all that is worthy of preservation in the literature or history of a nation is scattered broadcast

over the world , makes it impossible for us afc the present day to conceive the extent of national loss which it was thus in the power of Augustin to inflict ; for supposing for a moment that our contemporary , Cardinal Wiseman , after having failed in his attempt to supersede the Archbishop of Canterbury , had so aroused the popish patriotism of his friends in Ireland as to have effected , by their means , the destruction of the library of the British Museum , and all the other collections of literature that

be could meet with , it would still be utterly impossible for him or his successors to deny , or materially to pervert , the Protestant liistory of this country for the last three centuries . Such , however , was the task that Augustin ancl his monks boldly entered upon , and to an extent which seems almost incredible , did actually accomplish ; and ifc is only now in quite recent times that the veil by whicli early British history , in common

with that of the church , was thus hidden from view , has in some degree been raised and removed . AVhen Mr . Kemble the author of the Hislorij of Ihe . Aitf / lo-. SVcroii . - , - , sat down to write that history , he probably entered upon the task with a patriotic desire to justify the national pride with ivhich we have been taught to regard our Anglo-Saxon progenitorsbut with that lish honesty ivhich has ever been in the

, Eng long run fatal to priestcraft and its pretensions , he thus confesses his disappointment . " 'The more I examine the question the more completely I am convinced that the received accounts ofthe Saxon immi gration and subsequent fortunes and ultimate

settlement , arc devoid of historical truth in every detail ; " and he further admits as the result of his investigation , that the Saxon Church was essentially the child of papal Rome ; that her clergy were the emissaries of Rome , and that what we term the Saxon histories are nothing else than the writings of monks of the-Roman church , animated by a spirit of intense hatred and mendacity towards the British church and nationality . '' The Saxons

themselves brought no alphabet with them into Britain , thc-y adoptcd the British ; most of the terms of agriculture , domestic , and civil life supposed to be Saxon are pure British , unchanged since the days of Ciesar . Resuming the analogy between the mission of Augustin iu the sixth century and that of Cardinal Wiseman at the present day . it is but justice to the former prelate to observe that the

difficulties which ho had to surmount in his conference with the British bishops were incomparably greater than his successor has to deal with . Cardinal Wiseman , as we all know , speaks of the Church of Rome as the undoubted heir of Christ and the apostles , and that the traditions which that church offers us in lien of the Bible have come down from Christ himself in unbroken apostolic succession ; whereasAugustinin the sixth centurymust haye

, , , used arguments of a totally different and even opposite character ; for he and all the world knew that the British church was in fact not only the oldest but might almost , be considered the original seat of Christianity . Not only , as is alleged with good grounds for the statement , had many of the apostles themselves , but undoubtedly all the leading disciples of Christianity had for centuries been driven to this island by the persecution of pagan

Rome itself ; and Britain had been the sanctuary ancl refuge of those who were persecuted for their Christianity , as it has ever been of those who , in all parts of the world , in all ages and ou pretexts the most various and diverse , have suffered persecution . Christianity was never known at Rome except as the subject of persecution until the elevation of Constantino the Great . He was a British prince , elected by the British legions of Rome in

Britain to the scat , of empire , and he it was who finally overthrew heathenism and established Christianity upon its ruins . True to British traditions , it was his intention to have rebuilt the ancient city of Troy and to have transferred thereto from Rome the seat of empire , ' Having established Christianity throughout the Roman world , he converted his new city of Constantinople into a . kind of patriarchate , and there were some facts well known to all who were ofthe of

present at this conference which made the pretensions Pope Rome to constitute himself Bishop of Bishops , or head of the church , supremely absurd and contradictory . The facts were these—A Christian prelate of Constantinople , called John the Patriarch , had a few years previously assumed this very title of Bishop of Bishops , or Pope , ancl this being generally protested against by the Christian church , was by none more strenuously

resisted than by the Bishop of Rome ; and Gregory , who was then Bishop of Rome , wrote to the said John , stating that whoever assumed this title was indisputably the very Antichrist ^ foreshadowed in the Hol y Scriptures . Shortly after this authoritative denunciation of the Patriarch John by the Bishop of Rome , one Phocas , a captain of the Roman Pretorian guard , attained the position of EmperorThe Patriarch of Constantinople refused

. to recognize him , and in this dilemma he applied to the Bishop of Rome , Boniface , the immediate successor of the same Gregory , who had , as before mentioned , denounced as Antichrist any one who should assume the title of Pope , and Boniface agreed at once to recognize the usurper Phocas provided he would confer upon him that identical title , which was accordingly done . It is recorded that the British bishops presented to Augustin a copy of desi

the letter by which his master , Pope Gregory , had thus gnated whoever should assume the title of Bishop of Bishops as the Antichrist of scripture , and one can therefore believe at onco the statement iu the Saxon Chronicle , which gives , ns ^ the only argument used by Augustin . in support of his master ' s pretensions , the following : — " If von will not have peace with us you shall ' perish at the hand of the Saxons ; " and we have seen in what manner he fulfilled what the Saxon Chronicle also calls his

" prophecies . " It ivas my wish to avoid as far as possible these theological features in our early history , but I found that they are inseparable from the subject . " The existence of the British church for six hundred years before the rise ofthe Roman papacy heing fatal to the pretensions upon which that power is based , it has ever been and still continues to he an essential point of ecclesiastical policy

and teaching to repudiate and deny every fact connected with it , ancl this could only be successfully done by consigning carly British history to oblivion . Iu further explanation and confirmation of this view-1 proceed