out the empire; they made war not only against the images of the saints, but against their relics; they tore them from their sanctuaries; they threw them into the gutters and into the rivers; they had them burnt with the bones of animals, so that the ashes could not be distinguished. These abominations lasted nearly another half century, and they found abettors as far as the West.*

Seventh Ecumenical Council (787).

At last God took pity on the unfortunate Eastern Church. Constantine Copronymus died of the plague in an expedition against the Bulgarians, in 775, after having ordered the restoration of the images of the Blessed Virgin and the saints, which he had passed his life in destroying. Leo the Khazar, his son, and husband of an Athenian named Irene, who was a Catholic, wished to follow the sad example of his father, Copronymus. Having one day found under the pillow of Irene's bed an image of Christ and of the Holy Virgin, he drove her ignominiously out of the palace. Leo soon ceased to reign. A premature death carried him off at the end of five years (780), and Irene became regent in the name of her son Constantine. The Catholics rejoiced at this event, the orthodox faith triumphed, and persecution ceased. Irene wrote to Pope Adrian to beg him to help her in healing the wounds of the Eastern Church. Adrian received these propositions with great joy, and the Seventh Ecumenical Council was opened at Nicæa, in the Church of St. Sophia. The pope's legates, Peter, archpriest of the Roman Church, and another Peter, abbot of the Monastery of

* L'Abbe Jorrey Histoire de l'Eglise et des Papes.

St. Sabas, presiding (27th September, 787). Three hundred and seventy-seven bishops were present at it.

The fathers all cried out with one voice that the faith expressed in the letters of Adrian was their own; the question of images was solemnly decided according to the laws of written and unwritten tradition. They anathematised an iconoclast conventicle held in 754, at Constantinople, in the reign of Copronymus, and they pronounced the following decree: "After having care"fully examined the question, we have decided that the "sacred images of our Lord Jesus Christ, of his holy "Mother, of the Angels, and of the Saints, ought to be replaced in the churches, the oratories, and private "houses. Special kinds of worship ought to be given to "them; not that of adoration or Latria, which only "belongs to God, but that of veneration and honour; "for he who reveres images reveres those whom they "represent. Such is the doctrine of the holy fathers, "and the tradition of the Catholic Church throughout "the entire universe."

This decision is so clear and so conformable to reason, that one cannot understand how the heresy of the iconoclasts could have troubled the East during the period of half a century, and caused rivers of blood to flow. Alas! we have seen the same scenes renewed in the sixteenth century; the images were then also proscribed by new iconoclasts; Protestantism wished also to proscribe with great force a worship which had nothing pertaining to idolatry or unreasonableness. The demon who inspires heresy, knows well that one means of detaching people from religion, is to prohibit exterior signs man is not a pure spirit; when there is nothing to strike the senses, the soul finds itself half-disarmed.

A later translation of the Council of Nicæa, was sent to the bishops of Germany and of Gaul; an expression which was badly translated, made them think that the

Greeks adored images, and they refused at first to receive the council. This difficulty was removed when the mistake was properly explained.

§ II. THE CHURCH OF THE WEST AND THE CARLOVINGIANS.

The Western Church presented a more consoling spectacle than did the Eastern Church, for its members, being younger nationalities, did not embarrass themselves with Greek subtilties, and advanced more and more resolutely in the path of Christian civilisation, whilst intrepid and holy missionaries extended the Christian empire to other pagan nations.

St. Boniface.

We have already spoken of the missionaries furnished by England, who ceased not, since her conversion, to re-act on the countries which were already Christian, and on those still ignorant of the Gospel. In the seventh century the Isle of the Saints, as it was called, had produced St. Columban and St. Gall; towards the end of the same century, England furnished St. Willibrord, the apostle of the Frisons; in the eighth she produced also Venerable Bede, the most learned man of his time, and St. Boniface, the apostle of the Germans, who worked several years with St. Willibrord.

St. Boniface was born in 680, in the county of Devon, and received the name of Winfred, which Pope St. Gregory changed later on to that of Boniface (Bonifacius, one who does good), when he gave him in 719 the mission of preaching the Gospel amongst all the infidel nations of Germany, and of baptising them conformably to the Roman rite. Boniface travelled through Bavaria and Thuringia, where he baptised a great number of infidels. Knowing that Charles Martel favoured, with

all his power, the preaching of the Gospel, he repaired to Friseland, where he worked for the salvation of souls with St. Willibrord; but when he learnt that this saint thought of making him his successor, he abandoned the Friseland mission, in order to remove from himself the burden of the episcopate. He went through Hesse and a part of Saxony, baptising the pagans everywhere on his road, and building churches on the ruins of the temples consecrated to the idols. The account which he gave to the pope of his mission induced St. Gregory II. to recall him to Rome, in order to ordain him bishop. He gave him also jurisdiction over the churches that he should found in Germany. St. Boniface set out again from Rome with very pressing letters of recommendation from the pope to the different Christian princes, whom Gregory exhorted with all his powers, to patronise this apostolic missioner. The King of the Lombards, Luitprand, greeted Boniface with the greatest respect. The missionary traversed Bavaria, and halted first in Thuringia. Charles Martel, whom he visited, committed to him very favourable letters, addressed to all the tributary chiefs of Germany who were his allies.

The life of Boniface was entirely spent in the indefatigable exercises of a laborious apostolate. Fortified with the protection of the two greatest powers of his time, France and the Popes, we see him preaching in Germany, founding churches and monasteries for the converted tribes, extinguishing the wars that the barbarians carried on amongst themselves, profiting of the truces to recommence his apostolic course, plunging himself into the darkest depths of the forests of Thuringia and Franconia, and appearing to the powerful ones of the earth as if he was sent by heaven, for his voice was listened to by them all. He returned a third time to Rome, during the pontificate of Gregory III., who gave him the archiepiscopal pallium, as an insignia of

his jurisdiction over the whole of Germany. He chose Mayence for his archiepiscopal See, and he had three suffragan bishoprics. After having given them an organization which was not to be easily broken, and having consecrated his successor, according to the permission that he had received, he returned to his apostolic life, and undertook once more the conversion of the Frisons.

One

Apostle of Germany, Archbishop of Mayence, chosen some years before to anoint Pepin King of the Franks, Boniface was, after the Pope, the most venerated and celebrated man in all Christendom. glory was wanting to him, that of martyrdom, and God did not to deprive his faithful servant of this crown. "Build churches," said he to his successor; "assemble "councils, evangelise infidels. As for me, I am going "to end my pilgrimage; I cannot leave the way I have 'always followed. My end is near; you, my son, "after you have finished the church that I have begun "(that of Fulda), will deposit in its vaults my poor "body, weighed down with suffering and years, if you "can obtain it. Your filial solicitude will provide for "my last wants; prepare the shroud which will soon "be wanted to wrap round my poor worn out body." Then Boniface embarked on the Rhine, and plunged into the forests of Friseland, with some companions. A great number of Frisons were converted and received baptism; he fixed the Vigil of Pentecost for the confirmation of the neophytes. As the church would not hold them all, he proposed to administer the sacrament in the open air. The place he chose was situated near Dockum, not far from the little river of Bordac, six miles from Leuwarden. He ordered his tents to be pitched, and went there on the day fixed (5th June, 755). Whilst he was praying there, awaiting the neophytes, a troop of rushed pagans upon him. His servants wished to defend him, but the saint would not allow it. The