CHAPTER XXI.

SECOND CONFERENCE.

THE parties separated upon the understanding that the Conference was to be renewed. The questions raised were too great to be determined at once; the British Christians could not but see that, however secondary the concessions required of them, the points in debate could not be yielded without involving very fundamental changes in their ecclesiastical condition. The proposals, at all events, had taken them in some measure by surprise; the proceedings at the first Conference had been more or less abrupt and tumultuary; the representation of their Church was inadequate; they wanted leisure for consideration, with the opportunity of taking counsel in prudent quarters, and of rallying their forces for a second and final encounter.

The British Church, notwithstanding its depression, furnished at this time specimens of the religious state both in community and in solitude. Of the former kind was the great monastery of Bancor, in Flintshire, sometimes confounded with Bangor, in Caernarvonshire, This monastery was in a very prosperous condition, being tenanted by no less than 2100 monks, drawn no doubt from the Scottish and Irish Churches in communion with the ancient British. And it seems to have been strictly ordered as well as flourishing; the monks being distributed into seven classes, who took it by turns to conduct the Divine office in choir. The name of the

abbot at this time was Dinoot or Dinoth; and he commanded, it is said, not less by his high theological acquirements, than by his prominent station, the universal respect of the Church. He therefore was at once taken into consultation upon the important subject of the late Conference, and engaged to be present at its reassembling on a given day.

But one there was whose judgment carried yet more of oracular weight with the Church of his time. This was an ancient solitary, whose abode the Welsh reader, or the reader who is familiar with Wales, will fix, in his imagination, in some secluded glen of the Alpine district of Caernarvon or Merioneth, where placid lake or gurgling stream would furnish to the hand the scant and primitive repast, and howling winds make silence audible, and some 'giant brotherhood' of mountains seem to keep sentinel against the intrusion of the world. Little recked he of strifes and debates, of subtle questions and high controversies; content if haply he might learn day by day to solve that one chief problem whose solution is at last the triumph of all spiritual skill, the saving of one's own soul. Each member has his own office in Christ's body; and the work of hermits is to combat the world not by the weapons, legitimate and needful as they are, of deep penetrative wisdom and argumentative power, and dexterous ecclesiastical tact, but by the violence of prayer and the silent logic of holy living. Yet in simple times,-nay, and with guileless minds in every time, such marvels of sanctity will ever be invested with somewhat of the dignity of oracles; the very romance which surrounds them will be favourable to their influence; and no doubt, as compared with mere cleverness, the "harmlessness of the dove" is as much better a guide in practical matters, as, in the

same subjects, the "wisdom of the serpent" in union with that same singleness of heart and eye, is superior to both.

Our solitary of the Cambrian desert had to pay the forfeit of his great celebrity. One day, and to all appearance like other days, when dreaming, perhaps, of nothing less, his privacy was invaded by a party of grave inquirers, and his powers of discrimination taxed, as we may say, beyond all warrant, to determine a question meeter for Pope or Council, than for a private Christian like himself. Upon the issue of that question it depended whether thousands of Christians scattered in different parts of the British isles should at once be linked to the centre of unity, or remain, perhaps for centuries, to say the least, in a very equivocal position. Yet who shall deny that there is something very attractive to the imagination, and even congenial to the moral and spiritual instinct in this recourse, under circumstances of difficulty, to such a man of God? Who shall question that there is something most thoroughly unworldly about it? Who can fail to trace in it a recognition of the power of prayer, an homage to the majesty of holiness? In truth, when churches are insulated and crippled, as that of ancient Britain was, individual sanctity will be ever apt to supply the place of an ultimate authority, and its verbal expressions be accepted almost as the accents of a voice from the other world.

The response from the hermit's cell was just of the kind which might have been expected; full of sweet simplicity, and obviously wanting in practical wisdom. "If he be a man of God, follow him." "But how," rejoined the inquirers, “shall we prove that he is such?” Lord," was the answer, "hath said, "Take My yoke upon you and learn of Me, for I am meek and lowly in

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heart.' And if Augustine be meek and lowly, belike he beareth Christ's yoke himself, and proposeth to you to bear it. But, contrariwise, if he be cruel and proud, then, of a surety, no man of God is he, nor do his words concern us." "But how," persisted they, 66 are we to know this also?" "Cause," was the answer, "that he and his come first to the place of meeting, and if he rise as you draw near, then know that he is the servant of Christ, and hear, and obey him. But if he make light of you, and forbear to rise as ye come in, being more in number, then my counsel is that ye too make light of him." Thereupon the deputies withdrew, promising compliance with the suggestion.

Truly such simplicity has almost the air of craft; this criterion of humility upon which, in the innocence of his heart, and as if for want of a better, the good hermit stumbles, savours almost of the spirit of the world, And perhaps this is not the only instance in which one Christian quality, apart from its corrective, may even wear the semblance, and work the results, of its very opposite. The moral and spiritual virtues must be balanced to prevent an overthrow. Where was it ever heard but in the courts of princes and the halls of fashion, that peace and love should be marred for the sake of an etiquette? Doubtless the Church has her "etiquettes," her minute and delicate proprieties, as well as the world; but to lay stress on them, to reckon upon them with carefulness, or to be absorbed by them, or even to think of them a second time, this belongs rather to the spirit of the world than of the Church. Little thought the apostle of England what mighty results for good or for ill depended upon the performance or neglect of that complimentary gesture.

The second Synod was conducted with far greater

solemnity than the first. The representation of the British Church was more complete, and the proceedings, it would appear, more regular. The Archbishop was attended, as on the former occasion, by SS. Mellitus and Justus, who were, probably, even at that time, designated to their respective sees of London and Rochester. He came, too, in his pontifical robes, with the ensign of metropolitical rank with which he had lately been invested. On the other side there are said to have been no fewer than seven bishops, though it does not appear that more than three sees were at the time occupied in Wales; that is to say, St. David's, Elwy (afterwards St. Asaph's), and Llandaff. If more than three bishops were present, the remainder must have come from some of the adjoining counties, which were possibly at that early period included within the Welsh frontier. Historians pronounce that there was then no archbishop in Wales; Caerleon having merged in Llandaff, and the last Archbishop of Menevia having carried the pall over sea into Lesser Brittany in the year 560. Among the British deputies present at the Council was the venerable Dinoth, abbot of Bancor.

The issue of the Conference was practically determined by the mode of reception which the Archbishop of Canterbury adopted towards the representatives of the British Church. As a fact, he received them sitting. Different reasons have been assigned for this apparent discourtesy, of which that which has principally obtained is that such practice is, after all, in accordance with ecclesiastical rule. A great precedent is quoted in the case of St. Cyril at the Council of Ephesus. It is said that where a synod is conducted in due form, with the presiding bishop in pontificalibus, the act of rising at the entrance of each deputy would create an incon

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