The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1869-11-24
TIE DECEmBER MAGAzfNEs.
unARpKR,s."

Turner Brothers & Go. send us Hdiper's
Mogdgsne for December, which has the fol-
lowing list of articles
'Frederick the Great, illustrated; "Beast,
Bird, aad Fish," illustrated "a Passing
Wish" 1.-The Fshermans Daughters"
Dolly" "The University Rowing Match,
illustrated; "A Brave Lady," illustrated;
'My Enemy's Daughter" concluded; "a
Mistakes" "Horse Tanning in Hawaii" "Gcu-
menical Councils;" "The Old Fairy joanna
'Border "reminiscences" 'By the Wayside;"
'Tn Clover" ''Editors Easy Chair" Editors
Literary Record; " Editors Scientific Record;"
Editors Historical Record" Editors
Drawer"
The feature of this number of the maga-
zine is the elaborate and comprehensive paper
on "Ucumenical Councils" from which we
quote the following account of the Council of
Nice
At the splendid city of Mecca, in Bithynia,
in the year 325, assembled the first of those
great Ecumenical Councils whose DEGREES
have SO often controlled the destiny of
Christianity and of mankind. 1t was an oc-
casion of triumph and fond congratulations,
for the Christian Church had just risen up
from period of unexampled humiliation and
suffering to rule over the Roman world. For
nearly three centuries since the death of their
Divine Head his pious disciples had toiled in
purity and love, persecuted or scorned by the
dominant pagans, for the conversion of the
human race; and the humble but persistent
missionaries had sealed with innumerable
martyrdoms and ceaseless woes the final
triumph of their faith. Yet never
in all its early history had the
Christian Church seemed so near its perfect
extinction as in the universal persecution of
Diocletian and his Caesars, when the pagan
rulers could boast with an appearance of truth
that they had extirpated the hated sect with
fire and sword. In the year 304, except in
Gaul, every Christian temple lay in ruins, and
the terrified worshippers no longer ventured
to meet in their sacred assemblies; the holy
books had been burned, the church property
confscated by the pagan magistrates, the
church members had perished in fearful tor
tures, or fled for safety to the savage wilder
ness; and throughout the Roman world no
man dared openly to call himself Christian.
Gradually, with the slow prevalence of Con-
stantine the Great, as his victorious legions
passed steadily onward from Gaul to Italy, and
from Italy to Syria, the manned and bleeding
victims of persecution came out from their
hiding-places, and bishops and people,
purified by suffering, celebrated once
more their holy rites in renewed sim
plicity and faith. Yet it was not until the
year preceding the first Gcumenical
Council that the Eastern Christians had
ceased to be roasted over slow fires, lacerated
with iron hooks, or mttilated with fatal tor
lures; and Lactantius, contemporary, could
point to the ruins of city in Phyrgia whose
whole population had been burned to ashes
because they refused to sacrifice to Jupiter and
Juno. And now, by a strange and sudden rev.
olution, the martyr bishops andpresbyters had
been summoned from their distant retreats in
the monastries of the Thebaid or the sands of
Arabia, from Africa or Gaul, to cross the dan
gerous seas, the inclement mountains, and
to meet in a general synod at Mecca, to legis-
late for the Christian world. We may we'll
conceive the Joy and triumph of these holy
fathers as they heard the glad news of the
final victory of the faith, and fastened in
long and painful journeys to unite in fond
congratulations in their solemn assembly; as
they looked for the first time upon each
others faces and saw the wounds inflicted by
the prosecutors hand; as they gazed on the
blinded eyes, the torn members, the emaci-
ated frames; as they encountered at every
step men whose fame for piety, genius and
learning was renowned from Antioch to Cor
dova; or studied with grateful interest the
form and features of the imperial catechu-
men, who, although the lowest in rank of all
the church dignitaries, had made Christianity
Inc ruunB laltn from Drltdln 10 tne ARABIAN
Sea.
Nice or Nicma fair and populous Greek
city of Asia Minor, had been appointed by
Constantine as the place of meeting for the
council, probably because the fine roads that
centred from various directions in it's market
place offered an easy access to the pilgrims of
the East. The city stood-its ruins still stand
on the shores of Lake Ascania, not far from
the Mediterranean Sea, and on the way to the
plains of Troy; it had been adorned with fine
buildings by the kings of Bithynia, and en-
riched by the Roman emperors; in after ages
1T was shaken by great earthquake just after
the council had dissolved; it became the prey
successfully of the Saracen, the Turk, and the
Crusaders; and when a modern traveller
visited its site to gaze on the scene where
Athanasius had ravished pious ears by his
youthful eloquence, and where Constan-
tine had assembled the Christian world,
he found only waste of ruins in the
midst of the ancient walls. The lake
was still there; the fragments of aque-
ducts, theatres, temples. A village of few
hundred houses, supported chiefly by the cul-
ture of the mulberry tree, sheltered beneath
ats ruined walls; and an ill-built Greek
church, of crumbling brick work and modern
architecture, was pointed out to the traveller
rs the place where had met, nearly fifteen
centuries before, the Council of Nice.
The bishops, in number three hundred and
eighteen, together with many priests and
other officials, assembled promptly at the Cal
of the Emperor, and in June, 325, met in 8
basihca or public hall in the centre of the
city. Few particulars are preserved of the
proceedings Of the great council, and We
are forced to gather from the illusions Of
fha historians n general concaption M