Arizona republican., 1907-02-18
PLANTING OF
CHRISTIANITY
A Lecture by DR.. Atwood
of Trinity
The Establishment of the
Church In England His
Theme.

Church In England His
Theme.
Yesterday afternoon at Trinity
church Rev. ]. w. Atwood, d. D.. gave
. the first of a course of lectures on the
history of the church. DIR. Atwood's
theme was The Early British Church
and the Missionary Labors of st. CO.
lumba." He said in substance:
For the planting of Christianity in
England we have to go back to a time
before the English themselves came
from the plains and marshes of north
ern Germany, where the waves Of the
Baltic and the North sea beat against
the barren coast, to found the might
lest nation that Christian history has
yet produced. You know from the
pages of secular history, how, before
the time OF Christ, Caesar brought his
Roman legions into Britain and found
there a rude and savage people. For
400 years after the coming of Jesus
Christ the Romans ruled Britain, as
they ruled most of the known world Of
that time. Dim and shadowy is the
history of that time, and dim and shad-
owy is the history of the church in
Britain in this dawning period Of its
origin. There is a tradition that St.
Paul, who, as we learn from the Epis-
ties, went to the remOtest west. car
ried Christianity to the land from
which we sprang. and thus gave its
apostolic origin to the Church of Eng
land. There is another legend of fas-
cinating interest which connects Joseph
of Arimathea with what is to all who
love the history OF England and its
church a spot Of great charm and alb
sOrbing interest. In the west Of Eng
land, in the county of Somerset, apart
from the great centers of English in
dustrial life and remote from the usual
road Of travellers and pilgrims from our
own country, but in the near neighbOr-
hood of the queen of cathedral cities
that of Wells. is the old town of Glas-
tOnbury. Here is the Isle of Avilon,"
celebrated in the story of King Arthur
as his place of burial and OF his queen,
Guinevere. Here Joseph of Arimathea
is said to have brought the holy cup
from which our Lord drank with his
disciples on the night of the Inaugural
ton Of the Lords supper. Here he tar
ried with his twelve companions, re-
ceiving from the prince of the country.
as described by Tennyson in The Idyls
Of the King
An isle OF marsh wherein to build
And there to build with wattles from
the marsh
Here he planted his staff to show that
his pilgrimage was over, and from this
staff sprang the famous thorn OF Glas-
tOnbury, which on each succeeding
Christmas day burst into beautiful and
fragrant blossom, in honor of the great
truth Of the incarnation and in eternal
memory Of the child Christ. Here. in
the southwest OF England was prob
ably seen the earliest establishment Of
the church of Jesus Christ, and throw
ing all legendary history aside, the fact
can hardly be disputed that Christian
ity was brought to the early BritOns
or Celts before the year 200. Two of
the most distinguished of the early
church fathers have been witness to
that fact. Tertullian, writing in the
year POS, declares that religion existed
among the BritOns in spots which had
never been visited by the Romans. while
a few years later. in 239. Origen, the
great teacher and scholar Of Alexan-
dria, asserts that Britain has one re-
ligion, and that one is the religion of
Jesus Christ" Christianity may have
been brought by the Roman soldiers
and may have prevailed to some ex-
tent among them. but 1t was principally
among the conquered inhabitants Of
the land and the poorer Roman pro-
vincials that it grew and flOurished.
The origin of British Christianity is 10
be traced probably to an eastern, rath-
er than to a western source. 1t is
thought in the first place to have come
through Gaul. or what we now know
as modern France. a Greek colony had
been established in Marseilles. Their
trade had been introduced into the
British isles, and as Christianity in
this present century has always fol-
lowed in the wake of English commerce
followed the example OF eastern mer-
chants who first introduced Christian
ity into their own country.
1t was i'm the year 304. i'm the time
of the great persecution under the Ro-
man emperor. DiOcletian. that we are
introduced to the first martyrs of the
British church. and one of the earliest
recorded incidents in her history. BY
sheltering a priest who believed in the
prosecuted doctrine Of the Christ, St.
Alban. Roman soldier. was converted
to the truth. and when the hiding
place of the priest was discovered he
exchanged clothes with him and went
to his torture and death, refusing to
sacrifice to the heather gods and to
deny his newborn faith. At the coun-