THE SOURCE OF THE NILE. 



357 



patriarch, and the caufe muft have been tried before the 

 civil judge. But Mendes was of another opinion. He order- 

 ed the nobleman to make his defence before the ecclefiafti- 

 cal tribunal ; and, upon his refufmg this as a novelty to 

 which he was not bound, he condemned him immediately 

 to reftore the lands to the monk. This, too, was refufed on 

 the part of the prefent poiTefTor, who being one day attend- 

 ing the king at church, the patriarch, without preamble, 

 pronounced againfl him a formal fentence of excommuni- 

 cation, by which he gave him over, foul and body, to the 

 devil. 



Such procedure was, till then, unknown in Abyffinia. 

 The nobleman, though otherwife brave, was fo much afFeA- 

 ed with the terms of his fentence as to faint, imagining: 

 himfelf already in the clutches of Satan, and it was with dif- 

 ficulty he was recovered, the king making intercefTion 

 with the patriarch to take off this cenfure, or rather this 

 curfe. 



Sudden as it was, however, in the inflieT:ing, and cafy in 

 the removal, it made very lafting and ferious imprcirions on 

 the minds of men of all ranks, greatly to the difadvantagc 

 of the patriarch and the profeilbrs of his new religion, in 

 the excrcife of which they did not difcover that degree of 

 charity, meeknefs, mercy, and long-fufFering, that they had 

 been taught were the very elTentials of it. 



The next inftance was this : There had been an Itchegue, 

 that is, the fuperior of the monks of Dcbra Lihanos, an Or- 

 der inftituted by AbbaTecla Haimanour, 'he kill Abyiiinian 

 Abuna, not more celebrated by the church tiian die itate, 



I as 



