ABFSSINIA. 253 



the queen appointed him her son's tutor. Frumentius 

 inculcated in him great veneration and love for the 

 Christian religion, and he then proceeded to Alex- 

 andria to inform Bishop Athanasius of his hope of 

 converting Abyssinia to Christianity, and to ask him 

 to send there a number of men capable of spreading 

 instruction among the people. 



Athanasius consecrated him Bishop of Axoum, and 

 on his return the king publicly embraced Christianity. 

 The greater part of Abyssinia followed his example, 

 and the Church of Ethiopia has endured down to our 

 own day. 



It appears that the conversion took place peaceably 

 and without any effusion of blood. This was the 

 second time that the empire changed its faith in the 

 same orderly fashion, no fanatical preachers or over- 

 zealous saints causing any disturbance. If war has 

 at various periods desolated Abyssinia, it has been for 

 purely temporal reasons. 



Towards the year 1200, while Lalibala reigned in 

 Abyssinia, the Christians were violently persecuted 

 in Egypt. Amru, the lieutenant of the Caliph Omar, 

 had then completed the conquest of that kingdom, and 

 the masons and stone-cutters suffered more than any 

 of the others, as the Arabs had a special detestation 

 of those trades. Lalibala offered many of them 

 a refuge, and employed them in hewing out of the 

 solid rock in the province of Lasta, his native place, a 

 number of churches which are still intact. 



