104 



WILLIAM DALE, ESQ., F.G.S., F.S.A., ON 



was Constantius Chlorus who was then the Caesar in Britain, and he 

 was favourable to Christianity . 



He thought the historian. J. R. Green, and others, had gone too 

 far in seeking for the origins of our nation wholly in Germany, and 

 believed that although it was true that the Anglo-Saxons conquered 

 the British, they mingled with them much as the Xormans after- 

 wards mingled with the Saxons. 



Dr. ScHOFiELD having to leave early made the following remarks 

 on a paper which was read at the discussion: — There can be no 

 doubt of the value and interest of this much too short paper. It is 

 well established that there was in Great Britain an organised 

 Christian church for some hundred years before the Anglian (Danisli) 

 invasion in 449. It must be remembered that Constantine the Great, 

 son of Queen Helena, was crowned at York in 306. That the first 

 Christian Council at Nice was held under him in 325, and also that 

 Paganism had been suppressed and made illegal through the whole 

 Roman Empire 27 years before the Romans finally left England in 

 418, when they left a flourishing English church, and no sign of 

 British or Roman idolatry (Encyclopaedia Britt.) then existed- 



The Danish conquest swept all this away, and was a heathen 

 triumph, and when 100 years later St. Augustine in 597. brought 

 Christianity again into England, it was in no way founded on the 

 ancient British-Roman church. 



It must be remembered, too, that Christianity in England never 

 came from British sources. Romans planted Christianity here 

 twice over. Its earliest introduction is unknown ; but there is in 

 my mind little doubt that He who knew all from the beginning, 

 referred to this country in the last words He spoke on earth, when 

 he spoke of the " uttermost parts of the earth " (the well-kncwn 

 " Ultima Thule" of Rome — the then name for Great Britain). 



Christianity may have been introduced as early as Apostolic 

 days, but certainly flourished in the third and fourth centuries 

 from its connection with Rome, only to be so thoroughly and almost 

 completely destroyed by the English or Angles (Danes) in the fifth 

 century. 



All through our history, after the Apostolic age, Rome planted 

 the truth here, and it never came from a British source — first of 

 all during the rule of the Caesars, and after under the Popes. In 

 a peculiar sense Christianity in this country is the daughter of the 

 Romish Church, long before the Roman Catholic Church that we 

 know was founded. Only in 597, by Augustine's mission here, was 

 this introduced and finally organised in 690, to be overthrown 

 many hundred years later as the Established religion of this country 

 at the Reformation. 



Remarks from Prebendary Fox on Mr. Dale's paper has an inter- 

 esting note in the prolegomena of 2 Timothy on Claudia. He goes 



