and life--and a Church of England
taking her place, at once independent and subordinate, in the swift
development of human progress, both conservative and creative--this
difference is quite incalculable. And the mission of St. Augustine made
the difference.

The triumph of Christianity depended--apart from its divine
authority--upon the thorough organization of the Christian communities;
and that organization had for its centre the Episcopacy. But as separate
congregations without a bishop could never have escaped disintegration,
so the united congregations, with their presbyters and bishop, would
have been powerless without some further organization, uniting the
bishops, with well-defined regulations, under some recognized hierarchy
of authority. Thus arose metropolitan sees, and the great patriarchates
of the Catholic Church--Jerusalem, Antioch, Rome, Alexandria,
Constantinople. This centralization was rendered necessary by the course
of events; but it had otherwise no divine authority and might be
modified just as validly as it was created. When the Roman Empire was
submerged under the deluge of barbarian races, a yet closer
centralization became necessary, at least in the West; and the ark in
which floated over that terrible deluge not only the Christian religion,
but the remains of ancient civilization, both Greek and Roman, was the
patriarchate of Rome. The man who not only clearly perceived, but was
absolutely compelled to assume, his awful responsibility in the West,
the Saviour at once of the Church and the world, was the splendid
pontiff, Gregory the Great; the great pontiff who sent St. Augustine and
his companions to preach the gospel to the English conquerors of
Britain. If we would clearly understand the work of St. Augustine we
must free our minds from the illusion produced by familiar names. One of
these is the name Britain. In the time of Gregory the Great the island
called by that name was, of course, the same as that on which Julius
Caesar had landed. The barbarians whom Caesar encountered had been subdued
by his successors, and a Roman province had been formed. Roman
civilization had been introduced and, one might almost say, had
flourished. The Christian religion had found its way thither; there had
been Christian congregations and bishops, and even a heresiarch. But
Rome, in the struggle for her own existence, had been compelled to
withdraw her legions from the province of Britain; and to leave the