imposed, by fraud
or violence, the rites of baptism; and punished the apostasy of the
Catholics, if they disclaimed this odious and profane ceremony, which
scandalously violated the freedom of the will, and the unity of the
sacrament. The hostile sects had formerly allowed the validity of each
other's baptism; and the innovation, so fiercely maintained by the
Vandals, can be imputed only to the example and advice of the Donatists.
VII. The Arian clergy surpassed in religious cruelty the king and his
Vandals; but they were incapable of cultivating the spiritual vineyard,
which they were so desirous to possess. A patriarch might seat himself
on the throne of Carthage; some bishops, in the principal cities, might
usurp the place of their rivals; but the smallness of their numbers, and
their ignorance of the Latin language, disqualified the Barbarians for
the ecclesiastical ministry of a great church; and the Africans, after
the loss of their orthodox pastors, were deprived of the public exercise
of Christianity. VIII. The emperors were the natural protectors of the
Homoousian doctrine; and the faithful people of Africa, both as Romans
and as Catholics, preferred their lawful sovereignty to the usurpation
of the Barbarous heretics. During an interval of peace and friendship,
Hunneric restored the cathedral of Carthage; at the intercession of
Zeno, who reigned in the East, and of Placidia, the daughter and relict
of emperors, and the sister of the queen of the Vandals. But this decent
regard was of short duration; and the haughty tyrant displayed his
contempt for the religion of the empire, by studiously arranging the
bloody images of persecution, in all the principal streets through which
the Roman ambassador must pass in his way to the palace. An oath was
required from the bishops, who were assembled at Carthage, that they
would support the succession of his son Hilderic, and that they would
renounce all foreign or _transmarine_ correspondence. This engagement,
consistent, as it should seem, with their moral and religious duties,
was refused by the more sagacious members of the assembly. Their
refusal, faintly colored by the pretence that it is unlawful for a
Christian to swear, must provoke the suspicions of a jealous tyrant.

Chapter XXXVII: Conversion Of The Barbarians To Christianity.--Part IV.

The Catholics, oppressed by royal and military force, were far superior
to their adversaries in numbers and learning. W