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the conquerors of Rome held sway, there the priests of Rome obtained a
sway also. But the one little fragment of the primitive Church, which
had been so curiously cut off during the great contest, was beyond the
sway of the conquerors of Rome, as it had been beyond the sway of the
Emperors themselves. Hence, while the Church, as united to Rome, grew up
in one great uniform hierarchy, the small, isolated Church in the West
grew up with different usages and characteristics; and when afterwards
those who followed them were charged with schism, they asserted that
they had their canons and usages directly from the apostles, from whom
they had obtained the Gospel and the regulations of the Church pure and
undefiled. Thus arose the renowned contest between the early Scottish
Church and the rest of Christendom about the proper period of observing
Easter, and about the form of the tonsure. Hence, too, arose the debates
about the peculiar discipline of the communities called Culdees, who,
having to frame their own system of church government for themselves,
humble, poor, and isolated as they were, constructed it after a
different fashion from the potent hierarchy of Rome. The history of
these corporations possesses extreme interest, even to those who follow
it without a predetermined design to identify every feature of their
arrangements with a modern English diocese, or with a modern Scottish
presbytery; and not the least interesting portion of this history is its
conclusion, in the final absorption, not without a struggle, of these
isolated communities within the expanding hierarchy of the Popes.

In a few humble architectural remains, these primitive bodies have left
vestiges of their peculiar character to the present day. Neither
deriving the form of their buildings nor their other observances from
Rome, they failed to enter with the rest of the Church on that course of
construction which led towards Gothic architecture. The earliest
Christian churches on the Continent were constructed on the plan of the
Roman basilica, or court of justice, and wherever the Church of Rome
spread, this method of construction went with her. The oldest style of
church-building--that which used to be called Saxon, and is now
sometimes termed Norman, and sometimes Romanesque--degenerated directly
from the architecture of Rome. There are ecclesiastical buildings in
France and Italy, of which it might fairly be debated, from their style,
whether t