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 when and where they least expected. Then more solemn thoughts returned.

The whole of Egypt was ripe for Christianity. Ah, but for what kind of Christianity? That was the trouble. Fancy if, with Arius, it adopted the heresy of "Time was when He was not"! Fancy if it paltered with Gnosticism, and believed that creation, with its palaces and slums, is the result of a muddle! Fancy if it Judaized with Meletius, the disobedient Bishop of Assiout! Alexander had written to Meletius, asking him to Judaize less, but had had no reply. That was the disadvantage of a copious episcopy. You could never be sure that all the bishops would do the same thing. And there were dreadful examples in which flighty laymen had lost their heads, and, exclaiming, "Me be bishop too!" had run away into the desert before any one could stop them. The Emperor Constantine (that lion-hearted warrior !) was a further anxiety. Constantine so easily got mixed. Immersed in his town-planning, he might stamp some heresy as official and then the provinces would take it up. How difficult everything was! What was to be done? Perhaps the clergymen, when they arrived for lunch, would know. There used to be too little Christianity. Now there almost seemed too much. Alexander sighed, and looked over the harbour to the Temple of Neptune that stood on the promontory. He was growing old. Where was his successor?—someone who not exactly saintliness and scholarship, but someone who would codify, would define?

Stop! stop! Boys will be boys, but there are limits. They were playing at Baptism now, and