Page:The Church of England, its catholicity and continuity.djvu/23

Rh It is probable that the Gospel was brought to Britain through another channel. Gaul, our modern France, may have had a great deal to do in Christianizing Britain. It was a Roman Province and it must have carried on trade with, the new British Province. We know that before the end of the second century Christianity was established in Gaul. When the Emperors of Rome persecuted the Christians in Italy they did not confine their persecution to that country alone. Gaul came in for a share of it, in fact every part of the Roman Empire where Christians were known to be. In Gaul, however, the persecution was especially severe. It is conjectured that at that time, in the year 177 A.D., many Christians escaped from Gaul, when the Church of Lyons and Vienne felt the Emperor's hand, and came to Britain, where Christianity was practically unknown. They, when the persecution was over, were probably the means of spreading the knowledge of the Gospel here. Professor Bright holds this view of the question. "It was almost certainly from Gaul," he says, "certainly not, as far as we can judge, directly from the East, that these out-posts, so to speak, of the advancing spiritual kingdom were sent forth among the Roman provincials of Britain. Their arrival may, with much probability, be dated either shortly before, or shortly after the persecution of Lyons and Vienne."

Whatever doubt there may be about the origin and exact time of the introduction of the Gospel into England, we can speak with certainty of the early date when Christianity flourished here. Tertullian tells us that in the last quarter