Pelagius denied that there was any difference between the mental constitution of Adam and his descendants, or any other connection between his and their sins than always exists between the sins of children and those of their parents. Of course, the vitiated nature imparted directly or indirectly by God, and the tenets based on it, were denied by him. At this period all matters of doctrine were settled by ecclesiastical councils. The first council on this matter was in Africa, and, led by Augustine, they condemned the views of Pelagius. The two next councils were in Palestine, and both sustained his teachings. Next, in Italy, the Pope, then at the early period of pontifical power, first sustained Pelagius, but finally, by the exertions of Augustine and his party, was led to condemn him with the greatest severity. Finally, the emperors were enlisted against him with their civil pains and penalties. The result was, Pelagius and his followers suffered the perils and miseries of civil and ecclesiastical persecution. "And thus," says the historian, "the Gauls, Britons, and Africans by their councils, and the emperors by their edicts, demolished this sect in its infancy, and suppressed it entirely." It is very probable that, if Pelagius had had the power and adroitness of Augustine, the edicts of emperors and decrees of councils would have maintained _his_ views, and those of Augustine would have gone into obscurity. But ever since that day the organized power of the Latin, Greek, and Protestant churches have been arrayed to sustain the theories thus inaugurated. But the common sense and the moral nature of man have maintained a feeble but ceaseless warfare against the tenets of the Augustinian and Calvinistic creed, while now this "conflict of ages" is invigorated by the intervention of a new power. The authority of councils, popes, and emperors is on the wane, while _the people_ are fast advancing to that position of umpires in the moral and religious world which they have gained in the political. In this long and unequal struggle, the principal actors since the days of Pelagius have been, in the first place, _Arminius_ at the time of the Reformation. While maintaining the foundation dogma of a depraved mental constitution consequent upon Adam's sin, he strove to give some slight feature of humanity and tenderness to the consequent system by maintaining that there was _some_ way in which man, in spite of his ruined nature, could attain some right feeling and action acceptable to his Creator, and tending in some degree to remedy the dreadful calamity inflicted on the race. The historian thus narrates: