according to which the Bishop of Alexandria has authority over all those places. For this is also customary to the Bishop of Rome. In like manner in Antioch, and in the other provinces, the privileges are to be preserved to the Churches." Canon 6. That is, as it would seem, let the Bishop of Alexandria have the power to consecrate Bishops in the three provinces of his Patriarchate, for the Bishop of Rome does the same in his, _i.e._ in the suburbicarian provinces, or in Italy, south of the province of Milan, and in Sicily. This precedence or prerogative of Rome, to whatever extent it reached, was certainly, notwithstanding the famous 28th Canon of Chalcedon, not either claimed or granted merely because Rome was the imperial city. It was explicitly claimed by the Bishop of Rome himself, and as freely conceded by others to him, as in a special sense successor of St. Peter. From the earliest times that the Church comes before us as an organized body, the germ at least of this preeminence is observable. From the very first, the Roman Pontiff seems possessed himself, as from a living tradition which had thoroughly penetrated the local Roman Church, with a consciousness of some peculiar influence he was to exercise on the whole Church. This consciousness does not show itself here and there in the line of Roman Pontiffs, but one and all, whatever their individual characters might be, seem to have imbibed it from the atmosphere which they breathed. St. Victor, and St. Stephen, St. Innocent, St. Leo the Great, and St. Gregory, are quite of one mind here. That they were the successors of St. Peter, who himself sat and ruled and spoke in their person, was as strongly felt, and as consistently declared, by those Pontiffs who preceded the time of Constantine, and who had continually to pay with their blood the price of that high preeminence, as by those who followed the conversion of the empire, when the honour of their post was not accompanied by so much danger. We are speaking now, be it remembered, of the feeling _which possessed them_. The feeling of their brother Bishops concerning them may have been less definite, as was natural: but, at least, even those who most opposed any arbitrary stretch of authority on their part, as St. Cyprian, fully admitted that they sat in the See of Peter, and ordinarily treated them with the greatest deference. This is written so very legibly upon the records of antiquity, that I am persuaded any one, who is even very slightly acquainted with them, cannot with sincerity dispute it. I cannot think Mr. Newman has the least overstated the fact when he says, "Faint they (the ante-Nicene Testimonies to the authority of the Holy See) may be one by one, but at least they are various, and are drawn from many times and countries, and thereby serve to illustrate each other, and form a body of proof. Thus, St. Clement, in the name of the Church of Rome, writes a letter to the Corinthians, when they were without a Bishop. St.