In return for the comforting letter which the Gallican Bishops had sent him, and at their request to be informed regarding the faith of the Eastern Churches, S. Hilary wrote his "History of Synods" in the end of A.D. 358. It contains an account of the various councils that had been assembled in the East on the subject of the Arian heresy, together with a defence of the Nicene Faith. It is addressed to the British Bishops among others, whom he congratulates on their steadfastness. The Saint also wrote his book "On the Trinity" during his exile, and a smaller treatise "Against the Arians." He was also the undoubted author of several hymns, and others have been attributed to him. [Illustration: S. HILARY BAPTIZING S. MARTIN, OF TOURS. From a Window, dated 1528, in the Church of S. Florentin, Yonne.] [Illustration: THE THREE CHILDREN IN THE FIERY FURNACE. From the Catacombs. Jan. 13.] In A.D. 359 the Western Bishops held a synod at Rimini, at which nearly four hundred were present. The Arian party among them beguiled the rest by its address, to sanction its errors by their signatures. The Bishops of Agen and Tongres took a prominent lead in the proceedings of the synod. In September of the same year S. Hilary was invited with other Catholic Bishops by the semi-Arians to their council at Seleucia, in Isauria. Their object was to defeat the Arians, and they hoped that the Catholics would assist them. In this council S. Hilary bore witness to the faith of the Western Church being the same as that declared to be the Catholic Faith at the Council of Nice in A.D. 325, and he protested against both the Arian and semi-Arian opinions as novelties. He accompanied the deputies of the council to Constantinople, in hopes of obtaining from the Emperor Constantius the recall of his sentence of banishment. While the Arian synod was sitting at Constantinople, in January, A.D. 360, he entreated the Emperor to grant him a conference with Saturninus, Bishop of Arles, the author of his exile, and that he might be allowed to appear in the synod, and bear witness to the Catholic Faith. He also complained of the perplexity which the multiplication of creeds and confessions of faith had occasioned; for in the preceding year alone four had been published to the Church. The Emperor refused to grant S. Hilary what he asked; but the Arians so much dreaded his presence in the East, that they persuaded Constantius to send him back to Gaul, yet without formally recalling the sentence of exile.